Mini Anarchist Tool Chest (ATC) - Design Considerations

 On my 09Jan2021 blog post, I gave an overview of the mini ATC that I recently completed.  Today, I am going outline why I wanted to make it and the design considerations for what I chose.

In 2020, I was planning on taking a class at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking to make a full sized ATC from Megan Fitzpatrick.  I was really looking forward to it and built a mid-sized Japanese carpenters tool chest inspired by what I saw on the Treebangham YouTube channel.  Covid 19 came along and the class was canceled.  I had completed and filled the Japanese carpenters school chest with tools.  It was a good size and really held just about all I needed.  The downsize is that it was heavy.  I haven't put it on a scale but if I had to guess, it is probably 75ish pounds.  

When I mean lug around, I mean go to my dad's and woodwork on some weekends.  It was heavy and big enough where I had to put it on the back seat of my commute car and I wanted something smaller  and thus lighter (smaller size = less wood and less tools so less weight) that could also fit in the trunk.  The good news was that it did fit nicely into one of those collapse able canvas wagon carts so it wasn't all that bad.

As such, I wanted a smaller tool chest.  A smaller tool chest would by itself weigh less.  It would really weigh less because it would hold less tools.  I wasn't looking to have a bare bones minimum/how few tools can I survive with chest.  I wanted something that would let me do most things and if something was missing, I would either borrow from my dad or just plan carefully to bring along something I wouldn't normally carry.

What that mean to me was that on the bottom level, it would need to have what I considered my non-negotiable to be without items: two saws (one crosscut panel sized, one fine joinery saw),  No 5 jack plane, plough plane, router plane, spoke shave, coping saw.  There would be one removeable drawer/box at the top and I figured it would likely hold all of the other essentials.  The bottom level would define the needed length and width.

To really define the length and width, I laid out the above tools on my workbench with anticipated spacing between in the chest.  I then measured the length width and height that this would take (pictures below).  It resulted in my needing 20" inner length, 10-1/2" width, and 6-3/4" inner height.  What I really liked about the height was that I would be using a 1"x12" pine from Lowes.  Length and width would be no problem.  The inner height would likely be about  11".  This would allow for a 4 to 5" deep drawer on top.  That would be more than adequate to hold the smaller tools I wanted to carry.

Now that I had the dimensions sorted out for the interior, it was time to finalize the design I would use.  Jim Toplin has an excellent book called "The Tool Box Book."  It came out 20 to 25 years ago and is a fantastic book and well worth owning.  If you look in this book, you will realize that the design options are pretty much limitless.  I wanted to make one of three designs: a Japanese carpenter tool box, a traditional joiners chest, a Dutch tool chest.

Since I had already done a Japanese carpenters chest, I decided not to repeat that.  Of the two remaining designs, I decided that I wanted to do the traditional jointers chest.  As for the specific plans, it was either going to be following the one outlined by Paul Sellers or Chris Schwarz.  I chose Chris's specific layout because 

1. I couldn't take the summer woodworking class to make a full sized ATC 

2. the book Anarchist Tool Chest (quickly followed by discovering Paul Sellers online) greatly influenced by decision to mostly stick with traditional hand tools for woodworking.  

Both Paul Seller's and Chris Schwarz's chests are very similar so it really wasn't an either or type decision.  Since the ATC had detailed plans, I choose to follow that design.  It was going to be a bit easier read the book over and over and look at images than replay the video.  

With the design out of the way, time to get materials.  I will discuss that in my next blog post next week.