Toolchest Lid-Mounted Tools

[Paul McGaha]

Wonderful chest and tool kit Stanley. Thanks for sharing it with us.

PHM

[Stanley Covington]

Wonderful chest and tool kit Stanley. Thanks for sharing it with us.

PHM

Thanks, Paul. I will be posting dimensions in a day or so. If you are interested, please check back.

Stan

[Christopher Charles]

Thanks for posting some dimensions and for sharing.

[Bill McDermott]

Stan, Thanks for taking the time to post this, with the great pictures and explanations. I enjoyed it very much. The removable saw till is a neat feature I had not seen before. It seems like it ought to be more common. The most interesting visual for me is how the precise regularity of the chisel storage makes the unique and variable hammer handles call out.

[Stanley Covington]

Nicely done!

Stan

[Stanley Covington]

Bill

Thanks. The sawtill seems intuitive, but I had not seen it prior to that old book.

I think there are several ways of planning a toolchest depending on intended usage. For some, portability is important, so small size, light weight, and limited tools the weight restrictions dictate govern the design. I think most of us have successfully found solutions to this usage scenario.

At the other end of the spectrum of usage possibilities is built-in cabinets. A variation is a free-standing cabinet. I have done both of these too.

I needed something portable, and small enough to get up narrow stairs and through narrow door openings. It also needed to hold all my day to day woodworking tools, and be easy and speedy to access.

This toolchest is portable, with some assistance, will fit up stairs and through doorways, is very easily rolled around by one man on level surfaces, and is almost as easy to use as a cabinet. The tools in the lid and sawtill are what makes it the ideal solution to my current situation.

And frankly, it provides better dust and corrosion protection than any tool box or cabinet I have experienced so far.

Once again, I can't take credit for the design, which is very old.

Stan

[Stanley Covington]

Attached are some simple, incomplete drawings dashed off quickly by hand. Lots of details are missing, but I am willing to answer questions.

These sketches are worth every penny you paid for them.

If you are thinking of using these sketches, please be wise enough to make your drawings to fit your tools and your workshop and the way you like to work.

Design Parameters
Establishing the minimums, maximums, and performance requirements should be the first step in designing anything. The primary design parameter I established was to accomodate a 28" Disston No.12 inside the sawtill, and then for that sawtill to in turn nest inside the chest. The second parameter was the requirement to have 10" wide trays. The third parameter was to be able to have the full width of 2 trays full exposed at any time without having to move them back or forward. In use, I take the tools I need out of the bottom of the chest and the third tray at the beginning of a work session, and leave the top tray all the way back, and the second tray all the way forward so I can reach all the tools in the lid and the 2 upper trays without having to move anything more than a latch. It works very efficiently and with little bending over. The forth parameter was to be able to take it up a narrow staircase, empty, with the lid removed, and then be able to get it through a narrow residential door. It just barely meets this parameter. The fifth parameter was to have 5" of space inside the lid. This was driven by the size of my large genno hammer's head. The sixth parameter was the ability to roll it around quickly and easily on flat surfaces. the design meets all these conditions.

Lid Construction
The lid is also made of Honduras Mahongany. This was long before the US effectively banned its importation. The three panels have a beautiful flame pattern, now concealed under milkpaint. The corners are mitred with pinned through-dovetail tenons. The miters are still tight, and not "laughing" at me as they say in Japan. It is attached to the lid's sides with glue and dowels. The dowels were probably not such a good idea in retrospect. All edges have a small ogee detail planed with a Japanese molding plane.

Lid Seal
One thing that is not clear on the drawings, and that differs significantly from the Schwarz tool chest and most other historical tool chests, is the method of sealing the joint between the lid and the body of the chest. As you know, this is typically accomplished with a band of wood (app 1"x3") nailed or dovetailed around the outside of the chest's top opening that orients the lid in place, and keeps out dust. I have never liked this detail, since it makes the chest bulkier where I want it more streamlined, and it does neither of these jobs at the hinge side of the lid at all. Instead I glued and bradded a 5/16 think strip of a tough hardwood called Ipe around the inside edge of the lid. This lip is mitred at the corners and chamfered, and slides tightly inside the chest when the lid is closed perfectly sealing the gap between chest and lid on all four sides without the need for cutouts for hinges or lock catches. This is a very common detail on Japanese boxes, and has a long history of performance and durability. It has worked very well not only on this tool chest but other portable casework I have done. I have also used the same detail on the sawtill. It has likewise performed perfectly. I highly recommend this method, but strongly suggest you use a tough hardwood. Maple, oak, walnut, mahogany, etc, are strong enough, but can split lengthwise when thin.

Bottom Construction
The bottom is a 7-piece frame and panel. I soaked the pieces a couple of weeks in copper arsenic before glue-up. Please spare me the health lectures. The finish is primer and Sherwin Williams's best latex paint. I had read before designing this chest that the bottoms of antique casework were the first thing to rot out, and I was determined this would not suffer the same fate.

Rolling Base
I have not included details of the rolling base. This is critical to the design, but is not attached to the chest in any way. It is a simple torsion box made of 2x4's and .75" CDX plywood with industrial casters and latex paint. The base does three things quite well: First, it provides for a ventilated space beneath the chest preventing the infiltration of moisture from the ground or concrete. This is a big deal, and a ventilation space is a proven way of preventing moisture, rot, and rust. Second, It makes it so even a small child can move the chest, even though it is very heavy. Third, it lifts the bottom of the chest up so I don't have to bend over as far to get things out of the bottom. I highly recommend it. The Schwarz toolchest has relatively tiny cast iron casters bolted directly to its bottom. They would not last long in my circumstances.

Side Construction
The sides are constructed of 1.25" mahogany with 17 dovetails per corner. It is very strong and does not need the strength the traditional dovetailed band around the top edge provides.

Constuction Methods
I made the chest using handtools only, except for a wormdrive Skillsaw to rip the thick boards. Frankly, one major reason it is so thick is because I did not have an electric jointer or planer at the time, and my tablesaw was dead. It was a lot of work, but worthwhile.

The sawtill is of very similar construction with a dovetailed case and drawers, and frame and panel.

Stan

Toolchest Top Front sm.jpgToolchest Cross Sec sm.jpgSawtill Front & Top sm.jpg

Sawmill Creek is flowing sluggishly under the ice today, so I thought I would post something.Some of you may recall my mentioning in a post a year or so ago that I was reworking the methods of mounting tools inside the lid of my old toolchest. My day job has kept me very busy since then, but I finished the work over the holidays, and so at last I can post some photos. Some background first. I made this dovetailed and frame & panel toolchest in 1992 - 1993 of Honduras mahogany. The design is generally based on drawings I found 20 years ago in an old British book of woodworking instruction. One major departure from the British design was the addition of the 5" deep lid, a feature that, besides providing the most easily-accessible space in the chest, has been very effective in keeping the lid tight and warpage-free.The original varnish finish looked good when new, but it did not age well after 17 years of use and several international moves, so I refinished it with milkpaint in 2011 after reading The Anarchist’s Toolchest. I did not follow Mr. Schwarz’s example of topcoating the milkpaint with custom-mixed black latex paint, but protected it with only a thin coat of polyurethane ala Mike Dunbar. I think this has worked out well. I did follow Mr. Schwarz's example in refinishing the interior with shellac. This was a huge improvement over the old Watco Danish Oil. With this newest configuration, I can access 80% of the tools I use most often directly from the lid and top tray, without having to move trays or bend over at all. This saves me time, and my old back complains less as a result. Saws are stored in a standalone saw till, a frame & panel box with a hinged lid and a drawer, also per the British design, and which fits precisely into the well in front of the trays. This latest configuration of tools is the result of a lot of trial and error. I will continue to modify it as time allows and whimsy prompts, but it is good enough for now. As you can imagine, the hardest part was mounting as many tools as possible in easily accessible locations, but in a way that keeps them securely in place when the lid is opened and closed. There is plenty of room for improvement, but time and tide and all that rot. The lid contains 2 dividers, 3 straightedges, 1 caliper, 1 combo square, 3 precision try squares, a bevel gage, 8 marking gages (4 Kinshiro), a wooden crane & tortise sumitsubo (functional but mostly decorative), a wooden-handled screwdriver, 2 spiral screwdrivers with various bits and gimlets, an egg beater drill, 8 hammers and gennou, a protractor head, a brace and 20 bits, inkbottle, a 10-pc set of Kiyohisa oire chisels, and the indispensible sokozarai chisel at the far right. The hammers are held in their slots by super magnets. The marking gages are retained by sliding their beams, or one of their two blades in the case of the Kinshiro kama kebiki, up and locking them in place. The chisels are retained by both friction in their slots, and pressure from the sprung wooden panel behind their blades. The drill bits are stored behind this panel. Unfortunately not easy to get at. The sumitsubo is retained by a fitted wooden hook and a leather thong. Most everything else is retained by various kinds of latches. Everything stays in place, but I would probably need to tie the hammers down more securely if I had to roll the chest any distance over a rough surface. When the lid is up, I normally cover the opening to the lower portion with an old furoshiki cloth to keep out dust. If you have any suggestions for improving either the configuration or the methods of securing the tools, please let me know.Stan

[Stanley Covington]

Allow me to make a correction, and add some more details.

Design Parameters (I have added a few more)
Establishing the minimums, maximums, and performance requirements should be the first step in designing anything.
1. The primary design parameter was to accomodate a 28" Disston No.12 inside the sawtill, and then for that sawtill to in turn nest inside the chest.
2. The second parameter was the requirement to have 10" wide trays.
3. The third parameter was to have the full width of 2 trays full exposed at any time without having to move them back or forward. In use, I take the tools I need out of the bottom of the chest and the third tray at the beginning of a work session, and leave the top tray all the way back, and the second tray all the way forward so I can reach all the tools in the lid and the two upper trays without having to move anything more than a latch. It works very efficiently and with little bending over.
4. The forth parameter was for the bottom tray to contain a jointer plane resting on its sole. This set the height of height of the bottom tray.
5. The fifth parameter was to take it up a narrow staircase, empty, with the lid removed, and then be able to get it through a narrow residential door in Japan. It just barely meets this parameter by a non-curly hair.
6. The sixth parameter was to have 5" of space inside the lid to secure tools. This was driven by the size of my largest Japanese hammer's head.
7. The seventh parameter was the ability to roll it around quickly and easily on flat surfaces.
The design meets all these conditions.


Sawtill Construction
The overall height of the sawtill was set by the combined height of the three trays in the toolchest. The top well and lid of the sawtill in turn were designed to accommodate my largest Western handsaw. The drawer was dimensioned to use the remaining available vertical space.

From bitter experience, I distrust flat lids, even with breadboard ends, especially where extreme humidity changes are certain and unavoidable. The best solution, and the one I applied to the toolchest as well, is a deeper lid with a frame and panel top secured to vertical side and end boards. This solution has worked perfectly in this case. Changes in humidity over the years during summers and winters in cities, deserts and jungles in places like Ohio, Northern California, Southern California, Las Vegas, Central Utah, London, Thailand, Japan, and Guam have caused the panels to expand and contract, the chest to get shorter and taller, and the through dovetails to project from the sides at times. But the lid of the toolchest and sawtill have never warped, bound, or given me a lick of trouble.

The depth of the lid is arbitrary. I never intended to mount anything inside this lid, and certainly there is not enough clearance to do so. I simply wanted the lid to open far enough to expose my saw handles so I could easily access them from the side, and not have to dig into the well and use tweezers to get them out. This was in reaction to a failed sawtill I built for a large rolling tool cabinet back home in the States.

The sawtill's construction is similar to the toolchest: Honduras Mahogany, with a dovetailed case and drawers. All horizontal panels, including the lid, floor of the upper well, and bottom, are frame and panel construction. The dovetailed drawer has a solid bottom set into a groove. There are no runners or slides. The hinges are brass and recessed so they won't gouge the trays when lifting the sawtill in and out of the toolchest. The same brass handpulls are inlet into the drawer fronts same as the toolchest's trays. I installed recessed brass handles on the side of the sawtill but they were a mistake since I found I could not grab them when the sawtill was nested in the toolchest. I screwed a nylon strap to each end and solved the problem successfully, if not elegantly.

Finishes
In the original post, I wrote that the toolchest and sawtill were finished in varnish, which did not hold up well. Allow me to provide more detail. After the move to Guam, I noticed the bedraggled state of the varnish finish and despaired. I then decided to strip and refinish it with milkpaint after reading Mr. Schwarz's excellent book The Anarchist's Toolchest. In this book, Mr. Schwarz mentioned applying two topcoats of "factory-made black latex paint." In my original post, I mistakenly wrote that Mr. Schwarz used custom-mixed black latex paint. My apologies.

I read everything I could find about milkpaint online and from books, and found some wonderful ways of using this material (none of which included latex paint, BTW). I then ordered a bunch of milkpaint, and then tested it on various projects. In the end, I found I liked Michael Dunbar's approach best. I finally decided on green, red, black, and dark dark burgundy (mixed black and red) milkpaint in distinct layers, and then abused the painted surfaces with files, sandpaper, and brown shopping-bag paper so the various layers of paint show through, along with the red mahogany wood in some places. I then sealed it with a thinned coat of polyurethane. This is a wonderful finish, and can only get better with time and unavoidable abuse. I thank Mr. Schwarz for introducing it to me. My thanks also to Mike Dunbar for teaching me how to use it.

Stan

[Christopher Charles]

Thank you Stan. Best post in a long time. By far.

[Stanley Covington]

Thank you Stan. Best post in a long time. By far.

You are welcome, Christopher. It is nice to be appreciated.

Stan

[Matt Lau]

Stan. Thanks for sharing your plans.

Btw, can you give me a rationale for the tools that you have?
It looks like you have very carefully chosen each tool for a particular reason.

I'm currently getting rid of the dross, and collecting "keepers".

-Matt

ps. Your mailbox is full. I was trying to PM you.

[Stanley Covington]

Stan.
Btw, can you give me a rationale for the tools that you have?
It looks like you have very carefully chosen each tool for a particular reason.

I'm currently getting rid of the dross, and collecting "keepers"..

Matt

I tend to buy or make tools for a number of reasons, but I only keep the ones I really use in the toolchest.

My philosophy is that of the professional, which has been criticized on this forum before. Namely, my customer is paying me to make the products or do the work he commissioned, not to maintain or sharpen tools on the job. Therefore, I have two of most every tool I might expect to use during the day ready at hand. That is to say, two of every tool that requires normal maintenance or sharpening. Two jointer planes, two jacks, two smoothers, two rebate, two block, etc. in some cases, it is a Japanese version and a Western version.

Likewise for chisels. I have a set of Kiyohisa oire in the lid, and a set of Kiyotada in the well.

Same with sharpening stones. Same with marking knives and kiridashi.

It is inefficient to set, adjust, and then reset a single marking gage for multiple repetitive dimensions, so I like lots of marking and mortise gages.

I have a lot of hammers. I could do with less, but have found I work much more efficiently (quicker and more accurately) having the right hammer for the right job. Hammers and chisels are a team and an extension of my fingers. They work without any thought from me other than setting the location. You don't use a farm tractor to haul a boat, or an 18 wheeler to haul a snowmobile trailer. Tekisho tekizai.

Western tools work better for some applications, while Japanese tools work better for others. This is especially true in the case of the saws in my sawtill. Figuring out which tool works best for which job and which wood is part of learning woodworking, and why people end up buying more tools than they use. I admire you if you can easily get rid of the ones you don't use.

When times were tough, prior to the 1950's I suppose, craftsmen could not afford many tools. This was universal, I think. They took great pride in being able to do a lot with very little. Nothing wrong with owning a wide variety of tools.

Stan

[Brian Holcombe]

Stan, I'm loving this thread! I certainly agree with the need of many marking gauges, I have four currently and always feel like I could double that without regrets. I see hand tool oriented carpentry shops and they always have so many Kibiki on the wall.

Are your Kiyotada's paring chisels?

[Matt Lau]

That is a great mindset.

I'm not sure why you'd be criticized though?
By the way, did you have formal training in carpentry?

-Matt

ps. I don't know about "easily."
I tend to give them to friends.
I figure that it might not work for me, but will be superior to most Borg stuff.

[Stanley Covington]

Brian:

Marking and mortise gages are important, as you know. The way I see it, once the setting is changed from one measurement to another, it takes twice the time to reset it back to the first measurement. Much faster and more accurate to have one gage for each measurement, if possible. I am sure you and I think a lot alike in this.

I am a certified chisel snob.

I bought the Kiyohisa set mounted in the lid when I was without any chisels at all. White paper steel, absolutely useable, but underwhelming in performance. I like having a medium grade of chisel immediately at hand in my tool cabinet or tool chest. I don't care if they get a a bit of rust. But my Kiyotada chisels are impossible to replace, and of great sentimental value, so I keep them in a wooden box in the depths of the chest. When I do a lot of chisel work, I pull out the boxes.

I have a ten piece oire set (Kanto style, not the Kansai style that come out of Miki) by Kiyotada (Shimamura san), an 8 piece mortise chisel set by Kiyotada, 8 or 10 shinogi paring chisels by Kiyotada (I like the greater rigidity and ability to get into corners the shinogi afford), and 5 or 6 kote nomi (not sure what kote nomi translates to... cranked neck?).

I also have a rather unusual paring chisel, quite thick and rigid intended to ride jigs with a 4-groove ura. Certainly not an usunomi. As you know, Shimamura san was not fond of multiple grooves, but in this case, they serve a very valid purpose.

Finally, I have 7 or 8 tataki nomi by Kiyotada. I don't use them much anymore, but they are wonderful chisels. I had an extra one I sold to David Weaver at my cost. Last I talked with him, he had not actually used it.

I can post some pics if you are interested.

Regards,

Stan