A fascination with Toolchests

Last October I flew up to Cincinnati for the three-day Woodworking In America Conference (WWIA 2010). The list of instructors was incredible--a veritable who's who of woodworking--authors of countless articles and books I've read through the years and the toolmakers and furniture builders they've written about. We were encouraged to bring our tools and participate in the hands-on sessions.

As much as I wanted to participate in the hands-on sessions, getting my tools there was going to be quite a challenge. The airlines place a 50-pound limit on checked baggage. Which tools should I take? What kind of tool chest would survive the flight with its contents intact? I started by laying out my tools on graph paper to get some sense of how big to make the tool chest and where the tools might go.



I decided to build a toolchest that was a mashup between one used by Frank Klauz as described in an old Popular Woodworking magazine article and a musician's flight case. Although it would lack the period look of a nineteenth century toolchest, the flight case design would be rugged enough for air travel.

The box went together quickly enough but as I started arranging my hand tools inside it I was surprised to discover just how heavy they were. The box I had built was capable of hauling 200 pounds of tools! It was way too big for the task. I abandoned this course and gave the box to my oldest son, but not before taking some pictures of it with my hand tools arranged inside it in the manner in which I had originally intended to use it.



I needed a fresh perspective, and I could think of no better place to start than Dowd's Tools (Garland,TX). Lynn Dowd was kind enough to show me a wide range of toolchests and toolboxes in his collection. I took lots of pictures and measurements, and I left with some very good ideas.



I settled on a "job box" design. Mine would have to be a bit more elaborate because I needed more drawers than was typical to any of the boxes I saw in Lynn's collection. I needed a way to organize the things I would need for the classes that I planned to attend: Dividers for design class, tools for laying out and cutting dovetails, hand saw sharpening acoutrements, and so on. As the day of the conference approached, I had only managed to whittle down what I wanted to take to 70 pounds, so I offloaded enough into my personal luggage to keep the shipping weight of the "job box" right at 50 pounds. You should have seen me at the airport, shifting things around on the floor in front of the check-in counter, sawdust spilling all over the carpet!



In the end, the fuss was all for naught. Very early on day 1 of the conference I discovered that there were so many people in attendance and the benches and work areas so scarce that there really was no room for any "hands-on". I was so disappointed that I shipped my tools home by UPS that very night.

As I recovered from my disappointment, I took note of the toolchests that Roy Underhill and Chris Schwarz and brought with them to the show.



When I got back home, I searched through my books to find plans for a traditional toolchest. I found exactly what I was looking for in "The Practical Woodworker" by Bernard E. Jones (1920), and I had just enough reclaimed ship-lap pine to build it.



But just about the time I started work on the Jones-style toolchest, my middle son asked if I could build him a coffee table for his college apartment. Coffee table? "How about a chest?" I asked him. It would be much more functional for the nomadic life he was leading and besides, it would have a big brass lock and key. He loved the idea--especially the brass lock and key part.



Chris Schwarz (Lost Art Press & Popular Woodworking) recently announced on his blog that his next book, "The Anarchist's Toolchest" will be shipping soon. The teaser pictures he's posted on his blog are quite impressive. If it's anything like his books on the workbench, it will be well worth the wait. And I imagine I'll be building another toolchest--this time for me--soon after I read it.