07-27-2013, 04:55 PM
I've always been a fan of tool chest porn (maybe I should put emphasis on the "tool" part of that. . .), so hopefully nobody will begrudge the extensive pics.
I call this the disciple's chest because while it's design and construction is largely based off of Christopher Schwarz' Anarchist's Tool Chest it doesn't strike me as very anarchistic to build an awesome chest that several people before have built, and probably several more after me will build. I don't consider myself of a "disciple" of Chris' (Roubo - in, Campaign furniture - out, board furniture - out) but I really appreciate his point of view and have found his approach to working wood to be a good fit for me.
The body of this chest is contructed from glued up "white wood" 2x6's from HD that had been machined to 7/8". All the joinery was cut by hand (boy is it fun and easy to cut dovetails in soft wood!). The skirts are mostly much harder yellow pine, though I screwed up one of the lower side skirts and ended up having to use a cherry offcut I had lying around. The finish is General Finishes milk paint (federal blue) followed by 3 coats of WB lacquer. The handles on the side are some mahogany that I had lying around. They're tapped for six 1/4x20 bolts which are screwed in from the inside out. I'm hoping they'll work out - you're not really supposed to pick this monster up by just the handles anyway. All the hardware is as spec'd by Chris through Horton except the chain with I bought at the hardware store. The lock, key and chain were patina'd with gun blue which worked like a charm.
Anyway, the main differences between this chest and Chris' are the the tool rack in the front (kind of a Jeske/Cohen combo) and the resulting lack of a saw till. I only have one panel saw, so it made sense to put that on the lid. And while I would like the "display aspect of putting the backsaws on the lid, I didn't want to have to screw around with a toggle to retrieve them, as I use them often and plan to work out of this chest rather than simply using it for tool storage. I also refer the rack the floor-mounted till because I'm 6'5 and I do not love bending to retrieve things from that low. And while I do not think I will be putting my backsaws on the lid, I do anticipate some keepers for my marking knife, some dividers, probably my fret saw, and perhaps some of my squares. I guess we'll see.
As I've mentioned recently in the hand tool forum I'm taking a weeklong class at Homestead Heritage starting on Monday, so this chest was finished just in time. For this reason (and the fact that it's a shop accessory and not a piece of fine furniture) I pressed myself not to be too precious with building this thing, trying to find a nice balance of keeping my foot on the gas while mostly executing things well. Overall I'm pretty happy with it and looking forward to several decades of using it.
Thanks for looking all!
Reed
I call this the disciple's chest because while it's design and construction is largely based off of Christopher Schwarz' Anarchist's Tool Chest it doesn't strike me as very anarchistic to build an awesome chest that several people before have built, and probably several more after me will build. I don't consider myself of a "disciple" of Chris' (Roubo - in, Campaign furniture - out, board furniture - out) but I really appreciate his point of view and have found his approach to working wood to be a good fit for me.
The body of this chest is contructed from glued up "white wood" 2x6's from HD that had been machined to 7/8". All the joinery was cut by hand (boy is it fun and easy to cut dovetails in soft wood!). The skirts are mostly much harder yellow pine, though I screwed up one of the lower side skirts and ended up having to use a cherry offcut I had lying around. The finish is General Finishes milk paint (federal blue) followed by 3 coats of WB lacquer. The handles on the side are some mahogany that I had lying around. They're tapped for six 1/4x20 bolts which are screwed in from the inside out. I'm hoping they'll work out - you're not really supposed to pick this monster up by just the handles anyway. All the hardware is as spec'd by Chris through Horton except the chain with I bought at the hardware store. The lock, key and chain were patina'd with gun blue which worked like a charm.
Anyway, the main differences between this chest and Chris' are the the tool rack in the front (kind of a Jeske/Cohen combo) and the resulting lack of a saw till. I only have one panel saw, so it made sense to put that on the lid. And while I would like the "display aspect of putting the backsaws on the lid, I didn't want to have to screw around with a toggle to retrieve them, as I use them often and plan to work out of this chest rather than simply using it for tool storage. I also refer the rack the floor-mounted till because I'm 6'5 and I do not love bending to retrieve things from that low. And while I do not think I will be putting my backsaws on the lid, I do anticipate some keepers for my marking knife, some dividers, probably my fret saw, and perhaps some of my squares. I guess we'll see.
As I've mentioned recently in the hand tool forum I'm taking a weeklong class at Homestead Heritage starting on Monday, so this chest was finished just in time. For this reason (and the fact that it's a shop accessory and not a piece of fine furniture) I pressed myself not to be too precious with building this thing, trying to find a nice balance of keeping my foot on the gas while mostly executing things well. Overall I'm pretty happy with it and looking forward to several decades of using it.
Thanks for looking all!
Reed
You don't need a parachute to go skydiving unless you want to do it more than once. . .
Gonna happen anyhow.
