Traditional Tool Chest

Well, I feel like I just gave birth.  I’ve been working on this since before Christmas, and I finally just filled it up with tools.

I’m intentionally not calling it an Anarchist’s Tool Chest, but truthfully, if you don’t live in a cave, you know that this particular design was made popular by Chris Schwarz.  And everyone is building them.

I was originally attracted to this box, as I’m sure is the case with most people, because of the traditional look.  It just looks nostalgic.  And who doesn’t want a fancy box to hold some of your most prize possessions?

Well, I was attracted to the traditional design, but not the traditional size.  Huge.  Floor space-sucking gigantisaur.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the room in the shop for another piece of furniture, even if it is on wheels. And frankly, I don’t have enough tools to fill it up anyway.

I was perusing the latest Fine Woodworking magazine when I came across a John Tetrault video on making socket chisel handles.  The video was nice, but somewhere in the middle I caught a glimpse of his tool chest sitting on his bench.  On his bench.  What a great idea.  Just take the great design of the gigantic original and scale it down to a usable size.  Boy can I be slow sometimes.

And was it pretty.  Anyone familiar with Tetrault’s work is already familiar with his talent, and his chest was the single inspiration for this iteration.

I made some changes from the original design, and I didn’t follow all of the directions on some of the more esoteric details that most people follow when building this chest.

I didn’t use white pine

Simple; I didn’t have any.  I wasn’t too concerned with the weight of the box since it was going to be smaller, so I went with what I had.  White oak.  Heavy, hard, and beautiful.

I did NOT paint it

What?  Paint it?  This is the one thing I can neither follow nor forgive.  I don’t care what the reasoning is.  I don’t paint wood.  The wood is the whole reason I’m here.

There are a host of other things I want to talk about regarding the construction of this chest, but I’ll get to them in the next post, I promise.  This is just a teaser, and I couldn’t wait to brag a little about finally finishing it.  Enjoy some pics while you wait.