They say that everything in furniture making is either a platform or a box (or both). And I say that sometimes it feels like everything my woodworking life is either a workbench or a tool chest (or both).  So let’s talk about the latest tool chest.

I’ve built a Dutch Tool Chest before. I think the form has many advantages, especially in the small home shop where the shallow profile efficiently fits into the floor plan.  I just hated squatting all the time to get at my joinery planes, which is why I switched to a proper floor chest.  But that’s not really an issue when using the plywood low workbench.  In fact, one could skip the lower compartment all together and just have the top till area.  Which I did.

The great virtue of a dutch tool chest is how easily it goes together with much less material compared to a rectangular chest.  The joinery consists of dovetails on the bottom two corners and nails or screws for everything else (plus two rabbets if you build a proper one).  The entire case (which has inside dimensions of 11.25″ x 23″ x 15″) came together in an afternoon from a single ten foot pine 1×12 from the home center:

• Two sides:  one board, 26″ long  and full width (crosscut at 20 degrees to form two boards)
• Bottom: one board, 24″ long and full width
• Back: two boards, one 24″ long and full width, one 24″ long and ripped to 5″, shiplapped (T&G also would have worked)
• Front: one board, 24″ long and full width

The remainder of that first board became the tool rack and the skids on the underside.  If I had started from a twelve foot pine 1×12, I probably could have gotten the lid too from that single board.

This tool box wouldn’t hold a full set of woodworking tools.  But it’s definitely big enough to hold everything a beginner hand-tool woodworker would own. Especially with the chisel rack and the saw till.  I even made a straightedge specifically for this tool chest.

As of today, it’s stuffed with my spare tools: both a No 5. bench plane and a No. 4 bench plane, a full set of back saws and most of a set of chisels, together with diamond plates for sharpening, a hammer, a chisel mallet, and the essential marking tools (including combination square).  A small panel saw that would fit too, but I don’t own one that small that is not one of my regular tools (at least not until I break out the angle grinder).

Even with all of that loaded in, it’s still light enough to carry around and fits easily in the back of my SUV.

This is another one of those “I wish I had known about it when I first got started woodworking” projects.  I would have made this entirely with screws and plywood, or rabbets and nails in dimensional pine.  No dovetails needed.  And it would even match the plywood low workbench.

Speaking of which, it’s time to take the plunge on boring the rest of the dog holes in the laminated slab top.  But I’m ready.

JPG