“This or that quiet place, the home of peace, was turned into a ghastly battle-field, with the naked and maimed corpses of trees lying about. Bad enough, all this was. Still, trees might grow again; the hollows might recover their woodland privacy and peace for other generations to enjoy. But what would never be recovered, because in fact War had found it already all but dead, was the earlier English understanding of timber, the local knowledge of it, the patriarchal traditions of handling it.”
— The Wheelwright’s Shop by George Sturt (Cambridge, 1948)
(Image from “Four and Twenty Toilers” [1900] by Francis Donkin Bedford [1864-1954]. Image from Jeff Burks. Download the full book here.)
Question: What made you decide that you liked the Dutch tool chest design in favor of the one in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest?”
Answer: I don’t prefer the Dutch chest.
This Q&A was repeated at least 20 times on Friday and Saturday during the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in Cincinnati, Ohio. I had brought the Dutch chest so people could examine it and get a feel for how it works. I’d also brought an English-style chest, which was filled with Lost Art Press books.
So here is a list of the advantages and disadvantages of each style of chest.
Portability: The Dutchman Wins
With an overall size of 27” wide x 13” deep x 26” high, the Dutch chest fits on the backseat of almost any vehicle and can be strapped in with a seat belt. I can easily lift and carry the chest myself. The full-size English chest is 40” wide x 24” deep x 26” high. It takes two people to move it, and you have to have a truck, utility vehicle or station wagon to transport it.
My smaller traveling English tool chest can be handled (barely) by one person and fits in many cars. But it is still not as easy to move as the Dutch.
Ease of Construction: Point, Dutchman
The Dutch chest takes me about 16 hours of shop time to build (including the paint). It has only two dovetailed corners. The rest of the joinery is dados, tongue-and-groove, glue and screws. It can be built with dimensional pine and requires only one panel glue-up (for the lid).
The English chest takes me about three times as long to build because there is so much more wood and everything is dovetailed and nailed. It’s a major project that requires a lot of wood and considerable time to complete.
Durability: One for the English
Though I haven’t tested either chest into the ground, past experience tells me that dovetails will last longer than screws. The English chest really is designed to last forever. The bottom bits are designed to be replaced when they rot out. The orientation of the joints on the skirts are designed to hold the chest together even if the glue fails.
The Dutch chest is solid enough, but it’s not designed to take the same level of punishment as the English chest. If the bottom rots out, I’ve got to rebuild the chest. If the screws rust and the glue fails, lots of things are going to come loose.
Looks: I Like the English
The Dutch chest isn’t ugly – several people at the Lie-Nielsen show said they preferred the looks of the Dutch chest. But to my eye, the English chest is beautiful. I like the shadow lines created by the skirts and raised-panel lid. I’ve experimented with adding more visual interest to the Dutch chest with some success, but it still looks like a grain bin to me.
Utility: Tie
While the English chest holds more, the Dutch chest holds enough and makes it easier to move your stuff around. Getting to all the tools in the Dutch chest is easy if you put the chest on a sawbench. You don’t have to prop up the English chest, and its lid is another working surface in the shop.
And so this morning I brought my Dutch chest into the shop and removed every tool. I wiped them down with a woobie and put them back into place in the English chest. I know some of you out there are going to say this is an onerous task task, but it’s not. Whenever I travel, I have to clean all the tools and put them back in order. (I allow all my students to use my personal tools, and so they get a lot of use.)
So the bottom line is that I’m glad I have the Dutch chest because I am on the road teaching for about 13 weeks out of the year. And the Dutch chest makes travel easy. But when I come home, I’m always happy to see my English chest with its open lid, waiting to get back to work.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Megan Fitzpatrick, the editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, says my story on Dutch tool chests should be in the October 2013 issue of the magazine. There are no promises in the magazine world, but that’s the word today.
When I teach woodworking classes, I am sometimes asked the following question: Do you consider yourself first a writer or a woodworker?
I don’t have an answer to that question. I have to do both things just about every day to feel human. And so I usually answer the question by saying: I don’t know. But right now I’m… (pick one) thirsty, tired, bloated, crampy, malodorous or oblong.
But today I was tired. Only tired (and a little oblong).
This evening we wrapped up five days of building “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” at the Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking in Australia. This is, hands down, the furthest that all the 12 students have come to completing the project. Almost all of the students had their lids glued up and were adding the dust seals when we called it quits. A couple students still had to glue up their lids, but that was more by choice than because it was 5 p.m.
There are two reasons we made it so far. First, I changed a couple simple things about the course with the dovetail layout and the cutting that saved us almost an entire day. Read my blog entry here for more details on that.
Second, the students were relentless. It was honestly unlike anything I had seen before in any class. They worked like dogs during the day (barely stopping for lunch) and we had to shoo them out in the evening. Also notable: They saw, hammer and plane much faster than Americans, Canadians or Europeans. Faster is not always better, but their swifter pace was noticeable.
Narayan Nayar has revived his long-slumbering blog, etherfarm.com. Narayan is a frequent contributor to Lost Art Press products – he’s photographing the H.O. Studley chest, he created the chapter-opening photos for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” and has helped me gain 10 pounds.
Narayan’s blog will surely cover woodworking, food and photography. So if you like any of those things, check it out.
Yesterday I put the finishing touches on my traveling Dutch tool chest: strap hinges and a hasp made by John Switzer of Black Bear Forge.
Of course, the metalwork looks fantastic and correct on this old-style piece. But beyond the outward appearance, these hinges reminded me of why it’s always nice to work with a blacksmith on a furniture project.
First, I was able to get straps and a hasp that were perfectly scaled to the piece. I couldn’t find manufactured straps that had leaves where both were the lengths I wanted.
Also, Switzer was able to make the hinges and hasp so they worked perfectly with my lid, which is at a 30° slope. The hasp comes down at 30° and stops just where it should. The hinges lift up just past 90° and stop – I don’t need a chain or leather strap to prevent the lid from flipping back.
Switzer also supplies slot-head screws that are exactly the same color as the hardware. So installing all the hardware on this chest took about 30 minutes – instead of a whole day of stripping, cleaning, grinding, filing and tweaking to get commercial stuff to fit and suit my (admittedly) picky tastes.
And the price was fair for this level of work – $260 delivered for the two hinges and hasp.
Having this chest complete is a huge relief – I drive to Highland Hardware in Atlanta on Thursday for the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event and to teach a one-day class. If you’re in the area, come by and check out the chest and hardware – plus I’ll bring my Milkman’s Workbench.
And if you need some custom iron hardware, I can highly recommend Switzer. I’ll be knocking on his digital door again real soon.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Before I forget: This Dutch chest – fully loaded – tips the scales at 98 pounds, or about 44-1/2 kilograms for our metric friends.
Narayan Nayar has revived his long-slumbering blog, 
