Category: The Anarchist’s Tool Chest

I have no delusions that the following blog post will change a single person’s mind about traditional tool chests. If you think chests are a vestige of the pre-Industrial craftsman, if you think they are awkward, they are hard on your back and make it hard to find the tool you are looking for, this post is not for you.

If you’ve worked out of a traditional chest and like it, this post is not for you.

Instead, this post and the book “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” are for the beginning woodworker who hasn’t yet formed opinions about tools or chests.

I started working out of a tool chest in 1998 when I built an adaptation of Benjamin Seaton’s famous chest, which was featured on the cover of Popular Woodworking’s September 1998 issue. Yes, that’s me in the photo. Yes, that’s a pistol-grip dozuki in the sawtill.

After completing this English chest I bought a slightly smaller one while visiting my mother in Connecticut that I used in my home shop. It had two sliding trays and an open area at the bottom.

I’ve also worked out of a number of wall cabinets, wall racks, suitcases and things that looked like kitchen cabinets. But I keep coming back to my chests. Here’s why:

1. When set up properly, every tool is only one hand motion (or less) away. Most people don’t believe me until I demonstrate this in a deliberate way. See the video above for a quick demo. Step one: Pull out the bench planes and put them on the shelf below your bench. That’s where they belong. Stagger the trays as shown. Then play this game: Get the carcase saw. Get the chisel. Get the beading plane. Every tool is no more than one hand motion away.

2. What about chisels? I keep my chisels in a tool roll to protect them. If I’m working all day, I’ll put them in the chisel rack on the back of the bench. If I’m working on a small job I’ll just leave the open chisel roll on the benchtop.

3. Now take a look at your staggered trays. All of the common tools are arrayed out there so you can simply snatch them. You can then get all your gauges, your knives and your sliding bevel just by reaching out and putting your fingers around them. Nothing is in a drawer or hidden away. I cannot overstate how nice it is to work this way.

4. Why no dividers in the trays? I am a little OCD – I think most woodworkers are. But I don’t make little dividers for my tools in the trays. Dividers take up space and restrict how you can arrange your tools for any given project. Yes, your tools will touch one another. If their cutting edges are protected, then this is a non-issue.

5. What about the backsaws? I keep the backsaws in the sawtill. The carcase saw and dovetail saw are nose-down in the till. Yes, I could make little hangy-thingys for them. But I haven’t found it necessary. The saws are easy to get now. They aren’t damaged. Yes, they might occasionally touch one another. But I got over that.

I could put the backsaws in a till affixed to the underside of the lid. That works – I had one on my 1998 chest. That till, however, eats saws for breakfast and lunch. If you joggle the chest, the saws can slide left or right a bit. Then when you close the lid – snap. The falling lid can dent a tote or even break off a fragile horn. I did this to one dovetail saw.

There are other kinds of sawtills for lids that don’t have this problem. You hang the saws on little turnbuckles on the inside of the lid. These are fine by me.

6. Aren’t tool chests a hog for precious floor space? Yes, they can take up about seven or eight square feet of space in your shop. But they earn it. I have my chest on casters so I can use it as an assembly table. I sit on it while I’m working on something at the bench that requires close-up attention. I stack rough stock on it while processing it on my sawbenches. I use it for planing down dovetails on carcases. Here’s how: I push the chest against the wall and then put the carcase on the floor and push it against the chest. This gives me a good planing stop and nice clearance, even for a jointer plane, so I don’t hit the wall with my plane.

7. Aren’t they too heavy to move? I have yet to weigh my tool chest, but I know that two people can lift it fairly easy. It is pine. And I don’t have way too many tools in it. And that’s the final lesson of the chest, which is the underlying text of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” If your chest is full then you have to ask yourself: Do I need any more tools? Or, if you are struggling with handwork: Do I have the right tools?

A full set of tools fits just fine in a chest. But if you have six smoothing planes, four jointer planes and 10 sets of chisels, the chest isn’t the problem.

— Christopher Schwarz

Music: “Wild Horse of Stony Point” (by Black Twig Pickers).

We now have “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” T-shirts back in stock in sizes ranging from medium up to XXL. Also, a gentle reminder: If you would like to order the DVD “Inside the Anarchist’s Tool Chest” for $10 plus free shipping, you should place your order now.

The special price expires on Wednesday, Aug. 31. After that, the DVD will be $12 plus shipping charges. Here are some links for you:

• “Inside the Anarchist’s Tool Chest” DVD. On sale for $10 plus free domestic shipping until Aug. 31.

• “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” T-shirts in a polyester/cotton blend.

— Christopher Schwarz

Few hand tools come with instruction manuals that give you enough information to use the tool. Same goes with workbenches. We are supposed to either know how to use the tool or get that information from somewhere else.

In “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” I should have included more information on how to actually use a traditional tool chest. Perhaps I was blinded a bit because I have been working out of a tool chest since 1997.

So I need to provide some critical information on this topic here on the blog until I can revise the book itself.

Several critics have mentioned that tool chests are terrible to work with. Here’s an excerpt from one comment on Lumberjocks. This comment was posted below a review of the book that you will enjoy reading if you dislike the book or my writing. Check it out here.

“They (tool chests) are miserable to work out of. Forever sliding tills back and forth to get to something that you cannot see down in the dark depths. Something shifts and sticks up and the tills don’t slide at all. Always sitting in the wrong place so you have to walk and work around them. If you replace a tool, you have to find one that fits.”

This comment nicely sums up a lot of woodworkers’ thoughts on tool chests. However, I strongly disagree with their assessment on every point. I started woodworking with a tool chest, then I tried building a wall cabinet, wall racks and a shelf solution instead. After trying all those, I kept coming back to my two tool chests – one at work and one at home.

Let’s take these objections one by one.

‘Forever sliding tills.’
If you are sliding around a lot of tills, then you are doing it wrong. Array the two or three tills so you can see every tool in the tills. Then you don’t have to move anything to get to the tills. And if you array them properly, you are only one hand motion away from any tool in the chest. I am going to post a video of how this works this week. I show it on the DVD, but apparently it’s not explicit enough.

‘Something shifts and sticks up and the tills don’t slide at all.’
This happens only in small tool chests. I’ve never had this happen in a 24”-high chest. If you are piling tools upon tools upon tools, you might have too many tools.

‘Always sitting in the wrong place so you have to walk and work around them.’
My chests and many others are on casters. So they are easily movable and can serve you as an assembly table, a sawbench, a place to sit at your bench.

‘If you replace a tool, you have to find one that fits.’
Traditional chests hold all the tools, even if you change them. The only time you are going to have problems upgrading your set is if you “French fit” all your tools. French fitting is where you create a tool-shaped compartment for each tool. This was rarely done in traditional chests. It’s more of a NASA thing than a woodworking thing. I use almost no dividers in my trays or on the chest floor. This gives me flexibility. And more space – dividers eat up space.

Tool chests aren’t good for people with bad backs.
This is something I did cover in the book. Use your off-hand to support yourself. Use your dominant hand to get the tool. Try it. My back ain’t great. Concrete floors are harder on your back than a tool chest.

Why a tool chest instead of shelves, wall cabinets or wall racks?
You can use both. And they aren’t mutually exclusive. When I start the day I’ll take my bench planes out of the chest and put them on the shelf below the benchtop. My common tools go in the rack behind my bench or in front of the window.

The reason I prefer a tool chest is that it does a better job of protecting tools from dust, which carries salts that absorb water. Dust has always been the enemy of hand tools, and old-school woodworkers went to some lengths to seal their chests from it.

Comparing a wall cabinet to a tool chest is more difficult. A well-designed wall cabinet could perform all the functions of a chest if properly designed. I just haven’t seen or built one that I like as much as my tool chests. That’s my failing as a designer.

So if you are still wondering why I like tool chests compared to other tool storage solutions, stay tuned to the blog.

— Christopher Schwarz