I have yet to see a wall-hung tool chest that gives me a tingling feeling in my no-no square. (That is the mark of good design.)
But this chest comes the closest.
This is a page from the 1907 tool catalog of Tiersot, a French ironmonger founded in 1865. The catalog itself is a wonderful trip to a time when hand tools and machines occupied equal space in the pages of catalogs. You can download the enormous catalog here, courtesy of Jeff Burks.
This tool cabinet, which cost the impressive sum of 400 Francs, is fairly well-equipped and organized. I wish I had a better scan to share.
I am wed and bred to the traditional tool chest. I’ve been working out of one since 1996 and have no plans to suddenly switch to storing my tools in stacking rubber boxes.
Sure, I’ve experimented with other systems (like when I experimented with lesbianism in college). But after giving them a year or two in parallel with my tool chest, I always went back to the warm embrace of of the big floor chest by my workbench.
If you hate tool chests, that’s cool with me. But you need to come up with a way to hold your tools that makes it easy to work at the bench. Since publishing “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” I’ve been asked about once a month to please, please, please design a wall-hung tool cabinet that is the equal of a floor chest.
Now that I’m juggling two book projects, I’m really not equipped to design a complicated piece of tool storage and give it a real-world test. But perhaps you are.
When I consider tool storage, here is a list of the things that are important to me. Other woodworkers at the extremes (French-fitting neat-nicks and those who are casual about tool care) will disagree. That’s cool. Write your own book.
1. Tools protected from rust, dust and damage. I spent a lot of time fixing up tools or saving up the money to buy my tools. So I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them rust or get cruddy. Good tool storage should keep the tools protected. Period. This is why I don’t like open tool racks (which I’ve experimented with a lot). The tools on the open racks are more likely to get rusty or (more important) go missing.
2. All tool can be grabbed instantly or by moving one sliding/swinging layer in front. Your tool system should not be a Chinese puzzle box. H.O. Studley’s toolbox is cool, but it is a tool-storage nightmare.
3. Tools aren’t obscured from view in drawers. When tools go into drawers, they seem to disappear from memory. I like tools in the open because of this simple fact: When you can see all your tools your memory about their location is much improved. I have to nudge my marking knife to grab my carpenter’s pencil, so it’s easy for me to remember where the knife is – I’ve seen it 100 times that day.
4. The storage is flexible without distinct spots for everything. I tried French-fitting my tools. It was a chore to make all the little racks and holder bits. Then I decided I wanted the shoulder plane somewhere else and so I had to change it all.
5. The tools should be in smallest space possible. When your tools are in a compact area you won’t have to walk across the shop to pick them off the rack across the room. It’s all right there, just within arm’s reach.
6. The storage should be inexpensive and movable. I’d rather buy more wood for furniture. And someday I might have a cooler shop on Russell Street.
This is a quick back-of-the-napkin list. But I think it’s pretty good.
It falls through the Sawing and Axe Violence,
The fresh, joyful free Forest;
What Wonder, when at last the Tree takes revenge.
And his Murderer is sawed in Pieces.
The World is inverted!
Fliegende Blätter – 1852
An illustrated weekly magazine published in Munich.
This photo was recently sent to me by antique tool dealer Jim Bode. We were having a conversation at a local tool museum last Sunday when he mentioned a photo that was given to him by one of his customers. The image shows seven carpenters posing in a field with their tool chests circa 1910. These were full service country carpenters who could build a house from the foundation to the roof. They have the usual selection of handsaws, planes, bit braces, breast drills, augers, spirit levels, hammers, steel squares, mallets, chisels, etc.
The specialty tools reveal the range of their carpentry activities. The boring machines, framing chisels, lifting jack, and adzes show that they were still building mortise & tenon timber frames during an era when most of the country had long since converted to balloon framing. The expensive miter boxes and combination plane show that they were also doing exterior trim, cornice work, and possibly interior trim & flooring as well. The slate ripper is only used for roofing and siding.
The planes are a mixed group of cast iron and transitional. The wooden soled planes were often preferred by site carpenters because they dramatically reduced the weight of the traveling tool kit. Most of the transitional planes in this image are stock models, but one of them appears to be a user modified plane. It looks like somebody took the hardware off of a Stanley No. 26 Jack Plane and added their own custom four foot sole to make a super jointer.
As for the date, I suggest circa 1910 because the miter boxes in this photo appear to be Stanley models with patents issued in 1904. For that reason the photo can not be earlier than 1905. Several years ago I put together a research paper on miter box patents. If you need help with the identity or age of a miter box, then this document can help. Miter Box Patents – (2812 pages – 160MB pdf) Right Click – Save As
