Boundaries in Time: Dutch Tool Chest

Back in November I took the Dutch Tool Chest course with Chris Schwarz at the wortheffort school in San Marcos, TX. It was a much needed break from work, lots of fun, and resulted in a tool chest. The Dutch Tool Chest is a unique design that results in decent tool storage, no horizontal surface to use as storage preventing the opening of the chest, and is quite easy to build. It can hold essentially all the 50 or so hand tools needed to build just about anything, though fully loaded its not easy to move by yourself. The class was full two days, which resulted in a completed carcase, with just the front and top remaining, along with the insides. This class is well suited for people just getting into hand tools, wanting to learn to cut dovetails, and dados by hand, and end up with a useful project. For more experienced woodworkers it was a great refresher on all the good habits you've replaced with lazy bad ones.

wortheffort, with Brady intently chopping dovetail waste in the foreground

About to start fitting the back

I got a few important things out of this weekend. It was a great confidence booster, that many of the skills/techniques i developed through making mistakes and deciphering overly opinionated forums, really were some of the best ways to work. I also learned that I can put in 2 full days (9+ hours) in the shop, and that I was just lazy all the previous weekends. I also had a chance to work alongside others, which is rare in the solitary world of garage/basement woodworking. That was quite enjoyable and a great way to catch mistakes before you make them, or at least while you can still fix them. In fact one of the best things was that I was able to go with a friend of mine, Brady, who has also recently been updating his blog at KirkwoodWorking. Saturday evening, we all went for drinks after which Chris Schwarz gave a nice talk on the evolution of workbenches followed by a Q&A session.

Chris and I discussing the finer points of screw clocking

Unfortunately after that weekend it was back to long hours at work, and working on the upstairs floor before Christmas, so the tool chest sat mostly idle. Eventually I found the time to finish the lid, and start the insides.

On Tuesday we had a rare "snow" day here in Houston, and I was able to finish up the interior bits of the chest.

The inside with tools.

Rip and crosscut panel saws on the lid

Bottom with small drawer

Finally I took some in progress shots of the small brass mallet rack in my tool chest. I started with some scrap oak, and traced the shape of the mallet on the ends. I am a big fan of quick and dirty waste removal, so I cut a couple slits down the length and split out the waste with a chisel.