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Once I’d accumulated enough hand tools to do anything useful I found myself in a very cluttered shop. My tools covered every flat surface, and they were always in the way. Since I’d read “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”, I’d assumed I would eventually build a traditional tool chest to store my tools. But I found myself without enough floor space to a tool chest, and ample wall space (well, after a lot of re-organizing and about a dump runs).
As it turned out, a wall-hiung cabinet met my needs better, and in an interesting turn of events I built it almost without using any hand tools. I did “cheat” and use hand tools to dovetail the drawers.
Anyway, it all started with a SketchUp model.
Construction was straightforward, although manipulating the think for glue-ups and finishing was a challenge. It’s about four feet square, and with the doors about 15″ deep. For a size check, that’s *one* of the doors on my table saw.
I spent several enjoyable hours making tool holders for the inside of the doors. The chisel rack came out the best. The rasp rack (well, the first version) I built was a near disaster, if you opened the door a little too quickly the rasps would fall off the holders. They are expensive, and pointy, and I nearly skewered my foot the first time I yanked the right hand door open.
The drawers were great dovetailing practice, making six drawers that were half-blind at the front and regular dovetails at the back really helped progress my hand tool skills. By the sixth drawer I finally had the proportions and fit worked out.
In the end, this holds all of my hand tools with ease. I have more drawer space than I need, and I’ll need to make some organizers to go in the drawers someday to keep them from collecting junk. I still want to make a traditional tool chest some day, and probably a dutch chest too.
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Can you share your sketchup cabinet model?
Hi Joel,
Unfortunately I lost the final version of the design when my laptop crashed, the first draft is on the Sketchup 3D warehouse: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=8b4c17058ba44f4386a6cc708f841e38
There isn’t a lot to it though, the main think you need to build it (or change the design in sketch up) is the dimensions in the picture above. I think I modeled this, at least initially, as a single object, not separate components. I often do that when I’m designing something in CAD, I do a simple 2D sketch and then extrude it to produce something that is representative of the part, without modeling it to reflect the way I’d actually build it. Once I;m happy with the overall proportions/sizing I’ll go back and re-create it properly.
Thanks Joe.