Working out of a traditional tool chest?

Bark-eater said:

My last real work space was an 80x80 aircraft hanger. I was spoiled.

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I believe you ! I saw the push drill that no one has ever seen out side of a military base! LOL!

I'd be embarrassed to even show my shop it's much worse than that.

What does a guy with the handle Packrat’s shop look like??!?

andy52 said:

I'd be embarrassed to even show my shop it's much worse than that.

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I to have a messed up shop as well!

Well, since moving to a high-rise condo my workspace is the 2nd bathroom, so you get no sympathy from me.

My bench is a cutting board covering the sink.

RMFnLA said:

Well, since moving to a high-rise condo my workspace is the 2nd bathroom, so you get no sympathy from me.

My bench is a cutting board covering the sink.

View attachment 354791

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And you have a wife that makes you clean up! LOL!

They say a cluttered work area is a sign of a brilliant mind.

Packrat said:

If a Cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, What is the sign of a empty mind

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Woke folk. (Sorry, the Devil made me do it.)

Bark-Eater, thank you so much for this thread. I feel so much better now that I know I am not alone........

Glad to be of service. I think I'll wait a couple of months and ask about the tool box again, pretending that I live in a tiny and very tidy condo....

That desk looks like the inside of my first shooting/possibles bag!

Bark-eater said:

I'll probably make a simplified traditional joiners chest, but was wondering, if anyone here had a chest they were working out of? I'll get a couple pictures of the the disaster area, just to reinforce the cautionary tale....

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Hi Bark-eater,

I work out of wood tool box for my leatherworking tools that was made on the interior with an 18th century system of 2 removeable trays, each held above the other by interior supports and a plain open area under the 2nd tray. I did this as a way to practice to make an 18th Century Artificer's/Armorers Tool Chest. However, I don't have a computer capable camera and that box would not be big enough for your tools.

Not to worry, though, because I have links that may assist you. Fair warning, I have almost developed a fetish for these things, so I may give you a complete overload of info. Grin.

First off, the following book is the only one I know of that shows different styles of interior designs for the 18th century. There is not a huge plethora of info and drawings of the early period, but more than enough to make almost anything you may require. There is much more info, drawings and photos of 19th and 20th century boxes. I paid full retail at our local Woodcraft Store for this book and I consider it a fabulous bargain.

https://www.amazon.com/Toolbox-Book-Craftsmans-Cabinets-Storage-ebook/dp/B003TXSRI2

Below is one of the most fabulous original tool chests in existence:

https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/now-this-is-a-toolset.157064/post-2232691

Below gives you a better idea of the chest of drawers for tools that go inside the box and is removeable:

https://www.thewoodcrafter.net/proj/p109.php

OK, so I don't mess up and delete something, I'll add youtube links in my next post.

Gus

OK, Part Two:

OOPS, missed one I wanted to include in the first post:

https://newlingristmill.org/tools-of-the-trade-a-chest-of-tools/

Though the box is made from plywood in this series of video's, the interior is period correct:



More video's for more ideas:







In this one, you can easily see the side supports for the sliding trays that I wrote about earlier:


Sorry can't seem to get the following one to auto load on the forum, so you just click on the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFrDviZ4ioU

Oh, and as far as great period handles for such chests, please check my thread out here:

https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/great-period-correct-repro-box-chest-handles.186313/

Gus

Having worked for years out of an Armourer’s Tool Chest, I am a firm believer in benches and lots of shelving.
For cultural reasons I won’t show my workshop.

@Artificer @Colonial Boy

Can y'all point me to any examples of an "18th Century Artificer's/Armorers Tool Chest"?

I've been meaning to build a big cabinet makers chest for decades, but I'm assuming that it would be more efficient to keep the metal working tools separate from the wood tools.

Buried in my garage are a half dozen period and replica toolboxes full of old tools, some sharp some rusty. But that's mostly "Shipwright" tools and the boxes are mostly Shipwright style, better for stowage than working out of. I have a few plywood chests from my traveling days, but their designed to survive being palletized and shipped freight.

So point being, I have more tools than any man needs, and a lot of crates that haven't been opened in 15 years, and I guess I'll need to sort tools by century.

That's actually another tangent. I managed to feed myself as a woodworker for 20+ years using hand tools as much as possible, so a lot of boat work. So that means my functional kit is metal planes. I have a bunch of old wood body planes but their all pretty much projects, or my effort to corner the lignum vite market. Now I don't think I'll ever be yea old colonial carpenter reenactor, but while I'm building boxes..... Though I think one of my Shipwright chests is can get decluttered and and collect the real period tools.

First step is to re-home a co-op worth of bikes, so I can get at the tools....

Bark-eater said:

@Artificer @Colonial Boy

Can y'all point me to any examples of an "18th Century Artificer's/Armorers Tool Chest"?

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Hi Bark-eater,

Please understand, I'm not trying to be coy, but there's some things about such a chest that even with 20-25 years of diligent effort to find an original - I haven't found one and don't think I ever will. The things I'm referring to are:

1. Such boxes really were quite uncommon to downright rare even in the period, as they made for the very small numbers of military Artificer's/Armorers who accompanied Regiments in the field to repair arms. For example, the Tower of London sent only two (maybe three) trained Armorers to take care of the entire British Army in the North during the American Revolutionary war. We do have the lists of tools and spare parts sent with them, but many of the tools were meant to have been stored in buildings or shops and only some of the tools in the chests.

2. Such boxes were transported in the field by wagons, so they could only be so big. I have only found one original drawing of British Military Armorers in the field and though it shows an Armorer's Chest, one has to sort of estimate the size compared to the wagon it sits next to. It appears to be no larger than maybe 3/4 of the size of the "Anarchists Tool Chest" you mentioned and shown in the Christopher Schwarz videos I posted above.

3. I have asked the same question of the Gunsmiths at Colonial Williamsburg and they pointed to a repro they made that was much smaller in size than the one in the original drawing of the British Artificers/Armorers. I didn't have a tape measure with me, but it was perhaps at most about 2 feet wide, a foot and a half deep and maybe the same measurement in height. They made the point that in the period, the size of such a chest was determined by how many tools the person owned or needed and then the chest was made in the size to hold them.

OK, I realize I got a bit long winded talking about original chests, so even though I've not yet finished my repro Artificer's chest, I can give you some ideas on what I came up with to work on repro and original guns at reenactments. First of all and though I own an original early 19th century bench vise that is the same design as the 18th century, I would not carry it in my chest and neither would they have done so. I would make the interior of the chest just long enough to mount an original and somewhat short 1780 crosscut hand saw I own mounted on the inside of the lid, the empty storage space at the bottom would then be long and wide enough to store my repro Bow Saw and original Lancashire Pattern Hack Saw. Other things would go in there as well.

I thought about adding a horizontal strip of wood, nailed to the rear of the box with a number of U shaped cut outs to hold some chisels and similar tools, but I nixed that idea as it would have made the chest too large to transport to reenactments. Instead, I plan on hand sewing some tool rolls to keep the chisels sharp and protected. The tool rolls would be stored in the middle sliding tray as would the bare minimum of files I would need and they would have the wood "separator" strip as seen in the fourth video above to keep the files from banging into each other. The top sliding tray would store one or two medium size repro small oil tins as shown in the link below, along with other tools I more often use.

https://www.cg-tinsmith.com/product-page/oil-cans

My chest will have a removeable "chest of drawers" not unlike in the Benjamin Seaton Tool Chest shown in a link below, that will fill the front half of the middle and top sliding tray area. The plan is to remove this when set up to work and keep it outside the chest for easier access.

https://www.thewoodcrafter.net/proj/p109.php

Now I realize the size of my Chest will most likely be smaller and somewhat different design than what you will need. So I most strongly recommend you get the following book to help you with designing your chest.

https://www.amazon.com/Toolbox-Book...Storage-ebook/dp/B003TXSRI2?tag=forumyield-20

Gus

The Armourer’s chests to which I referred were these type .
Note the legs on the chest, these were stored inside.
There was also a small vyce, with a back moving jaw that mounted on a block of wood at the front left corner.

These are obviously WW II but WW I were much the same and no doubt similar chests go further back

Thank you for the replies. I had not seen tool box work stations with legs before. Doing a bit of searching, I found this on another forum. This seems like a good place to start.
https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=22390.msg214020#msg214020

Bark-eater said:

Thank you for the replies. I had not seen tool box work stations with legs before. Doing a bit of searching, I found this on another forum. This seems like a good place to start.
https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=22390.msg214020#msg214020

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James Wilson Everett on that forum is a real treasure. I like the way he has so many period correct, sliding lid, small boxes in his chest to separate things. One thing I might caution about is not just placing files together in a box without some way to protect the sharpness of the files. One might get a repro of an 18th century newspaper, copy it on some linen paper at Kinko's and use that to wrap each file or at least have layers of the paper between layers of files. One might also hand sew some thick canvas rolls in which the individual files are separated to protect them.

I meant to include at least one example of a "Dutch" Tool Chest for you to peruse. These may also be sized according to how many tools you want to keep in them. The one on the bench in the first Christopher Schwarz video is a good bit smaller than the following example, as an example. Oh and she put very strong rollers on the bottom of the box and that may also be an idea for you.



Here's how she built it:



Gus

This is sort of a dubious endeavor for the day, but hopefully it will please the train wreck fans.

I pulled out one of my boxes from 20 years ago. It's been a manure collector for the last 10 years. The lid split at some point. I'm going to wipe everything down and pull a few things out that look useful for gun smithing. Please let me know if anyone eye spys anything that should go in the forth coming specific tool box.