Adam wrote:

>I'm not totally sure of the intended purpose for these big tool chests.
>Anybody out there clued in?  I know guys in shops (today) steal stuff
>from  each another.  You'd think you'd get caught, but they don't.  I
>wonder in woodworkers locked up their stuff everynight only to get it
>all out in the morning.  In this case, it would be more like a modern
>"jobbers box" and less like the big red rollaways mechanics use.  See I
>always think they are for tool storage (as opposed to security or
>transportation) like a mechanics box.  But I guess I don't know why it's
>so low, why it doesn't have drawers, in short, why it doesn't look like
>a modern steel mechanics box (which is really just a metal version of a
>chest on chest).

While I don't have detailed plans up, I do have several pictures and a 
some schematics of the construction of a more-or-less traditional tool 
chest on my web site at:
http://members.aol.com/tomprice/galootp/tool chest.html

Jim Tolpin has quite a bit to say about traditional chests in "The 
Toolbox Book". These chests became popular during the 1700's when 
cabinetmakers were in demand in the colonies and were doing a fair amount 
of moving around. Cabinetmakers needed toolboxes that they could safely 
transport their tools in and also work out of. Shipping was priced by 
volume, not weight, so cabinetmakers reached a compromise of minimum 
volume and ease of access to the tools. Tradition also played a strong 
role in the continued use of these chests - the best chests were works of 
art inside and quickly demonstrated the skills of the makers to their 
peers and potential customers.

Why didn't they just box up their tools and make wall chests or something 
approaching a modern mechanics chest when they got where they were going? 
They didn't because the tool chests they were using filled their needs. 
Their shops were often small and cramped (like mine). Bench and wall 
space was at a premium (like mine). Wall chests and the taller mechanics 
chests would take up wall space and block natural light - evidently, they 
considered bench and window space to be more important and stuck with 
chests that could fit under the end of a bench or under a window. Also, 
the traditional chest takes up just as much space as the exterior 
dimensions since you don't have to allow space for pulling out drawers or 
swinging doors open. 

Tills are a problem in these traditional chests. In the best chests, 
these were rather shallow and held chisels, layout tools, spare blades 
and the like with bulky objects, such as planes, relegated to the 
compartments in the bottom. Even so, one can add a fair amount of weight 
to a shallow till. So they were often made to tight tolerances and well 
lubricated. They slid on hardwood runners. If you have a long and narrow 
object, such as a jointer plane, long and narrow tills make placing the 
object in the bottom easier but they rack something fierce. Tills that 
are less rectangular and slide parallel to the length of the chest have 
much less racking but do constrain somewhat the length of objects that 
can be stored in the bottom. Later chests solved this problem by doing 
away with individual sliding tills and replacing them with a sliding box 
that had several drawers. 

In my case, I had some low wall space available which was limited in 
height and the width. I had already tried a mechanic's box with drawers 
in that space and hated it. The drawers protruded out into the space I 
needed to stand in, I kept forgetting to close them and they had sharp 
corners. I decided to try a traditional type chest. Since it was a tad 
too long for the Shelf O' Planes, I wanted to store my big Sandusky 
jointer in the chest and decided to try long, narrow tills to make it 
easier to drop the plane down in the bottom of the chest. During 
construction, I realized just how much racking of the tills was going to 
be a problem. I made my tills of pine and pine racks like a beezer. Not 
willing to back up and reconfigure the chest, I cast about for another 
solution. Being a neo-traditionalist, I went with a neo-solution and used 
Teflon(TM) tabs, such as sold as furniture slides, on all the sliding 
surfaces of the tills. This works great Another, possibly better, 
solution would be to use the ultra high density polyethylene 'tape' sold 
at Woodworkers Warehouse and other places.

In researching his book, Tolpin arrived at the same conclusion I have 
reached in actually using my chest - cabinetmakers probably worked out of 
the chests on a tool-by-tool basis rather than pulling out what they 
might need in a days time and storing the tools on the bench. As Tolpin 
points out, the amount of wear on the tills of these cabinetmakers tool 
chests indicates that they slid them back and forth frequently. They made 
their own chests, for the most part, and knew right where each tool was. 
If they needed to take tools out of the shop to another location, they 
carried them in totes or bags (I use a Bucket Boss). My tool chest is 
right behind my bench and when I'm done chiseling, I drop the chisel(s) 
back in their slots. Same for my saws, planes and layout tools. I'm built 
low to the ground and my tool chest is on casters so it is 7" off the 
floor. I don't find it inconvenient at all to lean over and pick up what 
I need. After working out of this chest for a couple of years, I may one 
day build a slightly larger model but I don't feel at all compelled to 
build a wall chest or mechanic's style chest.
****************************
Tom Price (TomPrice@a...
Will Work For Tools
The Galoot's Progress Old Tools site is at:
http://members.aol.com/tomprice/galootp/galtprog.html