The Best Tool Storage?
About 10 years ago I began making a traditional style tool chest. The kind of thing you'd of seen a furniture maker using in the 18th Century to keep their tools secure and clean. My motivation, and to some degree excitement in starting this project was thanks to modern technology. Whereas my books had shown me various tool chests, the style that I had seen revived on the internet was the most capacious tool storage monster I had seen, it looked fantastic!
Never before had I seen so many modern hand tools stored away in a floor chest. It was on the scale of Benjamin Seaton's and must of had as many tools, if not more packed inside. It was showcased as an ideal way to store your tools in the 21st century.
The project itself was easy, fun and rewarding and it worked really well for a long time. I'd like to make another one someday, just for the sheer joy of it. The reason for it's success for me was I without wall space for my woodworking. When working by day for paying clients, I had the benefit of wall space with everything close at hand, but away from that situation I needed something that would allow me to stow away my kit. Tool Chest for the win.
But things have changed. I now have access to some extra wall space at work for some dedicated use on projects and I can't wait to have my tools close at hand. I'm building a wall mounted cabinet to keep everything within easy to reach, secure, in its place and clean.
Tool chests are just fine to work with day-to-day, but for me a cabinet offers more. Once the doors of a cabinet are open everything is ready to go. It's easy to see where things are on the elevated position on the wall, the depths of a tool chests can be a dark and awkward space in a poorly lit workspace.
I won't be getting rid of my tool chest as I’ll still be using my corner of the garage at home which lacks wall space. I also love the look of it.
I'll share a few other things I'm looking forward to about using a cabinet more often. A big one is loosing the tills. The tills are the drawers that slide in the top section of the chest, you can see them in the photo above. Mine has three and I find they get in the way. They either hide what's in the lower part of the chest or what's in the till below. I've found I have to use extra motions to get what I want. With wall racks or cabinets everything is visual and immediately to hand.
Considering its massive size, my tool chest has a lot of dead space. Once the tools are put away and the tills are slid back there's a big void, a big waste of space. I could counteract this with more or wider tills, but then it would be hard to reach things that are low down. If I had to do it again I would also build in saw storage under the lid, just like Benjamin Seaton did. Mine is just dead space, and because the top till is so close to the lid I don't have the space to make one without some serious tool chest surgery.
Although I can't escape it, I don't enjoy driving the cumbersome thing around either. Mine is on decent castors which is great. Seriously, if you make one of these invest in some really good castors. Even then I have to pull it over an uneven floor, set up for a couple of hours work, then load it up and push it back out of the way. I'm still in decent(ish) shape so not that much of an issue. I have been leaving tools on the bench more that I should though, as it's such a nuisance to get them out. If it's on the wall they all come close to hand and find their way back too.
What seemed initially like delving into a treasure chest just became bending over, crouching and faffing about. I love to make and build chests, both for tools and as furniture, but trying to get to the bottom of it just got old. Chests of drawers were developed for a reason! If I had to do it again I would actually consider making two smaller chests. One of for the most frequently used tools and one for the less. I'd look to have the regular use one up on a secure elevated space so I could interact with it more easily.
A tool chest isn't any better at keeping tools secure or clean than a cabinet. With tools up high I can tell at a glance if things are in their place or missing. A chest is more problematic here, visual checks are hard to make.
I don't expect that I'm going to design the perfect tool cabinet. To a great extent I'm being creative with surplus materials I have to hand and I'm already aware of some difficulties, but overall I'm optimistic about the improvements over my tool chest.