Inside A Dutch Tool Chest

This past spring Tom Latanè and I teamed up for a joined craft class mixing blacksmithing and woodworking. Students forged hinges, a static hasp, loop, and escutcheon with Tom and I walked them through the woodworking portion. It was fantastic, a great learning experience for me and I’m pretty sure, for all the students.

We are repeating the experiment with a different piece this coming SPRING in Decorah IA at the Vesterheim Museum’s Folk Art School! More info on the way as we nail down dates.

In the blue is the demo chest Tom and I collaborated on to create something we both wanted to teach. I like the piece and pushed some of the design elements in response to making something worthy of Tom's fantastic iron work. After long personal debate I’ve decided to keep it for myself. (There is another similar chest in the pipeline that will be for sale) It will look good to bring with for demos and if I ever get the chance to take a class. I've never built something I feel so attached to but I imagine it has to do with the experience of sharing the experience with a good friend.

Keeping it means I have to start kitting out the inside with some tool storage solutions.

Filling the inside of a tool chest is an incredibly personal endeavor. Everyone has slightly different tools and different priorities. Just run a quick image search for Dutch Tool Chest and you’ll see tons of variety and innovation. Things that blow my mind.

So why document my decisions if you are going to make different ones? It's a good question I don't have a great answer for. There's something about watching the process of someone answering creative questions that fires up your own mind. "I see what you were going for there but I think I'd have done . . ."

So throw rotten vegetables if you want, but my chest will be ready to travel and your's won't.

There is one big “think” you have to finish before you start the process. How likely is the chest to travel? If your DTC is mostly intended for inside your shop, a place to store tools and work out of everyday then your solutions can be different. More genteel. More open. If you are looking to travel with this baby, then you have to think about how everything rides. Anyone who has packed a Uhaul truck knows the items inside don’t always stay where you put them. That can be bad for tools and sharp edges.

This chest will be built for travel.

Instead of a long drowning post I’m going to break this up into individual tool group processes starting with the biggest headache in transport. Saws.

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

(note: this post is highly revised from the first time it was posted. I've learned I cannot write a post on my phone without editing it later on my laptop. Thx)