Travel Tool Chest & Workbench Build Process

Return to main project page

Following the conversations on another forum thread, I've been thinking about drawer contents. The original plan was to make a two-part tool chest. The bottom part would have 10 drawers for small stuff and the top half would essentially be one big tote thing for planes and such-like.

I've since tried to make my life simpler by reducing the number of big tools (e.g. no planes bigger than a smoother) and to try to get everything into the one chest. There will be some things that don't go into the chest (more on that later), but they'll be restricted to stuff that can get battered around in a tool bag without me worrying about damage.

To start thinking about things, I measured (in the CAD model, which I've tried to keep up to date with actual dimensions) the inside dimensions of the drawers (left side 265 × 304 mm; right side 265 × 149 mm) and inside heights of the left-hand drawers (the right hand ones were still very much in flux).

I drew the inside dimensions out on a bit of plywood to give me something to play with:

I could then lay out the drawers. I started with the left-hand side as that was a bit better defined. Five drawers, starting from the top.

The first (top) drawer would house some saws. I probably don't need three saws, but I'd be keen to take the Kataba and at least one of the Dozukis. I'm not sure what I'd use the space for if I didn't take the second Dozuki, so for now I've just allocated it some space. The saws are 20 mm thick, so they should fit easily into a shallow drawer:

The next drawer was for measuring and marking tools. I'm not sure whether I'd bother with a sliding bevel (I rarely use it), but I've included it for now. I picked the marking gauge with interchangeable heads as it is most flexible (it has a pin head, a pencil-mounting head, a fixed wheel head and a bearing-mounted wheel head, although I've no idea what the last one of those would be good for, cutting paper maybe?).

Although the drawer is 304 mm wide, a 300 mm rule wouldn't quite fit in this drawer due to the bit at the end where the hanging hole is. I don't see that as the end of the world: although I've got enough 300 mm rules that it wouldn't be the end of the world to cut one down, rules are thin, so I can just mount it on the shooting board at the front of the chest.

There's a little bit of space left in that drawer if I need to squeeze anything extra in.

The main issue is that the marking gauge I've picked is 60 mm diameter, which is taller than the highest drawer in the current plan. Given it's just this one thing that is a problem, I think the easiest solution is just to make a low-profile body for it (probably out of 30 mm brass bar with a flat on one side to stop it rolling around). Ignoring the marking gauge, the highest thing in this drawer is 28 mm.

Drawer 3 would hold a selection of chisels (exact choices to be determined, but definitely a few sizes biased towards the small ones and at least one skewed-end chisel). Chisel handle diameter is maximum 37 mm (rounded up!).

Drawer 4 gets sharpening gubbins and card scrapers (highest piece is the atomiser bottle at 39 mm, followed by the honing guide at 35 mm):

and drawer 5 (the bottom drawer) gets a bit of a miscellany of left-overs. Neither my fret-saw nor my coping saw would fit in any of the drawers (well, the coping saw might if I stuck it diagonally, but it would take up most of a drawer all on its own), so my plan is to make a smaller one – hence the reserved space. I've already got a reasonable idea of what it would look like, so it was straightforward to allocate some space for it.

Then onto the right-hand side. With the plan to try to cram everything into the chest, I need to have space for planes in here. These are obviously way too tall for the shallow drawers of the left-hand side, but I think I can get away with an arrangement like this:

I'm not absolutely convinced the bottom-right drawer is viable (partly as the length is a bit touch-and-go and partly as getting planes in and out of that drawer might be awkward), so it might instead look like this:

Anyway, the bottom-right drawer has just enough space for a couple of smoothing planes, maybe..

There are two reasons I say maybe. Firstly, that #4½ is only has about a millimetre of clearance, so it might not fit once the real drawer is made if the drawer depth is slightly off. Secondly, I've done a bit of a squander and ordered a Veritas BU smoothing plane. I'm pondering on taking a Stanley #4 and the Veritas one, but until it arrives (sometime this week probably) I won't know for certain the envelope of that plane. I suspect it will be getting very close to (or possibly going over) the 265 mm length limit of the inside of the drawer. If I get rid of the drawer and just have the planes loose in the bottom (as shown in the second CAD image above) then that'll gain a bit of extra length and also mean I can just pick them up by their handle rather than digging into a deep drawer and probably lifting them up by the blade (at least for the #4).

The remaining space in the top-right of the chest is enough for this lot (with some strategic rotating through 90° of the router-plane's blade clamp!)

Having the fence for the router plane included in the kit means I can use it as a grooving plane (with, e.g., a 3 mm cutter) when making box bases.

The things that I haven't fitted into the box are (excluding all the things I haven't thought of):

• Glue
• Clamps: for clamping stuff down to the chest, for clamping stuff while gluing and for holding the chest down to a table or whatever
• Cloths / paper towels
• Finish of some sort
• Screwdriver(s)
• Any sort of drilling apparatus

Glue, clamps, cloths and such-like can just go in a canvas tool bag (the one you can see on the ground in the image at this link). Finish could also go in there, but it's more likely I'd just sort that out when I get home.

I've got a screwdriver bit handle, so that and some bits will probably squeeze in somewhere (e.g. with the mallet & fret saw). I'm not sure how likely it is that I'd use a drill, but I've got another plan for that anyway, so more on that later.

I am a hobbyist metalworker and woodworker. I work as an electronic design engineer and spend most of my working days in front of a computer so I enjoy having the opportunity to use my hands and make things in my spare time. I particularly enjoy making tools as I can then use them on other projects. This website showcases some of the things I've made.

This website is free and ad-free, but costs me money to run. If you'd like to support this site, please consider making a small donation or sending me a message to let me know what you liked or found useful.

Please do get in touch if you notice any issues on the site or can think of anything that would be a helpful addition or improvement.