New chisels! Storage case ideas?

[adrian]

I've now outgrown the six pocket leather case I got a while back from Lee Valley. I'm trying to find a way to store my modest, but diverse collection of chisels ideally in one container. I have at the moment six Japanese bench chisels, about 9" total length, two slightly longer chisels, one really short chisel (detail chisel from Lee Valley), and two long chisels (Lie-Nielsen paring chisel and a mortise chisel) about

12" long. The Lie-Nielsen has an extra short handle that can be swapped out for the long handle.

Hanging them on the wall or in some huge tool case is not an option. Of course I could build a box custom fit to this collection, but then it is hard to adapt to new chisels I might acquire.

Another traditional solution is to be the chisel roll. I have a chisel roll for my files and gauges and another one for carving tools. They seem to be working fine for those tools. In either case the handles go in first and the blades are pointing out. The friction holds the tools in place reasonably well, and all seems to be fine.

I tried these two rolls I have on hand (one is from Lee Valley, the other is from Tools For Working Wood), and neither seemed entirely satisfactory for my motley collection of chisels. It doesn't work to put the handles in first, and when I put them in blade first the chisels tend to fall out. At least with the Tools for Working Wood roll the chisels don't fall out on the floor, but they rattle around inside the tool roll, especially the little one.

It seems like a tool roll is really best suited to a collection of tools that are all the same length or have identical handles (that fit snugly). I could probably make this work by sufficient care on a custom design (e.g. with pockets designed to fit each specific chisel I have), but I'm not sure about extensibility.

So what alternative is there that is reasonably extensible should I happen to come upon another chisel?

My current idea is to build/buy a shallow box and line it with foam. Tools sit on top of foam. The foam would hold the tools in place when the box is shut. If necessary the foam could be carved to give a recess for a tool. Any better ideas out there?

[Mike Marlow]

Oh hell - just throw them in an old coffee can on the corner of the bench.

[Lee Michaels]

Why not make a box with grooves in the side with changeable dividers. This would allow you to change sizes in the future. Some places sell the grooved sides for the dividers. Can't seem to remember where just now though.

[charlie b]

I'm guessing these are User chisels and not Decorations. Use some of them, in conjunction with a saw, to make some tool racks, finger joints or dovetails for the joints, a dado or sliding dovetails and a little forstner bit drilling and you'll have custom chisel racks that can either go in a wall cabinet door or inside a box.

you do a two door wall hanging cabinet for the rest of your stuff - make the doors deep enough to store tools in them. AND - if the doors have the same dimensions you can move the racks around - OR take a rack to your workbench, use them, then put them all back in the cabinet. Think "modular" - then you can rearrange things as you go.

b

[sweet sawdust]

[bridgerfafc]

I keep them in drawers:

with the exception of the ones getting hauled around to jobsites- for those I made a tool roll out of canvas with a bit of thick rope in the bottom for the sharp edges to bury into.

[lwasserm]

I guess it sounds a little crude, but I just keep my chisels standing vertically in a simple wooden box about 4" square at the open end (the top) and about 8" deep. The simpler it is to put something away, the more likely it will be.

[adrian]

As I noted below, I tried two chisel rolls. With one, the chisels fell out onto the floor (literally). With the second, flaps prevented the chisels from falling out, but some of the chisels would fall out of their pockets and wander around inside the roll. The solution is not obvious to me, but I suspect that making pockets of different depths might work. However, then the chisel roll is custom sewed to my current chisels and can't be easily adapted to future acquisitions.

Is there some way around this problem?

sweet sawdust wrote:

[adrian]

The drawers look very nice, but you have no picture showing how the tools are held and organized inside.

[adrian]

Oh yes, absolutely.

would work with horizontal storage. (Unless I rethink and rearrange considerably, I don't have room for vertical storage.)

Do you have any ideas about how to be modular on a single tool basis rather than on a set by set basis? I mean, if I build a rack that holds my current collection then if I someday get a 3/4" chisel I'd like to be able to put it between the 1" chisel and the 1/2" chisel. That might require that other chisels move over to make room. And adding the new tool requires working on the already assembled rack which might be tricky.

It also seems like accomodating the range from 5" long chisels to 12" long chisels with racks of this sort is tricky. (Magnets to the rescue?)