Tool Cabinet

Hi Folks,

I am in the process of designing a tool cabinet to hold my most precious hand tools. I figure it will be approximately 4' wide by 3' tall by 8 to 12" deep, with two doors. It will hold hand planes from a

24" jointer to my smallest block plane and many in between. It will also hold marking tools, chisels, measuring tools, screw drivers etc.

Do any of you have a SketchUp model or ideas or suggestions or pictures of one that I might look at? I will share the final model and pictures with the group when I have completed it.

Joe....

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Reply to
Chiefwoodworker
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This is a project that cries out for some old time industrial engineering utilizing plant layout skills.

This time, the right software program will be to die for, and no I not qualified to comment on such programs, only the end result of what they can produce.

If it were me, I'd make a detail file of each tool as well as a suggested drawer size.

Layout a drawer fitting all the tool details required to go into that drawer, then play "putty/takey" until you get the drawer size and internal configuration for that group of tools that you like.

Repeat as required for addditional drawers until tool cabinet design is complete.

My guess is that the engineering time will approach the construction time, but what the heck..............

Have fun.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

I'd start by laying all of the tools out on the floor/bench and arranging them in the same way you envision them sitting in the cabinet. Then you can move, shift and re-arrange until you figure out shelf / drawer sizes, shapes and how you want the tools grouped. If you want cutouts for your tools to fit in, you could even try getting some stryofoam and cutting it. That should give you a template for making the real thing.

Reply to
dcamron71

Maybe you can find some inspiration here.

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you haven't seen the Henry O. Studley chest before, it's worth a look. The longer you look the more stuff you find in that thing.

Very cool!

Mike O.

Reply to
Mike O.

Maybe you can find some inspiration here.

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you haven't seen the Henry O. Studley chest before, it's worth a look. The longer you look, the more stuff you find in that thing.

Very cool!

Mike O.

Reply to
Mike O.

Considered a standing chest? My plane box is a large steamer trunk someone left by the curb. Raised it up on legs to 34-1/2", placed it between my bench and my saw, where it doubles as an infeed table.

No dividers inside, just a piece of carpet to keep the tools comfortable. Tools are very easy to get to and put back. My plane collection is large, and keeps growing. Any dedicated plane storage unit would be rendered obsolete every time I went to the flea market.

Reply to
Father Haskell

For a one-shot, find an area that you can work in that's big enough to encompass the area of the cabinet and the open doors. Draw an outline of the cabinet and doors. Now start fitting stuff. When you think you've got it all fitted, you might want to mock it up with partitions using foamcore and hot melt (the reason you do that is that with foamcore and hot melt it's easy to change things if it turns out that something doesn't quite work). Then you can take dimensions off the mockup and if you didn't screw up along the way everything should fit.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Thanks guys for the feedback. rest assured I will use bits and pieces of all. I have seen the Studley tool chest. It makes me dizzy just trying to locate the one out of 300 tools I may be reaching for. But the workmanship is unbelievable. I keep you posted as I proceed and make progress.

Joe

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Reply to
Chiefwoodworker

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