Wood for Anarchist Tool Chest

[Stew Denton]

Hi Tony,

Christopher Schwarz recommends keeping the chest as light as is reasonably possible, but also at reasonably strong as possible. He points out that the specific gravity of white pine is about 0.42, whereas for white oak it is 0.77. This means that if you use 3/4" stock that the oak chest will weigh a little less than double what a white pine chest would weigh, but of course the oak would be a lot stronger. In our country out here, where you and I live, the oak is going to be pretty pricy compared to standard fir or pine. In his "Anarchist's Tool Chest" book, he says that his solution is to build it out of pine, but make the walls thicker.

He also points out that he has examined a bunch of tool chests over the years, some up to 200 years old. The ones built out of pine that are from 7/8" to 1" thick have stood up just fine over very long periods of time. He writes that he has no fears about loading his tool chest in his truck and traveling around with it. He also points out that in his shop his tool chests tend to have a bit of a rough life, he often sets on his, and it gets bumped, etc. He highly recommends 7/8" to 1" pine. He also says to put it together with dovetails to help increase the strength, and make it a long lasting tool chest.

(By the way, the book is excellent, and is quite a work on hand tool selection and use, in fact more of the book is about that than the actual tool chest. I highly recommend reading it......I didn't buy the one that is within arms reach though, it belongs to my son in law, but he has my copy of Schwarz book on hand planes, and we loan each other books fairly frequently.)

That said, the book is almost 500 pages long, so I don't remember every detail. However in either that book or in"the tool box book" (I may have the title wrong), the author recommends using reasonably priced lumber. The historic tool boxes that he has examined typically used such....not high dollar lumber. That said I would recommend using a final wall thickness of 7/8" to 1" and using pine since Schwarz has done the homework studying chests that have stood up well over 100 years and has figured out what has stood up to the test of time. He also moves his tool chest around, and the pine of that wall thickness is a good compromise, and it is not the 1st tool chest he has built. (He is pretty critical of the first tool chest he built, which did not stand up well, and describes why.)

When I say reasonably priced lumber, I am not talking about pine with lots of knots, Schwarz specifically warns about using such, what I mean is good quality pine instead of good quality finish grade hardwood. I will comment on a relatively inexpensive way to get the pine that is needed a ways below.

His tool chest is 40" long, 26 1/4" high, and 23 7/8" wide, outside dimensions, counting the skirts, etc. This amounts to 23.3 board feet for the sides and ends, 13.3 board feet for the top and bottom, and about 10 board feet for the skirts of the top, bottom, and top edge of the chest, for a grand total about 47 board feet all told. This includes absolutely no waste figured in, meaning that every square inch of lumber you bought ends up as chest, which we all know doesn't happen.

I built some free standing shelves a few years ago, and built them out of standard hem/fir dimension lumber. I used mostly 1X6s, and cut it to 4" width, and cut out most of the knots. I threw away probably 40% of it, as scrap, but even so, the cost was drastically less than clear lumber, and to look at my shelves you would think that they were mostly built out of clear lumber.

To get the needed pine in a true 1" thickness, if you want to go with standard and better grade dimension lumber, you will have to start with 2X stock, and mill it down, and you should plan on maybe 30 to 50% waste, as I did. I think this approach will get you the needed stock to build the chest at a lot less money, and based on Schwarz experience, I think you will end up with a good tool chest. If you are going to paint it, like Schwarz did, the high dollar nice looking finish grade hardwood lumber will not show up anyway.

It should be noted that this only covers the basic box, and does not include anything for the trays.

Regards,

Stew