There was a thread in the Neanderthal forum about tool chest design for hand tools. Someone suggested a steel Dewalt unit, a two part affair, overall size about 36 wide x 18 deep x 5 feet high. I decided to fool around with the design, doing it in 1/2 inch baltic birch plywood and 3/4 inch birch stock.
Here it is done in Sketchup, and uploaded to the 3D Warehouse. Drawers are all hung on full-extension slides, nominally 1/2" thick. You can see in the xray closeup how the slide is fixed to the 1x2 battens that are glued to the plywood sides.
I did the top so as to open the same way, and would use a piano hinge along the back edge. A pair of those lid stays would work well with this.
The full-length topmount drawer pulls of the mechanics chests like these (Dewalt, SnapOn, Craftsman, etc.) have a cool look, and one could either buy something in extruded aluminum, or make them in wood.
One would want to have a heavy bar handle across the top side of one end of the lower chest for moving this beast around the shop. A chest handle mounted on each end of the upper section would make for moving the section elsewhere. The top pan of the bottom section and the floor of the top section are both lipped so tools won't roll off and onto the floor.
The Neanderthaler who suggested to the OP that the Dewalt was the quick and easy approach, showed his own, open at top, part of his handplane collection inside. The OP and other posters weren't too keen on the idea of a big yellow mechanics chest for those antique Stanley and new Lie Nielsen treasures. I suggested buying one of the yellow monsters at $600, spraypainting it beige, and stenciling "Lie Nielsen" on the front, where it used to say Dewalt.
If you build this plywood affair, just clearcoat it, but be sure to stencil your name on the front in big block letters, right where Dewalt does.
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Originally Posted by Gene Davis
