Hi All,
The post on Nibs included a comment by George about some early carpenters using baskets to carry tools. That got me to thinking about the first tool box I built.
What was the first tool box you built like, and what were it's good and bad points? (This is not referring to one you built as a child, rather, it is about after you were an adult or close to it.)
I will start it off: My first tool box was a carpenter style box made from 1X10s was about 37&1/2" long, 16" deep, and about 11" wide. It had a 1&1/4" dowel for a handle which was held in place by 1X4s with 1&1/4" holes bored in them. The top was open, like almost all of the carpenter tool boxes I had seen at the time. It had a saw till for three or four carpenters saws, cleats to hold a framing square in place, holes in the ends to hold nail sets and pencils, and the saw till had a small enclosure in the bottom for pencils, small tools, etc. The sides were 1X10s, full width, and it was put together with enough wood screws to build a small section of wooden fence.
In short it was thunder for stout.......and also thunder for heavy when filled with tools. This was intended to be a tool box to be carried around for carpentry.
I was working at a lumber yard when one of the older lumber salesman came in (to a young fellow he was an older fellow but he was probably only about 55), one everyone really liked, and of course I had to show him my fine new tool box. He looked at it, laughed, and told me that he had built one very much like mine when he was about my age. He told me that his later ones were smaller and lighter, and I think he added that mine was certainly stout enough, but added I might find it a bit on the heavy side. (He was diplomatic, but he was dead on about the weight part.) (Shoot, I didn't know any better at the time, and if I had owned a small anvil, probably would have tried to carry it around in that box too.)
Other weakness were that the holes in the ends for pencils made them to easy to accidently hit and break, and the little enclosure under the saw till for pencils and small tools made it right under the saw teeth, and I cut myself lightly with the saw teeth many times reaching into the till for pencils or tools.
I still have the tool box, but the 1X10 sides are long gone, replaced by 1/4" plywood that run only about 7" up the sides. I made it a whole lot lighter. Now it holds saws that are kept in reserve (sounds better than saying I have a lot more hand saws than I need), tools I seldom use, pieces of dowel, etc., etc.
Some day I will likely cut it down to make it smaller and more useful, and start to use it again. The salesman was exactly on target....too big and too heavy.
On the plus side it did carry a lot of tools and did protect them well.
Stew
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