Tool Tote a'la Roy

[Franklin Ferrier]

I've been using a plastic cube to occasionally tote a few tools around and decided I really needed something with a bit more character. I didn't want to agonize over a piece of high end joinery so with some pallet timber lying around and an image of Roy Underhill's tote I decided to just jump in and eyeball it instead of doing the maths for all the angles. I rotated the tote sides through the angles in my minds eye and laid out a couple of end profile lines on the glued up timbers, set a sliding bevel and cut the sides. I then tried to work out the intersection angles for the ends and planed the bevels till everything seemed to sit together. I laid out a couple of dovetails and they seemed to fit off the saw. Banged it together with a bit of glue and ....... it almost worked. There are a few gaps in the joints since the ends ended up flaring at some unexpected angle for some reason and clamping it proved nigh on impossible, but it all went together solidly and I'm happy with a couple of days from pallet to tote.

tote1.jpg tote2.jpg tote3.jpg

Cheers, Franklin

[David Eisenhauer]

Good stuff Franklin. Quick, easy eyeballin and now you have a tote just for you.

[steven c newman]

Looks good from my house....why don't you have it loaded up with tools yet?

[Tony Zaffuto]

Made three so far, but not dovetailed! Nice job!

[george wilson]

Congrats on properly angled dovetails!!!!

[steven c newman]

Well, since Roy used cut nails instead.

Sigh...that old arguement again? As long as the dovetails do the job they are meant to do, it doesn't really matter which way the "angle of the dangle" goes, now does it?

Tote looks great, regardless of which way the dovetails go.

[Frederick Skelly]

That's a nice tote Franklin! I just added your pic to my collection of future "to do" projects.

[Jim Koepke]

Great job Franklin and pleasing to the eye is never bad.

jtk

[Franklin Ferrier]

Thanks all!

Re the dovetails. Yes I realized Roy's tote is nailed. It just seemed logical to me to assemble something that shape using dovetails. Probably over engineered! Working out the set out for the tails wasn't difficult once I found an American Woodworker article on slanted dovetails. I cut them so the short ends hold in the long sides. I also chose to screw the middle board to the ends to hold the handle down, that will also help resist pushing the ends outward. It's not screwing into endgrain as the screws angle across the board. With the center board screwed in, the joints probably didn't need gluing.

Cheers, Franklin

[Jim Koepke]

clamping it proved nigh on impossible

Gluing angled pieces isn't all that difficult:

18 Glue Up.jpg

All it takes is making a few conversion blocks to match the angles of the pieces being glued.

jtk

[Franklin Ferrier]

I did try that but there must be some science about angles, pressure points and friction that didn't work for me. I think the sides are at such an oblique angle that the slip force overcame the pressure point horizontal force. All that tighten the clamps achieved was to pop the box up the slopes of the auxiliary jaws. Probably in your sawhorse example because the legs are inset and angled into the top rail the friction on 3 faces helps resist the squeeze up and out a bit more.

[steven c newman]

Maybe something like this...
clamp up.jpgAnd add a wedge, maybe use a spot of hot-melt glue to hold the wedge until all the clamps are on?
long clamps2.jpg
Things get to be like a forest, just to get to this point...
handsaw.jpg

[William Fretwell]

Simple by design is always good. The simple elegance of the angles makes it attractive and functional. The kind of thing that is still around 80 years later. If you paint it I would use milk paint, it will last forever.

[Franklin Ferrier]

If I were to do the clamping again, I'd think up a different approach.

As I said I was setup with wedge pieces which were actually the angle cutoffs of the boards. In theory the clamp up was supposed to work like Stephen's first picture. This did not work, probably because my sash clamps have larger flat faces, not point pressure screws, and the faces are not deep enough to apply the pressure point toward the center of the blocks, they just pinched the tips of the blocks and slid off. Trying to change clamp attack while the glue was going off and the dovetails not properly seated was ........ challenging. A mallet helped.

The pipe clamp picture is more like my actual situation but that has no blocks in use. The clamp on the top stays in place because the jaws bite into the top outside edge. Not too bad as those edges will be eased later. The pipe clamp on the lower side is staying in place I think because the top edge of the clamp face is biting into the board face and damaging it. In my case with a clamp in this position and a block in place it just slid off as it was tightened. I didn't want to damage the board face. After several attempts at repositioning, making the blocks smaller on the fly and with the glue grabbing, I ended up finding another clamp the right size to draw across the two sash clamps and pull them together and stop the slipping. Not all that easy at the time with the heavy cast iron sash clamps slipping and dropping off etc.

As usual high anxiety glue up time.

[Franklin Ferrier]

Well not quite a year later and I find myself more frequently called upon by various friends and relatives to do the odd bit of handyman stuff. The Roy tote is a bit big to drag around on most of these trips when all I need is a hammer, a pair of pliers and a couple of screwdrivers. So I took some more pallet wood scraps and knocked this small tote together. Quick and dirty,nails and screws, no dovetails.
smallTote.jpg