Ideas Wanted, Carpenters Tool Box that Travels Easy

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

The desire to make an improve tool box that travels well just got more intense.

My wife and I visited our younger daughter and her family, and returned on Friday. The problem was that I have not cleaned out my carpenters tool box, the one I usually travel with, from the last trip, and was forced to use a cardboard box! It was a real pain. I got there with the tools, but they were unhandy to get too in the box, even though the box had dividers. It is no good to work out of a cardboard box.

I will add more to this later, have to go for now.

Stew

[Rick Malakoff]

See if your library has a copy of "The Toolbox Book" from Taunton Press. If it doesn't, see if you can get it on interlibrary loan. LOTS of ideas there.

I did buy a copy of the book and it arrived a few days ago cost under 8$ shipped and was new, from Amazon others sellers. I was thumbing thru and saw what I thought was my tool box and did a double take, but it was a job built box that was made by the author Jim Tolpin 25 years ago from pine scraps.

My box was made from lumber core Rosewood scraps/drops that I built in 1974 or 75, at this point I'm wondering how many boxes like these are floating around out there.IMG_2856.jpg Tolpins tool box.IMG_2865.jpgMine

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

As I mentioned in my earlier response today, my wife and I visited our younger daughter and family, and I had to take tools to work on items at their house. They had problems with new cabinets not working, with one of the cabinet doors having a joint come apart, and with having to modify one drawer so it could be used in the cabinet. The drawer that had to be modified was below a new built in range top, and the height of the drawer body was too tall to fit in the cabinet now and part of the back had to be cut out because of the gas and electrical lines to the range top.

A second drawer also needed to be worked on. There was a problem with the drawers/cabinet, and the installer made a 1/2 way effort to mount it, but left it with problems. Thus I carpentered quite bit. My son in law helped when he had time, and that was a huge help, because in some cases it took more hands than I have, and his longer arms could reach further back into the cabinets than I can. The drawer under the range top took a crazy amount of time to redo, I had to build a new mounting frame in the back of the cabinet, one that was very difficult to reach because of the drawer dividers etc.

I took all the tools I thought I might need, but did not take carpenters saws, etc., because my son in law has tools, including those.

The problem, as I mentioned earlier, was that I still had not unloaded the tool box I generally take on such trips, and the tools were not suitable for the task at hand. So.....I used a cardboard box which contained some dividers. Well, it got the tools there, but it was a disorganized mess, that could not be organized, and was a true pain to work out of.

I am now more motivated than ever, but of course time is a problem as I have carpentry work to do on our own house now that we are back. I am rebuilding a fence, have to rebuild a deck next, etc. etc. In the mean time, I still have day job that also has to be done. (When do I get to work on stuff that I just want to work on instead of stuff that needs to be done? Sigh.)

This whole fiasco did teach me a few things, however, since I was already thinking about a tool box that will travel easily.

What I am now thinking is building a couple of dedicated tool boxes, one for finish work, one for general carpentry. Both will be designed to travel well, and to help keep things organized, and both will be light enough to travel well, and designed so that you can work out of them. Both will have some open area in the bottom to allow for flexibility in what you can take. They will be of the size that I can carry fairly easily, and that both can be loaded in the vehicle easily if need be.

The ideas that I have seen so far have been great, so thanks for the ideas, photos, and comments so far. I hope others are getting as many ideas and benefits from the ideas presented as I have. I do hope more ideas and comments will be added.

Thanks and regards,

Stew

[William Adams]

In addition to the dedicated tool box idea, you may want to consider having the boxes either stack, or connect in some way. One thing which I'd consider for your case is 3 boxes:

- finish work-specific tools (F)
- general carpentry tools (G)
- tools which are common to both finish work and general carpentry (C)

Then, I'd design the three boxes to stack or clip together somehow so that any of the reasonable combinations could be carried:

FC
GC
FCG

If the common tools were potentially useful on their own, I'd design the C box to be carried solo.

[steven c newman]

Could have picked one of those up at a Yard Sale last weekend...didn't really need one....left it there. Oh,well.

[Stanley Covington]

The OP said he wanted a "Carpenter's toolbox that travels easily." The "traveling" part is very important.

As has been discussed on other threads, the traditional wooden Japanese toolbox is seldom seen on jobsites in Japan anymore. They simply don't travel well. There are better-performing, more durable, more weatherproof options available nowadays made from extremely tough, durable, waterproof, high-impact plastic.

A guy that lives 50 yards from where I live and am writing this now has a construction company, and stacks his tools and materials stored in 20 or so of these boxes sitting exposed to the sun and rain in his driveway (space is tight in Tokyo). It is raining like a sunnofabitch right now.

These plastic toolboxes are easy to carry, don't break if you drop them, stack/nest neatly and securely in the back of the truck, and keep rain and snow out. Rain is a big deal for tools. The lid clamps on with the two attached stainless steel spring clips you can see in the pics, and will not come off by accident even if tipped on its side while rattling down the road in back of the truck. Very secure. Wooden boxes really can't compete.

I have been using them for a long time, and will not go back to my wooden boxes.

The boxes pictured below are made by an outfit in Gifu Prefecture called Risu Plastic Group (リス興行）and are the type most commonly seen on jobsites. These are not cheap. There are cheaper brands, but they break, as I know from experience. The quality and durability of the Risu product is exceptional.

I have never seen the use of this level of high-quality, high-impact plastic in a toolbox anywhere else. Certainly not in Chinese products.

The lid does permit water vapor/gases to escape from the inside of the box, so they make a great storage box for sharpening stones, and with the addition of a board spanning the opening, readily double as a perfectly leak-proof pond too.

Not sexy, but very functional.

Stan

PS: The red characters on the outside say "toolbox." They come in different colors, but this green with red lettering is all you ever see on construction sites. The center box has a drawer at the bottom. There is another model with two smaller drawers at the same location. The drawers can get a bit wet inside if left exposed to wind-driven sideways rain for a few days. The boxes with drawers are great for power tools providing easy access to blades and bits. I will need to ask the manufacturer if it is possible to get other writing on the outside.