Reclaimed tool tote

Finished my toolbox the other day.  I have been using a plastic one for my green woodworking tools, which seems deeply wrong.  This wooden one is bigger, and almost entirely out of a skip ! The darker wood is one of two large bookshelves thrown away by someone, and the lighter bottoms and the partition of the top tray are from selected pallet wood from the pile acquired from the same skip, mostly for kindling. Only the handle is new, which is turned on the pole lathe from a piece of ash left over from chair making.  No power tools involved at any stage of course





Sorry about all the clutter in the background.  The wood came up quite nicely with a bit of linseed oil and beeswax, I like the way it has made the dovetails very prominent.  I used this for more dovetailing practice; the upright pieces attaching the handle are one big 2D dovetail, giving scope for the wood to move seasonally and allowing the handle to be removed with a couple of taps of the mallet.  To allow the top tray to sit inside, the sides of the outer box have a big rebate planed in them using a wooden badger plane over 100 years old, and still working nicely.

Wow. Oh wow CH. Beautiful.

That is really lovely Chilli Head and I would want to show off my dovetails if they were as good as that.
Now .... it would make a very good carrier for bee bits when inspecting hives so if there is room in the parcel containing the bookcase .....

What a beautiful - and useful - item, Chilli-head.

Surprisingly attractive piece of wood for an old bookshelf, I thought. And it works very nicely with the chisel - it reminded me of the special stuff they used to let us use for "O"-level woodwork exams; soft enough to work easily, but does not tear out like cheap white pine.

If I were to make another, I might try to make it a bit lighter, Since this one now had 3 axes in the bottom, it scarecly makes a lot of difference, but for smaller tools it would be a bit unnecessarily heavy. I think I can see some ways of lightening it.

I used it yesterday - got the pole lathe out and started turning the back spindles for my smoker's bow chair. 2 down, 4 to go.

Tidy. I feel almost inspired to have a go myself.

Hairyloon wrote:Tidy.  I feel almost inspired to have a go myself.

Thanks. But I must try harder. Almost inspired is not enough !

Chilli-head wrote:

Hairyloon wrote:Tidy.  I feel almost inspired to have a go myself.

Thanks.  But I must try harder.  Almost inspired is not enough !

Sorry, linguistic inexactitude there: entirely inspired, but not quite moved into construction.