[dryheat]

A week from today we leave for a couple of days in Santa Fe and then to Crete, NB and the Doane Experience. Anyone else making the trip?
I’ve been hustling to get a couple of tool boxes finished, one for a friend , who is also going and one for myself. We often carve with one another and have to cart our tools back and forth so about a year or so ago we decided to make some tool boxes that we could keep all our gear in. The first one I made from some Oak planks I had, milled them down to 1/2” and built the box with space for the tool racks in the back and drawers in the front. Good idea, not practical. The Oak was way heavy and the squat shape made for difficult carrying. This, the second version, is slimmer and made from Pine, again milled to ½”with the space for the tool rack on the top and drawers underneath. Hope this version works out better. One of the pictures shows one of the tool racks out of the box and sitting beside it.
We enjoy the Diamondback, go to a few games, and watch them on TV. Hence the logo on the back of my box. When I retired and we moved here from Vermont my wife gave me a sign for the new shop. She duplicated most of that sign on the front of the box. She painted both of the signs and I sprayed lacquer over them.

I’m going to try and post pictures of the tool box and a couple of carvings. The baseball pitcher is from a Bishop roughout and the country doc is from a sears roughout.

[Iowa Carver]

That's cool, really nice tool box. I am a pretty new carver but thinking I would like to do that next year. I was thinking this was open only to the members of the local club.

Corey

[dryheat]

Couldn't get the ballplayer and doc in. Hope they go this time.
Ed

[Dan S]

Thats a nice box. I may steal your idea. I have a small one for traveling but yours is nicer.

Dan

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Good stuff Ed! Except.....I would turn those palm tools over, point down....I can feel myself getting poked with those right now! lol....if they hung from the handle and just a hole deeper than the points, the points wouldn't get messed up touching the base.......just my opinion but I am stuck with it lol..

[Kenny_S]

Nice tool box. Beats me old Stanley tool box for sure.But fer 10 bucks, I can't complain. Well, not much anyway.

[Ron T]

Hi Ed,

That's a truly well made tool box and it only reflects the quality and care that you seem to approach in your carvings as well.

Both beautifully done.

[dryheat]

Dave,
I agree about the end of the palm tools. I didn’t do a very good job of explaining the function of the tool racks. We take them out of the storage area and place them on the table or bench where we are carving. So you are only reaching in once to get the rack out and once to put it back but this could be once too many. This arrangement is shown in one of the pictures. There are small magnets holding the shank of the tool into the groove. There has been a lot of discussion about using magnets to retain tools in holders but I’ve been using them for several years and can’t see any ill effects.
Having said all this, we have talked about the same thing and what we think we will do is to put a strip of wood with a rabbet across the area where the business end of the gouges is to protect your fingers. We can either screw this to the back or if looks like it will interfere with removing and replacing the tools it could be held in place with magnets so it could be removed when it is sitting on the carving bench.
I believe that most of us tend to accumulate far more tools than we need or use and this isn’t all bad. I admit to being an active tool junkie. The only problem with this is I tend to want to take far more tool with me, just in case, than I need too. Anyway I’m sure it is a work in progress and will be for many years.
Any other suggestions or comments are welcome.
Ed

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

another idea would be a piece of that foam pipe insulation...the slit in the side would open and slide right over the top of the center board......but might make it hard to get the thing out of the box....oh well...will try to do better next time lol. Nothing wrong with collecting more tools than you need or taking more than you need with you......I do it all the time ha ha

[Mark N. Akers]

Thats a couple of fantastic tool boxes,hope you enjoy Doane.