It is not down on any map; true places never are.

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale

In this article in our continuing series about wooden toolchests, your humble servant would like to discuss the Performance Criteria of Durability and Longevity and present some potential solutions.

Durability

A toolchest should be tough as a whale because a fragile one endangers the tools we trust it to protect. Those Gentle Readers for whom durability is not a high priority should stop reading now and get back to the important task of popping bubble wrap.

When I was researching this performance criteria, I bought books and visited libraries reading everything I could find on the subject. I visited museums and was told to get up off the floor and “move along now,” by security guards more than once. I just wanted to see underneath….

I visited antique stores and the workshops of professional antique restorers and grilled them about what materials and construction details withstood the tests of time best, learning much that wasn’t written in the books.

I incorporated some of the things I learned through this investigative process into the design and construction of this toolchest, so let’s examine a few related to durability and longevity.

Wood Selection

I grew up making cabinetry and casework with my father from readily available commercial materials such as 3/4″ plywood. We would mill solid wood parts to match this standard dimension even though trees don’t grow in quarter inch increments. While the material of choice has shifted from plywood to MDF in recent years, this is still standard procedure in commercial situations. However, since my toolchest was not to be a commercial product for a Client with no understanding of quality casework beyond external appearance, but rather custom casework for my personal use, I tossed those standard procedures out the window and started with a blank page.

My examination of the available literature, museum exhibits and antiques available to me at the time combined with some structural analysis revealed that durability is heavily influenced by the mass and strength of the wood. This seems like a common-sense conclusion, but it flies in the face of conventional toolchest design, as you will see.

Many advocate making chests from lightweight, inexpensive woods such as sugar pine, poplar, cedar or cypress, and to dimension the walls thin to minimize cost and weight, and to maximize interior volume. This is the traditional approach for chests used by common folk, but anticipating the abuse my toolchest was likely to experience, and considering my longevity goals and the fact that I would never need to carry it far by shank’s mare or mule, I eschewed this philosophy and decided to use stronger more durable wood and thicker, with weight assigned a lesser priority.

One of the so-called “Genuine Mahoganies,” Honduras Mahogany is very resistant to rot and termites although some beetles will eat it if they can find it. We will look more at the sensory capabilities of bugs in a later post in this series.

HM is strong, not too heavy, easily worked, glues exceptionally well, and is phenomenally stable. Along with Cuban Mahogany, it has been the most desirable wood for luxury furniture in the Americas and Europe for centuries. 

This wood is difficult to obtain in the United States nowadays because of import restrictions prompted by environmental destruction through over-harvesting, but at the time, it was readily available as S2S clear lumber in the People’s Socialist Republic of Northern California. 

HM’s coloration varies from tree to tree. The coloration of the HM I purchased was not the most desireable dark red, but the less-expensive, less-dense orangish variety. However, I splurged and used feather-crotch boards for the lid’s floating panels and ribbon-figured HM for the tray sides.

I used no “secondary woods” except for the 5mm plywood non-structural loose dividers in the sawtill. No need to be a cheapskate.

Wood Thickness

One purpose of my research was to gain an understanding of the typical failure modes of chests. You don’t see busted, water-damaged, bug-infested, rotted-out examples exhibited in museums, listed in inventory catalogues, or written about in books, but there are lots of old broken-down chests in antique stores, and restorers are always working on them; I therefore strongly encourage you to venture away from the internet into the dark and foreboding world of reality to examine them with your own eyes and hands to determine their reactions to the challenges they faced during their lifetimes.

One very common failure mode is ruptured corner joints resulting from what appeared to be drops and impacts. Another common failure mode is cracks, gaps and warped lids resulting from differential expansion/contraction inherent in wood.

In a dovetailed chest, impact forces from drops frequently cause corner joints to fail, so the solution I employed was to use plenty of dovetails, and to make the side wall material thick enough to provide adequate surface area for glue to bond and impact energy to be safely dissipated without causing the carcass to rupture.

Obviously (or maybe it is not obvious to some) thicker walls increase the amount of long-grain to long-grain contact area at a dovetail or fingerjoint corner joint by more than the square of the thickness. A simple calculation showed the sides had to be much thicker than 5/8” to achieve the impact resistance and glue strength I needed, so I went with 1-3/16” (30mm) thick sides. And instead of using a lightweight softwood like pine, a weak but delicious wood upon which bugs and fungi dine with gusto, I went with the much stronger and more rot/bug resistant Honduras Mahogany in a medium density as noted above. This proved to be a wise decision as evidenced by the results of multiple drops and several forklift encounters during my travels. And due to its dedicated wheeled platform, the additional mass has not been a problem so far. This was never intended to be a truck-bed toolbox.

Of course, most drops and forklift kisses impact the base first, so if the bottom corner connections at the base fail all is lost. I made the base (skirt) of tough 40mm thick high-density mahogany, dovetailed the corners, and pinned/glued it to the chest’s sides. These four pieces and the assembly they comprise is the densest, toughest component of the chest. It is scratched and dinged but this is only cosmetic damage, so I feel the base has done everything I needed it to do, at least so far.

I doubt 3/4″ sugar pine sides or a 5/8” ~ 7/8” thick poplar base would have survived the first drop from a moving truck bed, let alone that incident in Bangkok when what must have been a deranged peg-legged forklift driver pushed the tool chest into the conex box with his fork tips while shrieking “From Hell’s heart I stab at theeee!” The madman damaged the toolchest but neither pierced nor cracked it. After that, I rechristened it “Moby Dick. “ Harpoon sockets and grog were not involved.

Differential Expansion & Contraction

Changes in humidity make wood expand and contract. You can ignore this natural force, as the plastic puppet people that love MDF do, or even fight it if you enjoy the tangy flavor of humiliation, but given enough time either approach will make you look the fool. Better to plan for it if your longevity goals are 200 years. If, however, longevity is not important to you, please stop reading this article immediately and get back to the important task of popping that bubble wrap.

Avoiding damage caused by differential expansion and contraction of wood is a problem humanity resolved centuries ago using well-known, but oft-ignored solutions. Some of those techniques are to use mechanical connections (e.g. dovetails, mortise and tenon joints, etc.) without relying solely on glue, avoidance of wire nails, avoidance of wide cross-grain joints, avoiding steel straps hard-connected cross-grain, and using frame-and-panel construction when wide cross-grain joints would otherwise be impossible to avoid, to name some primary solutions.

My design uses few metal fasteners, just stainless-steel screws to attach the lid’s hinges and tray shelves, brass screws to attach the brass lock and recessed tray pulls, and 4 steel bolts to attach the lifting eyes. No metal straps are used.

My toolchest employs a floating frame-and-panel lid with deep dovetailed sides made from solid 30mm Honduras Mahogany. I’ll go into this detail more in future posts.

The chest’s bottom is also frame and panel construction in solid mahogany. Frame and panel construction was used for all tray and drawer bottoms. No engineered wood materials such as plywood, MDF, LVL, OSB or veneer were used.

All glued joints in my toolchest are dovetails or pinned dovetail mortise and tenon joints, and trenails. If the glue fails, which it eventually will in some places sure as God made little green apples, the mechanical joints will still hold together. I did not use nails, screws, staples, biscuits, splines or loose tenons as structural fasteners.

Fungus, Insects and Rodents

As noted above and in Part 3 in this series, wood as a material may be economical, easy to work, have decent insulation performance, and make our collective hearts go pitter-patter, but we cannot safely ignore the fact that some fungi and insects love to eat wood, and rats and mice will chew holes in it. How can we adapt our toolchest design to deal with “the crud,” creepy crawlies, and critters? A few possible solutions are listed below:

1. Select a wood that is naturally unpleasant to chew without using toxic levels of hot sauce. God made some woods yummy, and others noxious. The later typically lasts longer;
2. Use thicker wood to make the toolchest strong and tough. This will also make it more difficult for rodents to chew holes in it.
3. Make the wood unpleasant for fungus and bugs to eat and rats to chew through the miracle of modern chemistry available in either commercial or homemade wood preservatives;
4. Seal all raw wood surfaces, both inside and outside the toolchest, so fungus spores will find it difficult to take root, and insects will be less likely to detect the savory smells of yummy wood (that is how they find it, you know);
5. Elevate the bottom of the chest above the ground/floor so there is an “air gap” preventing direct moisture transfer from below thereby keeping the wood’s moisture content at levels less than those preferred by fungus and bugs;
6. Design the base details so some air circulation underneath the chest is possible to reduce fungus growth and make cleaning possible:
7. Place vaporized fungus and insect repellent (e.g. moth balls or toilet cakes) inside the toolchest further minimizing delicious woody smells that attract insects while at the same time creating an uninviting or even hostile environment for their kiddies;
8. Combine all seven of the solutions listed above, which is what I did. You know me: Belt, suspenders, and safety harness.

We will talk about these solutions and other factors that informed the design of the toolchest in future posts.

I encourage you to give similar consideration to the design of the furniture and casework you build for your own use, at least if, like me, durability means more to you than the ecstasy of popping bubble wrap.

In the next post in this series about my toolchest, we will consider some potential solutions to the remaining Key Performance Criteria you may want to consider when designing your toolchest.

Call me Ishmael.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the see the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or thuggish Twitter and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie may rabid forklifts chase me nightly in my dreams.

To fail to plan is to plan to fail.

Anon

In the previous four parts in this series about toolchests we examined some aspects of the history of toolchests, as well as the goals, objectives, pros and cons that informed the design and construction of your humble servant’s toolchest, and which any effective design should at least consider.

In this post we will examine some of the design criteria your humble servant arrived at after several years of cogitation, and some pitfalls common to the design process you may want to avoid. I hope this discussion will be helpful when you, Gentle Reader, are planning your tool storage solutions.

Background

The subject of this series of posts is a toolchest I made by hand over 26 years ago when living in San Mateo, California.

The basic idea for my toolchest was born many years ago when I found an old British book on woodworking with drawings for a unique toolchest while browsing the darker reaches of the University of Tokyo’s library.

My profession has taken me to many locations around the globe, but even if I don’t use my tools to earn a living anymore, I still need them nearby for the sake of my mental health. I take this toolchest with me when I am working away from home, sometimes in foreign countries and for years at a time. It contains most of the tools I need when working wood by hand. Therefore, the design was heavily influenced by logistical and environmental factors. 

It has English roots, as do I, but it is neither a reproduction of a historical toolchest, nor a slavish imitation of someone else’s. It’s not a haphazard conglomeration of details cherry-picked from books and the internet because they look cool or some internet guru (this was before the internet) did a video on NoobToob. It took me literally years to research, refine, and complete the design, and although it is based on an old British source, I incorporated details from Japanese casework I felt would help me achieve my performance objectives. 

Avoiding the Porcelain Whirlpool of Indecision

Anything of any difficulty worth doing well requires a plan, but a beautiful plan does not spring forth from the mind perfectly shaped. It typically begins with just a framework, or more often, pieces of a framework, to which we attach, over time and through deliberation, the decisions that culminate in a plan. Experience matters during this process, but research and careful deliberation can often compensate for a lack thereof. Let us consider a few aspects of planning in the real world that should influence a toolchest design.

In my day job I manage the planning, design and construction of new commercial buildings and interior fitouts (tenant improvements) in Japan, and while the dollar value of a toolchest is much less than a building, I believe the same planning principles can be applied.

Every building project must have a plan, sometimes called a “program” or “design brief,” that describes in writing what the Client requires the completed construction project to accomplish. This document does not include project-specific design drawings, because those aren’t necessary or even useful at first, but it still drives the architectural, structural and MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) design. Architects, engineers, consultants and I can help a Client develop this planning document, but ultimately the Client pays the money and lives with the results so the decisions are his to make. This aspect of planning can be difficult for anyone, but most especially for those that are inexperienced, insecure, or too proud to admit they don’t know it all.

What many inexperienced Clients don’t realize is that, even though they may not be able to get their minds around the hundreds of decisions that must be made, and frequently fail to make them at all, abandoned decisions will still be made, but by default or happenstance instead of intelligent choice. Sometimes the default decisions are justified as “tradition.” How convenient. How slothful. I call this “design by neglect.”

If a reasonable person manages to struggle through a project, that experience will typically improve his decision-making capabilities greatly. However, occasionally a Client suffers from a mental defect I call “Spiral Decision Neglect Syndrome.”

A sufferer of SDNS may imitate but cannot learn. He will not only fail to make critical decisions, but he will become angry when he discovers he lacks the ability and/or the courage to make them, always a sure sign of shame. To conceal his poor ability and protect his pride, this person will remove those capable people around him that could have helped and replace them with yes-men. From that instant the design process will follow an inescapable spiral path into the slimy depths of the porcelain scrying bowl to the fate that awaits all turds. I’m sure you have known people like this and seen the stinky whirlpool of failure that surrounds them as they rise in the corporate world. But I digress.

The wise person will acknowledge they don’t have all the answers at first (no one does), but will be diligent enough to work for the answers, having faith they will find them. They will also document the criteria that will drive the decisions that must be made so the design does not veer off into the weeds. I call this process “Defining Performance Criteria.” Please note that Performance Criteria typically describe what a thing must do or not do, not so much what it will look like.

Planning Techniques

But what if you don’t have experience, or lack confidence in your planning and/or design abilities? Welcome to the club that includes most of humanity: “Admission is free, please pay at the door. Pull up a chair and sit on the floor.” Here are my suggestions:

1. Do research, including reading accounts of both traditional and modern solutions, and personally inspect as many physical examples as possible. Antiques can be very educational. Modern cabinetry can be enlightening;
2. At the time you begin your research, buy a quality, dedicated paper notebook or artist’s sketchbook and fill it with notes of your research and observations, along with hand-sketches, clippings and photographs of your research. Let it ramble. Allow time for all this to percolate in your mind. It’s fine to transcribe this notebook to digital format and store the text along with photographs on your computer or cloud, but don’t abandon the paper notebook: it’s the roadmap that traces your progress;
3. Determine your Key Performance Criteria (“KPC,” more on this below);
4. Make a sketch of your tool storage system on paper in pencil. Not in Sketchup or AutoCad because you don’t want it to be pretty and finished-looking too early, but rather organic and flexible. Ugly is OK too, as my mother always told me as a child (ツ). Too many “CAD Monkeys” deceive themselves with perfect-looking digital drawings early in a design process; Just ask any architect or commercial contractor over 60 years old and they will confirm what I mean;
5. Determine internal and external dimensions. Get tolerances and clearance matters resolved concretely;
6. Rework the drawing until it meets your KPC, or rework your KPC to match reality. Perhaps a cardboard mock-up will be helpful if you have difficulty converting lines on paper into a 3-D image in your mind, as many do. This is a skill that can be learned and is worth developing, BTW, and mock-ups can help, a lot;
7. Get the opinions of independent third parties you trust;
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you are satisfied, allowing time between each iteration for your brain and eyes to reset. Perfection is unattainable;
9. Make a final drawing by hand or in digital format. Perfection is unattainable;
10. Buy wood and hardware and start making sawdust. Don’t worry about getting it wrong, just get it made. Perfection is unattainable.

Don’t give a thought to appearance until after Step 7. It is human nature to focus on appearance when beginning a design, but that is counter-productive. To the contrary, a wise man will formulate his Key Performance Criteria (Step 3) long before focusing heavily on the project’s appearance, because the KPC comprise the key supports in his planning framework. He can then do research and formulate possible solutions in harmony with them, and in due course, after careful consideration, make the myriad necessary decisions before the onset of “design by neglect.”

If the process seems overwhelming, break it into little pieces that are not, and knock them off one-by-one.

Part of the planning process must include a thorough understanding of both historical needs and traditional solutions, but with a sharp eye to avoiding past mistakes, while at the same time seeking solutions that meet your specific needs instead of the traditional needs of others. Monkey see monkey do may work for monkeyshines, but tis a piss-poor plan for bespoke casework, in other words.

How do I know this process works? I learned it from world-class architects. Spend a few million dollars of other people’s money on architects and designers over 30 years and you too will be convinced. But don’t take my word for it, look at history: the process described above is older than the pyramids of Giza; It helps you think; It makes you think. If you do it, your design capabilities will dramatically improve.

Key Performance Criteria

The following are some of the Key Performance Criteria I developed when designing the toolchest in question. If you are thinking about making a tool storage system, be it cabinet, toolchest, or pegboard, you will need similar criteria, whether you realize it now or not. Please observe that most of the items in the list below do not describe how the toolchest will look but rather what it must accomplish, so function dictates form. Notice also that, while it includes no concrete dimensions other than the maximum length of handsaws, it could well include actual overall dimensions, but those can be determined later.

1. Internal Dimensions: Long enough to house a self-contained sawtill with several 26” Disston No.12 handsaws stored inside along with other essential hand-powered woodworking tools (no powertools), and as wide as practically possible;
2. External Dimensions: Narrow and short enough to fit through Asian residential doors and up narrow stairways;
3. Depth Dimension: Deep enough to contain three sliding trays in the upper portion of the interior, all dimensioned to accommodate specific tools, and two chisel boxes stacked on top of each other in the lower portion below the sliding tills (the “dungeon”). And not so deep one can’t easily reach to the farthest, deepest corners without having a 14 year-old girl’s flexible joints;
4. Tool Access: Tools used frequently to be quick to locate and easy to remove and replace without bending, kneeling, or shifting trays around;
5. Durability: Tough enough to survive international moves, loading and unloading from trucks, ships, and containers by drunk, one-eyed tweakers using malevolent Cyberdyne Systems forklifts and predacious pallet jacks without being punctured, racked, or spilling the contents. Short-term toughness and strength, in other words.
6. Longevity: Must last for many generations of constant use (minimum 200 years) in indoor situations without experiencing warping, structural degradation, rust, rot, or damage from insects and vermin. This criteria depends on the durability criteria listed above, but instead of just surviving short-term knocks and dings, it includes surviving long-term damage from within due to design failures and/or long-term infestation;
7. Sealing, Insulation & Security: Seal tightly in all temperatures and humidity without relying on petroleum-based seals, and without the lid racking, warping, gaping, cracking, or binding, all the while protecting the contents from temperature swings, condensation, dust, bugs, rats, sticky-fingered pixies, and Darwinian shrinkage (pilfering);
8. Portability: Light enough to be carried up stairs by two men when empty. Easily moved over flat surfaces by one man with a full complement of tools inside, and without marking or degrading interior floor finishes;
9. Tie-down and Lifting: Can be secured to the walls or floor of a shipping container or moving truck, and lifted by crane quickly and easily and without employing complicated rigging or straps touching the wooden surfaces (straps and ropes tear things up);
10. Appearance: Attractive and workmanlike in appearance with some subtle decorative details. No inlay, carving, intricate molding or other extravagances.

When planning your tool storage system, you will either develop your own key performance criteria, or fall into the trap of “Design by Default.” Hopefully you will avoid the slimy whirpool of SDNS.

The criteria you decide on will be different from mine, but similar, just as your tools are different from mine but similar. However, I hasten to add that it would be a mistake to design a toolchest solely around the tools you own and use right now since those tools will change over the years. As someone who has plenty of “planning experience” (also read “made lots of mistakes”) I assure you that “Future-proofing,” meaning to provide “flexibility” and “adaptability” to deal with future changes in the tools you will store and the way you will use them, is always superior to a tidy but inflexible storage plan. For instance, while it is necessary to design rigid provisions for tools stored inside the lid to keep them from falling out, in most cases French-fitted trays are not an efficient long-term solution IMO.

While I have tremendous respect for successful ancient designs, the concept of imitating traditional details and features just for the sake of “historical correctness” was never a consideration for me because, like outhouses, straw roofs, blood-letting and ducking stools, some modern alternatives are superior to tradition.

In the next post in this series we will examine the durability and longevity criteria and the solutions I employed. We will also take a stab at the other criteria listed above in future posts.

YMHOS

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or thuggish Twitter and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie may I disappear forever into the whirlpool of indecision.

Other Posts in this Series:

• Toolchests Part 1 – And Away We Go
• Toolchests Part 2 – History
• Toolchests Part 3 – Pros & Cons
• Toolchests Part 4 – Goals & Objectives
• Toolchests Part 5 – Formulating Performance Criteria
• Toolchests Part 6 – Key Performance Criteria Solutions 1 – Durability & Longevity
• Toolchests Part 7 – Key Performance Criteria Solutions 2 – Sealing, Insulation, Security, Portability & Tiedown
• Toolchests Part 8 – Under the Lid
• Toolchests Part 9 – Trays
• Toolchests Part 10 – The Dungeon
• Toolchests Part 11- The Bottom
• Toolchests Part 12 – The Sawtill
• Toolchests Part 13 – Finishes
• Toolchests Part 14 – Repairability