Notes on my woodworking toolbox / tote

I move tools around the house quite a lot, since my shop is to humid for tool storage.

I selected the largest set of common tools I can carry in one go (which may weight a solid 30kg) and arranged them a two layer stacked tote:

all-together.jpg
Figure 1: The complete tote, with the top mini tote on top.

I often use just the top or the bottom, depending on the work at hand.

I also often drop the whole thing is the trunk of the car and drive it to work. It's stable :)

1. The bottom level

bottom-contents.jpg
Figure 2: The bottom contents is heavier than it is numerous.
bottom-from-above.jpg
Figure 3: The bottom contents as seen when arranged back in.

The bottom part is reserved for the longest, heaviest and some less often used tools:

  1. the standard 3 hand planes set:
    • Veritas LA jack plane
    • dictum #7 jointer
    • Stanley 4 1/2 smoother
    • when the tote gets too heavy, I swap these with their equivalent wooden version, much lighter.
  2. a pretty polyvalent saw set:
    • japanese ryoba (fine)
    • japanese dozuki (super fine), veritas carcass saw (rip) and a bad coping saw
  3. some shaping tools:
    • a low angle spokeshave
    • an adjustable stanley metal spokeshave
    • a small draw knife
    • a set of hand made rasps
  4. misc
    • a strong mora knife (that I use to split little parts, dowels, wedges, etc)
    • some mineral oil
    • winding sticks
    • false square
    • a wooden hand plane mallet
    • someday I fit a diamond plate on the side but I don't do that anymore, it's just to heavy.

2. Top

top-contents.jpg
Figure 4: The top content is lighter but it is a legion.
top-from-above.jpg
Figure 5: The top content legion back into camp.

The top part contains smaller tools and 80% gets used during any and every woodworking job.

  1. Measuring tools
    • combination square (small and big actually)
    • protractor (I hate it)
    • caliper (never use it)
    • compass
    • dovetails or angle templates (I like them)
  2. Marking tools
    • pens (2b, and wax)
    • knives (usually homemade)
    • markers (for sharpening)
    • awl (precise and useful)
    • marking gauges (usually not in the box)
  3. Chisels
    • a compact set (dictum or swiss made)
    • usually no mortise chisels
    • always a blunt chisel, for scraping and shaping
  4. Small hand planes
    • block plane, mine is a veritas skew rabbet plane, with a fence
    • finger plane, that I use ALL-THE-TIME
    • router plane, also veritas, that I sometimes use as a making gauge when I forget the actual gauges
    • a small tapping hammer, with a beech face and a brass face.
    • a scraping blade set
    • a scraper burnisher (which also acts as a screwdriver, an actual burnisher and a file), great stuff
  5. Misc
    • always a small diamond stone to touch up a knife, a chisel …
    • depending on the projects, there are always some rasps, files, floats, etc
    • a small box of small nails and such
    • wax
    • etc.