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Road Back to a Wood Shop

Vaughn McMillan said:
Thanks. :thumb: I kind of suspected it was something like that but the cutouts near the ends threw me off. Looked sort of like a level with no center vial.
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The half moon cutouts work better than using an inlay in my opinion. I got these from Red Rose Reproductions some time ago. There is a blog from Lost Art Press that explains the use of them.

I had bought Lee Valley aluminum winding sticks that I was not happy with as they were not flat, returning them. I then bought these and have been very happy with them. Even with my aging eyes it is easy for me to see the winding in your boards.
 
As I mentioned in the "Friday 24Feb23" thread I planned to finish up installing a long needed fixture to hold my saws upright in the saw compartment of my tool chest. Finally got around to doing that today as I needed to get some screws to complete the work. Looks and works great. I did have to remove a set of screwdrivers and two Starrett combination squares as they were in the way. I just sawed the fixture holding them in two and placed them on the tool wall. The photo showing the screwdrivers and combination square in the tool chest was from 2012 when I built the chest. As you can see the tool wall is getting kind of crowded.

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Here, here. Congrats on that setup. Our shops are an evolving thing. Never a destiation, always a journey; and with any luck, a pleasant one more often that not.
 
glenn bradley said:
Here, here. Congrats on that setup. Our shops are an evolving thing. Never a destiation, always a journey; and with any luck, a pleasant one more often that not.
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How true and it can't be helped. Tools come and go and how you think things should be organized meets the reality of actual use. A couple of things are crystalizing from this journey of building a tool wall.

Tool Wall​

  • Pro: The most visible and accessible method of organizing tools. They are right there in the open, easy to see and retrieve.
  • Pro: Does not take up any floor space.
  • Con: It takes up a lot of wall space.
  • Con: Probably not the best solution in a dusty or humid environment. (Not a problem for me)
  • Con: Not the most compact way to store tools.
  • Con: Not a movable storage system

Tool Chest​

  • Pro: Most compact way to store a lot of tools.
  • Pro: Good if you are in a dusty or humid environment. A heat source (light bulb or gun safe dehumidifier) will keep your tools rust free. I have a gun safe dehumidifier in my tool chest from when I lived on the wet side of the Cascade Mountains.
  • Pro: If you put wheels on the chest you can move it around your shop. The reality is, without a wheels it is not moving. Not unless you are some world class weight lifter. My current "shop" has carpet, so it is not movable and beside my space is so small, there is no place to move it to.
  • Con: Probably the least visible and accessible method to store tools. Unless they are on top there is a lot of sliding around of drawers while bent down to retrieve.
  • Con: Takes up floor space. And that is a problem in my current very small "shop". My work bench takes up a good portion of my 9' x 10' space. One Pro offset to this Con is that the chest is at a height that it makes a great place to sit.

Wall Hung Tool Cabinet​

Although I do not have personal experience with this method of storing tools, I think I see the following Pro's and Con's to it.
  • Pro: Although not as compact as a tool chest, it is still a lot better than a tool wall. More tools can be stored here as opposed to a tool wall.
  • Pro: Like the tool chest it is probably good for dusty or humid environments.
  • Pro: Although the tools are not as visible as a tool wall, if you left the doors open you would get a similar affect.
  • Pro: Like a tool wall not taking up any floor space.
  • Con: Not a movable storage system.
  • Con: Does take up some wall space, but not anything like a tool wall for the same amount of tools.
  • Con: Tools are not as accessible as a tool wall, but is probably much better than a tool chest.
I am leaning towards building a wall hung tool cabinet to go along with the tool wall in my current space and trying that out.
 
glenn bradley said:
One big plus on the wall hung is that it can still evolve and it can fold.
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My ex-father in law built a tool chest console.... it was about 6' tall, 3' or so wide and about 2' feet or more deep... he had leaves in the upper part like pages on a book that held a lot of his tools... don't remember what in the lower half, but may have been just like the upper half...when he passed away would have loved to have got my hands on that cabinet....unfortunately I was already in Texas and he in California..... Al was a very very precise craftsman in what ever he did.... he was a machinist by training, but when I knew him he worked for Pacific Telephone as a manager of their dining unit, then later of their internal mail system.
The upper part of his cabinet looked remarkably like yours.
 
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