Popular Woodworking 2004-12 № 145, страница 62

Arts & Crafts

TOOL CABINET

The goal: The maximum tools in the minimum space.

Sometime while sawing the 60th dovetail for a drawer side, when my patience was as thin as the veneer facing on cheap plywood, a familiar feeling crept into my body. I began to experience an understandable lust for my biscuit joiner.

It sat patiently on a shelf, and I knew that its chattering, rattling teeth would make everything about this tool cabinet go much faster. But I resisted, because I had the words of a Victorian social reformer, art critic and part-time madman ringing in my head.

The writings of Englishman John Ruskin (1819-1900) were a cornerstone of the American Arts & Crafts movement. Ruskin decried the worst parts of 19th century industrialism. He promoted craft, pensions and public education when there was little of those things for the poor.

And in his book the "Seven Lamps of Architecture, The Lamp of Memory," which was published in 1849, he wrote a passage that all woodworkers should read. It's a bit long and a bit dramatic, but it has stuck with me just the same.

"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance on them, 'See! This our father did for us."'

The biscuit joiner stayed on

the shelf. I continued to saw, chop, pare and fit for another four or five hours. Ruskin, I hoped, would have approved.

From the Book of Tolpin

While Ruskin kept me going through this long and difficult project, I really have a 20th century craftsman and author to thank (or blame) for my obsession with building a fine tool cabinet. Since it was first published in 1995, "The Toolbox Book" (Taunton Press) by Jim Tolpin has become the most-thumbed book in my library. I've studied every page, toolbox and drawing between its maroon cover boards (the dust jacket is long gone).

Years ago, I resolved to build

by Christopher Schwarz

Comments or questions? Contact Chris at 513-531-2690 ext. 1407 or chris.schwarz@fwpubs.com.

myself a cabinet that might rival some of the examples in "The Toolbox Book." This year, I gave it my best shot. Since early 2004 I've spent many spare moments doodling on graph paper and on my computer to come up with a design that satisfied the three things I wanted from a cabinet: It had to hold a lot of tools, look good and be built to last. After studying my work habits, measuring all my tools and paging through thousands of examples of Arts & Crafts casework, this is what I came up with.

It's small but spacious. Have you ever ridden in an old Volkswagen Beetle? They are surprisingly roomy, and especially generous with the headroom. Somehow, the Beetle violates the laws of space and physics, and it is roomy but can also be parked between two oversized Hummers. This cabinet continued on page 70

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