Dutch, Dutch, Goose (I Mean Crow)
Like most woodworkers from the 1900s, I first encountered the Dutch tool chest in Jim Tolpin’s masterpiece “The Toolbox Book” (Taunton, 1995).1 The chest is shown on page 8 in two photos: one with the chest open and one with it closed.
There’s no construction information or measurements. Just a short caption about how the chest is Dutch and old. I probably looked at that image 100 times as a young lad, but it never really fired any of my sexytime neurons – you know, the brain cells that make you do bad things (like spend six weeks researching a vise mechanism).
In 2010 or 2011, I was teaching at Roy Underhill’s school, and he showed me a similar chest. Likely Dutch and painted more of a purple than a blue. That second chest is what made the connection: This slanted-lid chest is indicative of a certain “style” of chest. Until then, the only three tool chest “styles” I had encountered were English, Red Craftsman and Funky 1970s I’m OK, You’re OK Chest/Wall Hanging Tool Sharing Unit.
There wasn’t much written (in English) about these Dutch chests. But I managed to get on Dutch eBay and found a lot of old chests there that were similar to the chest in Tolpin’s book. I knew I had to build one.
My original plan was to publish it in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” alongside the English tool chest and a Japanese one. But the book got too long, so I scotched that idea.
So when I finally started to design a Dutch tool chest, I took a harder look at the images in Tolpin’s book. How big was it? In the photo, the bottom shelves of the chest are filled with wooden stock moulding planes and other wooden planes. So I guessed the interior was 11" deep.
And that’s when my sexytime neurons about blew up their dendrites.
Ah! The sides of this tool chest could be a 1x12. The back and front pieces are nailed on. Maybe there are a few dados. But this could be the simplest and most clever tool chest on the planet.
I built two of these chests in a week. I barely remember building them because they went together so quickly. I filled them with tools. And that’s when I really fell in love with the form. The Dutch chest holds a huge number of tools efficiently. And the tools are easy to get to. Plus the chest is easy to move and – bam – there go my dendrites again.
I proposed writing an article for Popular Woodworking Magazine. They agreed, and the two chests appeared in the October 2013 issue. The chests were not the cover image (but I’m not salty about it).
And that’s when people started making these chests like crazy. I mean, there were times when five out of six students in a class at Lost Art Press had a Dutch tool chest. Many of them were made the night before. And many of the students carted the Dutch chests to a class on making the full-size Anarchist’s tool chest.
And that’s where we get to the meat of this entry. I’ve worked out of an English tool chest every day of my life since 1998. I love my English chest (I’m on my third one). It’s like a f-ing Rolls Royce (meaning it’s big, beautiful and not really practical).
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