Protecting your tools from moisture, dust, and shop goblins is important. Christopher Schwarz has been writing and teaching on tool chests for decades and recently revised his 15-year-old design, the Anarchist Tool Chest, featured in his book by the same title. We are pleased to coordinate with Chris to supply you with a premium clear eastern white pine material to build your chest.
Each material kit includes parts for the shell and lid of Chris's new design. Parts are thicknessed and sized for width, left slightly long for final trimming. The chest bottom is already milled into a tongue and groove, ready to cut to length.
Parts List
2pc- Front & back
2pc- Ends
2pc- Lower skirt, front & back
2pc- Lower skirt, ends
2pc- Top skirt, front & back
2pc- Top skirt
9pc- Bottom boards tongue and groove
2pc- Battens
2pc- Brackets for beckets
2pc- Rails
2pc- Stiles
1pc- Panel (may come single piece or in 2 pieces to glue up)
1pc- Dust seal, front
2pc- Dust seal, ends
If you would like to build an ATC and have a limited budget or would like to do the prep work yourself, you can also purchase the same premium rough material from us. For what is included in the kit, you will want 60' bdft of rough 4/4 and 9pc of tongue and groove for the bottom. Shipping for this will run in the $120-150 range, which makes it overall $200 cheaper than the kit. Or if you pick up in person cheaper still. We are committed to getting the best materials into the hands of woodworkers who appreciate them.
Anarchist Tool Chest Material Kit
Shipping lumber across the country to different climates means your material must adapt to a new environment. Your material kit should be unboxed immediately and stacked with spacer sticks and weight or clamps to keep it flat as it gets used to the new environment. We keep parts a couple of inches long to account for any end cracks that may develop. Wide boards can be clamped in cauls. Eastern White Pine is a very stabil material but best practices must be observed.