Gouge Till Shop Project with *PICS*
William R. Duffield on the Cohansey
>[rant on] I hate chisel rolls! [rant off]
I find it very inconvenient to try to carve from a canvas chisel roll, because I can't see the shapes of the tools. Also, the rolls take up an immense amount of real estate when spread out on the workbench, and the sharp gouges quickly cut them to shreds. In the past, I had either been working directly out of my toolchest carving gouge drawers (as shown in the first photo) or with the required tools laying on the bench top. Working from the drawers, the tools were too far away to reach without bending over, too far away to see especially when using my close-up glasses for fine carving work, and the drawers filled up with chips. Working off the benchtop, the gouges, files and rasps seem to multiply like rabbits and fight tooth and claw, and still got buried under the chips.
I finally did something about it. I built this portable, modular carving tool till. When I'm carving, I open it up, unfold it on the benchtop, and populate it with whatever tools I need for the current job. It is in four fan-fold hinged sections. All the tools are in plain sight, easy to reach, and they don't bark and they don't bite. The latches keep it from being opened quite all the way, which makes it very difficult to tip over.
If I have to use the bench for something else while in the middle of a carving project, I can just close it up, latch it and set it aside with all the tools still in it.
When I'm done with the project, I put the tools back in the the toolchest drawers, fold up and latch the till, and hang it from a peg on the wall. I can also use it to carry a bunch of gouges over to the sharpening station.
The above pair of photos show the back view on the left and the front view on the right. A four section till needs three pairs of hinges and three latches. You can build yours with any number of frames, of any size you think you might find useful. For those who might want to build one, but avoid the effort to develop their own plans from scratch, here are some details of my prototype. When I built it, I didn't use any plans, so I've reverse engineered plans from the prototype. Mine is made of four through dovetailed frames. 5 1/4" high x 10" long x 2 1/2" deep.
I built them from some tulip poplar and a couple of pieces of mahogany scrap I had laying around.
The bottom piece of each frame is 10" long x 2 1/2" wide x 3/4" thick. Make 4.
The sides are 5 1/4" long x 2 1/2" wide x 1/2" thick. Make 8. You could even make the frames different heights, to accommodate different tools, but I found this one height handles just about anything I've tried to put in it. It is NOT big enough, in any of its dimensions, for a serious set of turning tools.
The top is 10" long x 2 1/2" wide x 1/4" thick. Make 4.
I laid out two different patterns of holes. The mahogany sided frame is sized to hold larger gouges, or three pairs of Wiss metal snips, if your craft leads you in that direction. I layout, cut and fit the dovetails, and then disassemble the frames, lay out and drill the holes in the top and bottom of each frame together. Laying out the hole pattern after cutting the dovetails keeps you from weakening the dovetails by getting the holes too close. Also, the top member could easily split while fitting dovetails if the holes were drilled first. The holes in the bottom frame are stopped about 1/2" deep.
Here are two full size patterns. I used 1/2", 3/4" and 1 1/8" Forstner bits to drill the flat bottomed holes. For the oblong holes, a chisel and a router are useful, or you could drill them all the way through, cut them out with a backsaw or coping saw, cut a rabbet in the bottom and glue in a patch.
When you lay out the hinge mortises and assemble it, the smaller holes in the upper pattern, which tend to hold shorter tools, should be positioned towards the front. Also, consider the tools you will be using from the oblong holes, and whether you are right or left handed. For convenience, you might want to flip the lower pattern over.
I built this till to complement the Carving Tool Set published last month in WC's Articles and Reviews.
