[sprior]

I've been a little scarce here lately - been cheating on turning with cabinetry work (and Festool addiction), but I just finished a cabinetry/woodturning crossover project I wanted to share. I was tired of my old chisel stand not being big enough and not being on wheels, so I built a new one which should hold me for a while. Now that it's finished it reminds me of a pipe organ.

It has a front face at a 15 degree angle and magnetic strips for holding my smaller and most used turning chisels, and 15 PVC pipes in the rear which hold the bigger tools. I turned cylindrical spacers to drop in the pipes to hold each tool to a good height for that tool.

 

[Tim562]

Now that is nice!!! Wish I would have done that instead of the under lathe cabinet I did.

 

[blondewood]

That's a first class cabinet. Very handy features.

 

[NCPaladin]

Very nice cabinet.
I thought about one with my grinder on it but due to lack of space went with a cabinet on the wall.

 

[khowald]

Very nice, great job...ken

 

[duncsuss]

Oooh, I like this :yes:

(One of these days I'll clear the top of my table saw and make something like it for my lathe tools & accessories :laughing: )

 

[Burb]

That looks like it'll be very useful!! Great job.

 

[DaveTTC]

Nice work, the ones in the PVC, do you find it a hassle to get them out? I'm just imagining you have to lift them up a fair way.

 

[sprior]

I just finished it this weekend so I can't say for sure yet, but the pipes are 3" diameter so there's room to start angling them on the way out, plus I turned and dropped cylindrical spacers for each tool in its pipe to lift the tool to the height I wanted. I think these two factors will make it pretty convenient to get the tools out. I did make an effort to put the tools I use the most on the front magnetic bar.

I'm also wondering if that Munro Hollowing Tool which I fitted with a laser guide would make a good TV antenna sitting there in its PVC pipe...

 

[sprior]

Your question made me go down and try it a little more. I think it's going to be fine and I just noticed that the top edge of the tubes is right about at shoulder level for me - 4' 8" and I'm 5' -10" tall. So this is likely to be height specific to the user. This is very much a one of a kind piece (until someone makes their own version of it and hopefully shows me pictures - hint/challenge/dare).

 

[Lilty]

Very nice cabinet and tool holder.

 

[DaveTTC]

I like the magnet idea. I think if I enter the challenge (not before Christmas) I would go similar but the back chisels would be on hinged leaves to open out wider. And I'm 4" shorter so mine would have to be shorter

 

[sprior]

My original holder was 24" wide and only had the front magnetic bar and it was really convenient, but I needed storage for more tools. Anything larger than 30" wide seemed like it would be too big to deal with, so my next thought was having multiple rows of tools. At first I thought of having a slanted board behind the first, but that just didn't seem right somehow. It should also be noted that with 22" deep full extension drawers I could easily store turning chisels in the drawers if I needed to.

I was also originally going to have the slanted front face start right at the front edge of the cabinet, but then realized that I'd leave a lot of space behind all that unused and the design just felt off balance. So I moved it back until the PVC pipes took all the space behind, and that left me with about 8" of horizontal space in front which seems like it'll come in handy to temporarily put things down.

A friend who visited this weekend pointed out that if/when I do need more chisel storage I could also add outriggers on either side of the cabinet, but it'll be a while before I get to that. It also feels like I'm getting close to a workable set of chisels so I'm not buying more as often these days. The Easy Wood Tools chisels at the top aren't my top favorite tools, I like the traditional chisels better for most things (though I do like the EWT hollower the most out of the three). The EWT chisels get used more when I want to let someone try the lathe for the first time including my 8 1/2 year old son.

 

[sprior]

The other thing is that the whole thing is built as a rolling base cabinet and the tool holder on the top is just fastened down with a few screws coming up through the top of the base cabinet, so if I think of something better all I need to do is make the new top piece and ditch the old one, not a big deal.

 

[Bob Willing]

I like your idea of the sharpening grinder attached to the top.:thumbsup:

 

[sprior]

I've actually got a Tormek on its own (non-mobile) stand and a dry grinder on a rolling stand. Those stands are on the list to get rebuilt as they are open and have no drawers or anything for storage. I wouldn't put either of them on my new chisel cabinet because of water that might spill or grit that gets thrown off - OK, I'm a neat freak.