Google Analytics Alternative

Can You Work On the Road?

8 comments
12 years ago
General Articles

Hand Tool School Tool BoxI’m building a tool box as a project for Hand Tool School Semester 4. Most of the construction is done and I began to load in the tools I had designed it around. I was pleased to find everything fitting as planned with enough extra space to allow for some fasteners to hold everything in its place while the tool box is being carried. There is a fair amount of space leftover should I need to include tools for that special job. This got me thinking. As woodworkers we rarely leave our shops to do work. In fact the first couple of times I was called on to do something outside my shop I was useless. Of course this was in my power tool days so I hope that now I would fare better. However, when I think about how much I rely on my bench and the ability to grab any old plane or saw to so the job I quickly get worried about a time when I forget to bring along the right tool.

Underhill Tool Tote

My Underhill-esque Tool Tote

Our collective woodworking history is rich with journeymen joiners, cabinetmakers, and carpenters who traveled to job sites without a problem yet we have lost touch with that heritage. The necessity just isn’t there. But I can’t help but wonder what ingenious methods of work and dirt simple techniques were created out of that need to be mobile. The Housewright continually astounds me with what they can do with a framing square and I have learned some great sharpening and complex joint layout by digging through Civil War era carpenter’s manuals. I believe there is more to learn in this area and thus my toolbox project meant not only to carry my tools but act as my mobile workbench. I have a built in cabinet and moulding job I’m doing in a few weeks and some field work (literally field work) building a gate and fence out at the Steppingstone Museum this winter. I’m hoping I can learn a little bit more about woodworking outside the shop and what day to day shortcuts might come out of those experiences.

So here I stand with a hard thought about tiny group of tools designed to handle most operations and a tool box ready to allow them to work. I feel like I should be singing some German Hunting Lieder as I head into the woods…

Your Turn

What jobs or tasks take you out of the shop? What tools do you bring along? What kind of temporary workspace do you set up. Please share your indispensable tool list and thoughts in the comment section below.

Leave a Comment:

All fields with “*” are required

Jonathan Szczepanski

Shannon –

Depending on what I am doing, the tools vary. But the one thing that is constant, is my Black and Decker Workmate. In credibly portable, and does really well and clamping odd things.

Jonathan
=================================

    Shannon

    my saw bench is becoming my home built version of a workmate. Body weight is a very effective clamp.

Chris Crozier

Shannon-

I recently successfully packed a small workshop for a camping trip and managed to make a small jewellry box for my wife. A medium sized handscrew, 4 quik-clamps, a bench hook and the picnic table at the campsite made a servicable work area. A couple of chisels, mallet, block and smoothing plane, eggbeater drill and bits, folding dozuki, marking knife, pencils, square, glue and some sandpaper gave me everything I needed to finish a little project by the fire after the kids went to sleep. Everything fit in a small toolkit along with the stock I needed and I am pretty happy with the result.

Chris

    Shannon

    That’s awesome! I did something similar on vacation a few years ago when I first started carving.

Hans Christopher

Working full time as a carpenter I am a woodworker constantly on the move. Often my small truck is full of tools (both power and hand tools) and I often find myself saying I wish I had brought something else with me. But thinking hard about it if I really wanted to I could frame a house with only 4 or 5 tools. A 22 ounce farming hammer, circ saw, framing square, tape measure and level (not entirely necesary). I did recently while on vactation build a set of shelves with no more then a block plane, circ saw, tape measure and a drill. SO im beggining to wonder if I really need my truck full of tools now.

Cheers
Hans Christopher

    Shannon

    I think there is a fine line between using basic tools and working too hard. Personally I find it gratifying to be able to do so many things with only a chisel, but then when I have to do that same task over and over again, I’m wishing I had that specialty tool. I’ll say it again, guys like you are full of great tricks since you spend so much time outside a formal shop and have to “make do” with a limited tool set and working environment.

Brian Eve

Hi Shannon,

What a timely post. Last week I was asked to add a few extra shelves to an old shoe cabinet at a friend’s house. I chose laminated spruce, as it didn’t have to be pretty, and the old shelves were the same wood. I got it at the local big box store, and they even cut it to size on their panel saw.

When I got to the site, I just had to trim the pieces with my Japanese Ryoba saw, an awesome work site tool as it is small and cuts both rip and crosscut. I cut the pieces I needed, including a few long rips, standing on the piece hanging over their front step! Cleaned everything up with a block plane.

The only other tool that I needed that I forgot was a screwdriver. I had to borrow one from the client.

Using hand tools on the job site really impressed!

    Shannon

    Ha ha, I bet you are not alone on the missing screwdriver. I once took a bunch of nails but forgot my hammer to a job. Those generic tools get taken for granted a lot.