Several people have asked if the panel saws stored on my lid interior keep my old “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” from closing. The answer is both yes and no.

It closes fully if I slide the top tray to between 5″ and 6-1/2″ from the front edge. And while this sounds persnickety, I’ve become accustomed to it; my hands automatically reposition that tray when I’m done rooting around inside the thing, so it closes with no problem. But if I don’t (say, when I’m intentionally trying to make it not fully close for a picture), one of the saw handles catches the edge of the tray, and the dust seal doesn’t seal. And if you take  look at the bevel on the bottom skirt, you’ll see that I really need that dust seal to seal…

So on the chest I’m working on now (which I’ll keep at the Lost Art Press shop), I’m going to tweak the interior a bit so as to not have to be precise in that tray location. There’s enough room on top of my moulding planes to lower the bottom till runner by about 3/4″ and still have plenty of room underneath to fit a half-set of modern hollows and rounds (should I ever acquire such a heady thing!). That will allow me to keep the tills the same size (the top two are 2-3/4″ tall, including the nailed-on bottoms) x 10 deep; the bottom one is 4-1/2″ tall x 10″ deep*) but lower them in the case just enough to overcome the saw-handle issue. Assuming I don’t overfill the top till, of course.

* My till sizes are slightly different than what Christopher Schwarz shows in his book. His are all 9″ deep, and his bottom till is 5-1/2″ tall. I believe the depth of his tills is dictated by the saw till in the bottom front of his chest; because I’ve disobeyed him on saw storage (in addition to moving the panel saws to the lid, my backsaws hang behind my chisel rack on the front wall), I can get away with that extra inch.