Adam Savage here from tested with a
brief show-and-tell one of the things that happens in this shop obviously is
that I use a ton of different processes and materials and tools and in general
the shop is set up as a generalists paradise all the tools are kind of out
and in the open but every now and then there's a skill that I possess like
welding that requires so much specialized equipment I devote a section
of the shop to it and I have recently added a special
section for a skill I possess and it came about when I was working on my
star-lord costume for Silicon Valley comic-con I made two versions of
star-lords belt this is version 2.0 and I'm really pleased with how this came
out I love working with leather but I was working with leather and so because
I was working with leather I was using punches and I was using various
measuring tools and cutting tools and I was pulling out a bunch of specialized
leather tools now I do enough leather work that for a long time I've needed a
concentration of all my leather tools in one area and this was an attempt at that
this is a pair of makeup cases I bought on Amazon and then glued together with
three pieces of acrylic and a handle so I could carry it around and I thought
this was actually a pretty good leather tool kit but it suffers from a couple of
problems first what's great about it is it's clear so you can see where
everything else I really dig that it's got a coating of paint because we had a
can of spray paint explode near it it was mostly my fault okay was entirely my
fault the problems with this tool kit is this
I had this top level and I made this nice velcro thing so it lifts up and
opens but there's a horizontal surface and one of the rules about any shop is
it a horizontal surface will soon be covered it is a universally accepted
truth that a horizontal surface will soon be covered and so I would do things
like I would take a new tool and put it there now that means all of a sudden
when I want something in there I have to move this and get this which if you know
me you know starts to really tick me off and it doesn't make sense to have this
horizontal surface with this this should be drawers and it
just wasn't working and I kept pulling this thing out and putting it back in
and it was like unruly and a little bigger than it should be
suffice to say last weekend after working on my star-lord belt I came into
the shop alone and without cameras present I did a one day build okay two
day build of a new leather tool kit and well you guessed it it's sitting here
right behind me this is the form factor I chose and there are really specific
reasons for this form factor and I am really pleased with this box so welcome
to my new leather kit oh yeah if you follow me on social media you saw
several in progress shots of this box being kitted out and filled up and then
we eventually painted it now to give you a brief tour on the back we have the
leather punched surface which is a nice piece of plastic that you use that
doesn't damage your punch blades for cutting or punching or stamping your
leather that's a critical piece and then inside here we've got everything from
sundries like needles and blades and rivets and grommet setters to the
various tools the punches the setters the scythes the blades the strap cutters
brushes punches belt ends my favorite mallet yeah pair of scissors back there
a leather knife that a fan made for me that is really gorgeous and all of it
outlined in white everything has a place and everything in its place this this
makes me really happy now I want to talk a little bit about the design I went
with a tall thin design because I noticed that when I have specialized
toolboxes in this shop they often live for months at a time just stuff between
a couple of other tools and in that I needed something with a small
form-factor so it could sock away and not take up a lot of room so I solved
that by making it thin the second advantage to making it thin is that when
I open it all the way up it doesn't take up a lot of real estate so one of the
things about leather working that I was finding
was I liked having my tools out and available to me but I didn't want to
take up so I wanted to put this on the bench but I didn't want to take up a ton
of bench real estate so this solves that problem too thirdly it is shallow which
means there's very few places you can put stuff behind other stuff and lose
track of it everything you need is visible in one glance that is really
really key and lastly the design is partially inspired by chemistry sets if
you don't know what chemistry set to her there a thing they used to sell when I
was a kid and you could buy chemicals and do stuff with him now I think the
chemistry sets come with no chemicals that's something I read online it must
be true so yeah the old chemistry sets had this
kind of form factor of the double opening door I also will tell you I have
a special technique when I'm making a box in which the box just doesn't just
have a lid actually part of the box will move and open and that I build the
entire box at once so I built this box like this at once and then I used the
table saw to make this cut and then I use the table saw to make this cut and
because I was using a thin blade the tolerances are just fine
I actually don't end up with any oversized gaps or anything and because
I've built the box monolithically and then cut it well I know that everything
is going to fit together just perfectly this has been sitting out on the table
for the four days since I finished it it'll will eventually find a home
somewhere stuffed into the corner of the shop but for right now I just like
looking at it because I find it very relaxing I hope you do too don't I almost forgot there is one more
and perhaps the most important influence as to the form factor and shape of this
box yeah you know what it is it's the studly tool box
what is the studly tool box okay maybe you want to pause this video right
now and go google Studley st UDL UI toolbox and glory in what is objectively
and unequivocally the greatest toolbox ever designed by a human being and it's
over a hundred years old there are a book there are entire books devoted to
breakdowns of the Studley toolbox it is a magnificent woodworkers masterpiece of
a toolbox and it is in this form factor with a density of tools that's like six
times this density but since it's one of my favorite things in the world of
course it came into my brain as I was making this
