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