Folding Tool Box - Nail Gun Case

 After buying a lot more tools recently I realized that i'll needed something to carry them in.   At a couple job sites I saw guys that had cloth or canvas tool bags.  These have replaces the old heavy steel tool boxes that have been around for a decade.

I really like these and I still think I might buy one in the future.   Also they are light weight and have many internal pockets.  I just built an old fashioned wood tool box to hold small hand tools.

Here's a link to that blog page in case you want to see how i built it.   Wood Tool Box

The other thing that I am still interested in is a YouTube channel called Tested which has Adam Savage, one of the hosts of Mythbusters.  I've watched many of those videos several times including one where he made a wood case for one of his homemade prop guns from the movie Blade Runner. 

It has multiple hinge points to open up completely.  Plus a drawer on the bottom for additional storage.

Here's a link to the 30 minute video where he builds the case over the course of 8 hours.
http://youtu.be/-tUHJnl8qPM

I thought it was really cool how he built the case, wrapped it in fake leather, and lined the inside was felt.  I decided that a great project would be to make a case for my new nail guns that bought a few months back. 

Since buying my six  gallon air compressor Kit which came with two nail guns and a staple gun, they have been just sitting in a plastic milk crate or a red tool box which is too small.

So over several weeks I drew different designs of boxes that would hold the nail gun's.  But none of the designs seemed right, they were either too big or too boring.  I didn't want just a plain square box with hinges, lid and handle.  Then while looking at some examples online I noticed a really unique toolbox that a guy named Jeremy Broun made.  He called it a compact toolbox and it was a clam-shell design made of wood.

At first sight it doesn't look that exciting.  But you'll see in a bit how it opens and what makes it so cool.  I immediately loved the design in its simplicity and usability.  As he says in his YouTube video, big problem with toolboxes is their accessibility.  And I agree that sometimes things are getting the bottom of a tool bag and you won't be able to find it. 

I thought this foldout design would be perfect for my 3 nail guns, I could put the two smaller nail guns on the walls and fit the larger one in the center.  

For more detail you can check out this video i created.  It's a good overview and shows the steps of building the case.
 
http://youtu.be/weCN9YpEskY

It started with me measuring the three guns side-by-side and determining the smallest shape box I could make and have them all fit.

One of the problems I was having with my original design of making a square or conventional box case, was how the nail guns would be stored.  With this new clam shell design the problem basically solved itself.  The nail guns would sit vertically and be held in place with little latches.

Folding Tool Box - Nail Gun Case
 
http://youtu.be/weCN9YpEskY

Before i built anything out of wood i thought that to get a better idea of size and shape, i could make them out of cardboard.  So in about a half hour i built two different shapes.  Here's the first one, this was a square box.

The second one i thought about tapering the upper portion and make it sort of a "house profile" shape.

After looking at them for a week or so i decided to make the square version.  It would be easier to build and i wasn't really saving any room by building the tapered version.

So I bought a sheet of the cheapest wood I could find, 3/8 inch OSB.  This is the same type of boards that I used to make my wooden storage shelves except slightly thinner and lighter.

I measured and cut out the pieces using my circular saw but then the project stopped for a while.  I started working on other things and the boards just sat on my workbench in the basement for months. That was until I bought a new Craftsman table saw.

After buying the saw I re-cut the pieces so that the edges were nice and straight  It makes a huge difference, cutting board on a table saw versus a hand circular saw.  I started to assemble the boards and tried to determine how the hinged system would work.

You can see from the picture above that i decided on using a copper pipe instead of a piece of wood for the handle.  If i were to make this case again i would have used wood and maybe tried to dovetail it into the side boards.  The metal pipe is ok but i don't like it as much now as i did originally.

Another thing that i should have changed is the hinge system.  I probably should have gone with a couple of normal hinges on each side, but the original design use just a single screw on either side, so I decided to do the same.  For simplicity it worked, but it had its drawbacks.   The main drawback is that the boards are not flush at the bottom, for it to swing open you need to have a 1/4" gap.   It wasn't a huge deal since this is just a toolbox.  But it's something to know if you are trying to make something very nice and realize that there will be this big gap between the boards at the bottom.  

Here's the side panels.  The small square blocks are where the hinge screws would attach to.

The next problem I had was how to mount the nail guns. The obvious answer was to make a wooden mount, which would be a  custom cutout of the inside of the handle.  So I set the nail gun a piece of paper, traced out the inner void, then transferred that onto a 2 x 4 and cut it out. 

Let's just call this pattern version 1.   I realized that it didn't need to be so accurate all I wanted to do was support the nail gun not make a super flush mounting piece of wood.  That's how pattern version 2 came about.  This time I rounded over some of the sharp edges and left off some of the indentations.  I thought this one worked pretty well but it was still too tight.  The whole point is that it should be rugged, quick, and easy to use this one seem to find a precision and wasn't easy for the nail guns to slide on and off.   So finally I made pattern version 3. 

Here's the three versions of wood mounts i made.  You can see that each time they got smaller and more rounded over. 

And here's that version 3 set inside of the nail gun.  Looking back i probably could have used just a square block of wood. 

So I made a another version 3 and glued them to the sides using some weights to hold them in place.

At this point i could see the overall shape.  But there was still a lot of things to add to the inside.

Next i started working on the center nail gun mount.  The strongest and easiest solution was to just attach a 2x4 to the bottom panel. 

Again, sticking with the simpler is better motto, i made latches for the nail guns by using just a screw and piece of aluminum.  It's basically just a square piece of aluminum with a whole for a screw.  The key is to tension the screw hard enough so that it stays in place but not too hard so that it can't be turned.

One of the last pieces of hardware was to make a locking latch to hold the sides together.  I used basically the same concept that I held the nail guns in place, but this time I added a small knob and screw which it could lock to.

The great thing about aluminum is that it's strong yet can still be shaped using a metal file.  To make this latch it took lots of cutting, filing and to attach the handle i had to drill and tap it so that a bolt could lock it in place.  But i think it turned out great.

So this is everything basically finished.

One final thing i forgot to mention was that my original concept was to use magnets to lock the sides into place.  If you look closely in this picture you can see the round magnet in the upper corner of the center board and a metal bar on the inside corner of the side.  But i learned that the magnets would not be strong enough to hold the sides in place and that's why i had to build the aluminum latch.

There was no real reason for deciding to paint the case white, just that i have a bunch of old cans of white paint in the basement. 

Although after making the wood tool box that i mentioned in the beginning, i did want to weather the case and make it look old.  

So i did the same thing in terms of finishing.  I applied two coats of white paint, but this time instead of using wax i did two coats of polyurethane.  Now it was time to add the weathering.  If you want to see in more detail how i did it, go back and look at the wood tool box post.  Like before, i used some black and brown paint, brushed it on, then wiped it off. 

This had a huge effect since the wood in this case is OSB and isn't smooth.  The dark paint got deep into all the crevices of the boards.

I think it made it look loads better.  It gave it character and a kind of warmth that it didn't have being painted just plain white. 

Overall i like the case.  It should last a long time.  I still want to make a real nice case with a leather wrap on the outside and felt on the inside, but i haven't found a reason to make it yet.