A Life-changing Box

Well, at least for one small slice of my life.

Given my forays into the woods for cutting firewood I must necessarily haul all the tool requisite for the task.  For a full day or two or three of cutting this includes stuff like cant hooks (the tools for rolling over logs), ropes and blocks for yanking on large logs, lotsa fuel and bar oil, and sometimes sledge and wedge and occasionally even a digging bar to get a big rock out of the way.   And there are lots of rocks as they are this region’s dominant agricultural product (just kidding, it’s cattle).

But there are other times when all I’m doing is a couple hours of clearing the understory or clearing a path to a larger trove.  This is especially the purpose of my new box.

A fitted plastic case for my chainsaw is useless for anything other than protecting the chainsaw.  I wanted to chainsaw container to do a lot more.  At the same time the molded plastic case has the advantage of being lightweight and I like that feature a lot.  To accomplish this I made the box out of 3/8″ plywood, not as light as the molded plastic but light enough.  Combined with glue, glueblocks, and lots of triangulation it is a tough, stiff, “lightweight” carrying container for everything I need for a brief chainsaw session.

The box holds my chainsaw with a quarter inch to spare in length, four replacement chains, two quarts of lubricant oil, two quarts of fuel, my gloves, some sharpening tools, a roofing hatchet, ear muffs, Kevlar chaps, and probably a couple more things that do not come to mind right now.

BTW, the box is painted orange not out of Stihl brand loyalty, but rather I paint everything that goes into the woods with orange paint so I can find it quickly when I mislay it.  Which happens a lot.