An excellent Chuck Box and a beautiful piece of woodwork. Very elegant table/handle/stool! Thanks for the tips on building esp the foil or plastic roll fit for depth. I like the adjustable shelving, nice touch! 0:37 - One small detail, easily overlooked by viewers, is the recessed platform on the table that holds the chuck box securely without sliding off. That is genius. Very good attention to detail. Please do not add music to any tour, demo, or DIY video. This music is blaringly loud and a huge turnoff. Natural sounds would have been so nice.
A number of people have asked questions over the years about design aspect of the chuck box and as I don't post to youtube much anymore these questions have gone unanswered. Hopefully this clears up some of them. Plans For Sale At this time I have no intention to produce the chuckbox for sale, nor do I have any plans to produce a plan set. After getting a start on drafting the plans many years ago it started to take up too much time and I abandoned the project. At this point I can't imagine ever completing them. To that end the information below is the best I can offer anyone interesting in building their own. Main Chuckbox 18" wide x 14" deep x 17.25" tall (exterior dimensions) Of that, the swing out doors are 2 5/8" "thick". And remember that the top has two fold-out panels to double the size of the work surface. This means that there are two layers on top (fold out panels + top of chuck box) and then a layer on the bottom. Keep in mind that there is nothing magic about these dimensions it's what the box ended up at after figuring out what I wanted in side and how it was to be arranged. Organization: Internally you can see how things are divided in the video and any photos that are floating around. On the right side is a cubby for storing two 1lb. propane bottles for a cook stove. There's a little extra depth in mine that I "filled" with a bottle for dish soap. Above the propane cubby is the slot for the paper towels. To the left is a big flex compartment with adjustable shelves where pots / pans are stored, a trimmed down cutting board (under the pans), then a shelf to support bowls and a little boxy drawer for mugs / stuff, then the top shelf which is where I keep the plates. This doesn't have to be tall. Lastly, a pull-out drawer with dividers for utensils is at the very top. One door has some hooks where I hang the tongs, spatulas, and big serving spoon. The other drawer has some shelves / pockets for spices and such. Tiny eye screws and small bungies keep everything in place. Nonetheless stuff rattles about. To mitigate this I slip cloth or paper towels between pots and pans and the plates. Haven't come up with a solution for the utensil drawer. But overall it's not horrible. Carry Crate / Legs The carry crate is slightly larger to fit around the outside of the chuck box. You'll want a little margin so it's not quite such a tight fit but not too loose either. The sides of the crate are cut down so that they do not interfere with the latches that keep the doors shut tight. And I added two small handles to make it easier to lift the chuck box out of the crate (positioned so that they are above the crate legs when everything is packed away. There is a relationship between the crate height and the checkbox so that when the carry crate is flipped over the combined height equals your desired work surface. In my case, I wanted 30" to match the height of a cargo deck / table I built for my Jeep. That said, that's no magic number and i've found a 30" table is a slightly uncomfortably tall for typical folding camp chairs as I tend to sink dow into the fabric seat. Construction Materials Both the carry crate and chuck box are built out of 1/2" plywood. I believe I used decent quality fir plywood. I tried to skeletonize partitions and shelves and the carry crate where I could to shave weight but it's still rather heavy and awkward at 28 lb. empty. However, the utensil drawer is 1/4" plywood. For water proofing I applied many many many many coats of an oil finish. I can't remember what kind, it may have been linseed oil or . . . . something. I normally don't go camping in the rain but the finish has held up quite well over the years. The "feet" of the carry crate legs were also coated in a paint-on truck bed liner to help with durability when set in the dirt. I used piano hinges for the top flaps and routed a ~1/16" recess so the hinges would sit as flat as possible when open. Regular small hinges were used on the doors. Then pick your choice of latch. I'd recommend something that has a little binding when closed as opposed to a barrel bolt or other looser fastening mechanism. Lessons Learned / Recommendations Having done this once I'll mention it's a bit of an involved process, at least it was for me. Yet I really enjoyed making the chuck box and still use it today. Still, here are some things I've learned. Bulkiness vs. Organization: The checkbox has a certain inefficient bulkiness to it that sort of bugs me. I wanted it as compact as possible but still needed to fit everything. It might be more efficient and lighter to pack everything into a Rubbermaid tote bin. However, it keeps everything organizes but more importantly, it's all accessible with the side-opening doors. In a tote bin you're having to dig down through the top and it's hard to have the tote bin double as a work surface because of that. Weight / Plywood Thickness: It's heavy. 28 lb. of plywood just to make a box to keep kitchen gear in. If I were to do this again I might explore a construction method that used 1/4" hardwood plywood with some 45 degree fillets glued into the corners to help strengthen connections. That would have cut the weight nearly in half. The 1/2" plywood construction also eats up a lot of space due to all the internal partitions. Plywood Selection: I might also recommend going with a hardwood plywood. They are a little more expensive but the hardwood plywood will hold screws and fasteners better. 1/2" plywood is not much to work with and softwood plywoods just . . . well, they can tear out. Also, they can have voids in the ply. A baltic birch "euro" plywood would be a good choice and worth the extra cost. No Adjustable Shelves: While the shelves are adjustable I've never adjusted them in all these years. It's an added step that complicates the build process that's probably unnecessary. Figure out good shelf heights and fix them in place. Sizes and Future Proofing: What drove me a little nuts was trying to think ahead when figuring how much space I needed for the different items in the event I needed to replace something down the road. Such as: could I get mugs or bowls of the same height to fit between the shelves? This is why I did the adjustable shelves. Take into account the sizes of aluminum foil boxes and paper towel rolls. I didn't and everything would have fit better if I made the box ~1/2" deeper. Concern about unknown sizes of eventual replacement items is also why I didn't incorporate a camp stove into the design. It would not be nice to design the checkbox around a particular stove only to have it's eventual replacement not fit. I think that's about it.
Thank you. I'm working on developing a plan set. I'll post up here when they are available. Last weekend I had a chance to test it out on a camping trip and it worked out really well.
If I remember correctly I think the box is about 26 - 28 lb. empty. And that includes the base. All the cut-outs and skeletonizing shaved about 8 lb off the total weight.
Awesome. I would just add some latches to attach the stand to the box while closed so that when you pick up the box, the stand comes with it. Just a suggestion...
A few updates: I've used this a few times out camping now and it has worked really well. It is bulky in the back of my Jeep but I'm fine with that trade off for the organization it provides. It's also very stable out at the campsite. To protect the feet I put on a few coats of Herculiner on the base feet. After all, they just sit in the dirt when it's set up.
That was a design feature I went back and forth on: Ultimately, I opted to omit it as others had pointed out, built-in stove storage / functionality tends to get the chuck boxes messy, particularly if you cook with the stove nestled into the top of the chuck box. Besides, stoves come in many different sizes. I didn't want to get locked in to a particular size, nor over-build the cavity and waste more space.
Try checking at a smaller lumber yard or specialty wood supplier. We have Dunn Lumber which is local lumber store but they carry the specialty plywoods and can order things if they don't have it in stock.
I have checked out this video a number of times. This is by far the best chuck box I have seen. Any plans available. I did see in the comments that you were trying to find time to get them together, I think a couple of years ago. Any chance you could post them.
I used 1/2" ACX fir plywood for the chuckbox and main shelves and dividers. 1/4" plywood was used for the utensil tray and the other box on the middle shelves. It worked pretty well, though I would probably have been better off doing a hardwood ply such as a baltic birch. If for no other reason than some of the screws and fasteners would have gotten a better bite in the hardwood vs. the softwood. But I was concerned that the exterior glue used in the ACX would hold up better outside.
Your Chucking Box is Great! The Size you show on your video looks perfect, any ideas when you will have the Detailed Dimensions available for the exact one you show on video, p,us any tips or hints on construction without too much fuss? Thanks for Sharing your Ideas
Also, the intention of this design was to organize cooking gear and basic supplies. It wasn't designed to carry the stove or food stuffs. The stove I have just packs separately in the Jeep. And I keep my food stuffs either in a cooler or a small tote bin. The system works well. it anchors down with ratchet straps to a cargo deck I built in the back of my Jeep. The deck is removable from the rig and convers to a camping table with built-in folding legs. Chuck box + Cargo deck = awesome.
Hi Nikko, Check out the responses in my recent posting above. They answer a number of questions I've received over the years. To you specifically, sorry but I do not sell these or have the plans available. Overall exterior dimensions for the main chuckbox are: 18"w x 14"d x 17.25"h with the door being 2 5/8" thick (which is included in the 14" depth). Keep in mind these aren't magic numbers, rather simply the end result from figuring out the interior organization and space requirements of what I wanted to pack.
Awesome kitchen box champ, well done........have you got plans somewhere though with measurements so we can build one similar ? Cheers from down under !
(I'm sorry, I don't know how to privately message you) Very cool! Also thought it would be great for traveling students, but first thing that came to mind was rescue, aid workers (missions etc) where travel from one site to another with education tools, medical equipment, etc, would be needed. I've seen and tried some of the fancy storage containers out there, but have never seen one this perfect of size and so easily transportable, where you don't have to load and unload everything at the same time. I would ask the same question that the previous poster did about plans, but having had some close calls with a new dremel, I was wondering if you still make these, and would be willing to sell one my "no-profit" organization, whose current mission is training about clean water usage. If so, please let me know. Thanks. (It's hard to find materials that don't freak some isolated villages out. Wood seems to be universally acceptable. Metal not so much, as student scared children by having braces.)
How much to have you CNC the parts for me and ship them or the dimensions or plans. Your Chuck Box is the best one I have seen so far. Portability and Compactness for smaller people to lift. Thanks for sharing Jay
An excellent Chuck Box and a beautiful piece of woodwork. Very elegant table/handle/stool!
Thanks for the tips on building esp the foil or plastic roll fit for depth.
I like the adjustable shelving, nice touch!
0:37 - One small detail, easily overlooked by viewers, is the recessed platform on the table that holds the chuck box securely without sliding off. That is genius. Very good attention to detail.
Please do not add music to any tour, demo, or DIY video. This music is blaringly loud and a huge turnoff. Natural sounds would have been so nice.
A number of people have asked questions over the years about design aspect of the chuck box and as I don't post to youtube much anymore these questions have gone unanswered. Hopefully this clears up some of them.
Plans For Sale
At this time I have no intention to produce the chuckbox for sale, nor do I have any plans to produce a plan set. After getting a start on drafting the plans many years ago it started to take up too much time and I abandoned the project. At this point I can't imagine ever completing them. To that end the information below is the best I can offer anyone interesting in building their own.
Main Chuckbox
18" wide x 14" deep x 17.25" tall (exterior dimensions)
Of that, the swing out doors are 2 5/8" "thick". And remember that the top has two fold-out panels to double the size of the work surface. This means that there are two layers on top (fold out panels + top of chuck box) and then a layer on the bottom. Keep in mind that there is nothing magic about these dimensions it's what the box ended up at after figuring out what I wanted in side and how it was to be arranged.
Organization:
Internally you can see how things are divided in the video and any photos that are floating around. On the right side is a cubby for storing two 1lb. propane bottles for a cook stove. There's a little extra depth in mine that I "filled" with a bottle for dish soap. Above the propane cubby is the slot for the paper towels. To the left is a big flex compartment with adjustable shelves where pots / pans are stored, a trimmed down cutting board (under the pans), then a shelf to support bowls and a little boxy drawer for mugs / stuff, then the top shelf which is where I keep the plates. This doesn't have to be tall. Lastly, a pull-out drawer with dividers for utensils is at the very top.
One door has some hooks where I hang the tongs, spatulas, and big serving spoon. The other drawer has some shelves / pockets for spices and such. Tiny eye screws and small bungies keep everything in place.
Nonetheless stuff rattles about. To mitigate this I slip cloth or paper towels between pots and pans and the plates. Haven't come up with a solution for the utensil drawer. But overall it's not horrible.
Carry Crate / Legs
The carry crate is slightly larger to fit around the outside of the chuck box. You'll want a little margin so it's not quite such a tight fit but not too loose either. The sides of the crate are cut down so that they do not interfere with the latches that keep the doors shut tight. And I added two small handles to make it easier to lift the chuck box out of the crate (positioned so that they are above the crate legs when everything is packed away.
There is a relationship between the crate height and the checkbox so that when the carry crate is flipped over the combined height equals your desired work surface. In my case, I wanted 30" to match the height of a cargo deck / table I built for my Jeep. That said, that's no magic number and i've found a 30" table is a slightly uncomfortably tall for typical folding camp chairs as I tend to sink dow into the fabric seat.
Construction Materials
Both the carry crate and chuck box are built out of 1/2" plywood. I believe I used decent quality fir plywood. I tried to skeletonize partitions and shelves and the carry crate where I could to shave weight but it's still rather heavy and awkward at 28 lb. empty. However, the utensil drawer is 1/4" plywood.
For water proofing I applied many many many many coats of an oil finish. I can't remember what kind, it may have been linseed oil or . . . . something. I normally don't go camping in the rain but the finish has held up quite well over the years. The "feet" of the carry crate legs were also coated in a paint-on truck bed liner to help with durability when set in the dirt.
I used piano hinges for the top flaps and routed a ~1/16" recess so the hinges would sit as flat as possible when open.
Regular small hinges were used on the doors. Then pick your choice of latch. I'd recommend something that has a little binding when closed as opposed to a barrel bolt or other looser fastening mechanism.
Lessons Learned / Recommendations
Having done this once I'll mention it's a bit of an involved process, at least it was for me. Yet I really enjoyed making the chuck box and still use it today. Still, here are some things I've learned.
Bulkiness vs. Organization:
The checkbox has a certain inefficient bulkiness to it that sort of bugs me. I wanted it as compact as possible but still needed to fit everything. It might be more efficient and lighter to pack everything into a Rubbermaid tote bin. However, it keeps everything organizes but more importantly, it's all accessible with the side-opening doors. In a tote bin you're having to dig down through the top and it's hard to have the tote bin double as a work surface because of that.
Weight / Plywood Thickness:
It's heavy. 28 lb. of plywood just to make a box to keep kitchen gear in. If I were to do this again I might explore a construction method that used 1/4" hardwood plywood with some 45 degree fillets glued into the corners to help strengthen connections. That would have cut the weight nearly in half. The 1/2" plywood construction also eats up a lot of space due to all the internal partitions.
Plywood Selection:
I might also recommend going with a hardwood plywood. They are a little more expensive but the hardwood plywood will hold screws and fasteners better. 1/2" plywood is not much to work with and softwood plywoods just . . . well, they can tear out. Also, they can have voids in the ply. A baltic birch "euro" plywood would be a good choice and worth the extra cost.
No Adjustable Shelves:
While the shelves are adjustable I've never adjusted them in all these years. It's an added step that complicates the build process that's probably unnecessary. Figure out good shelf heights and fix them in place.
Sizes and Future Proofing:
What drove me a little nuts was trying to think ahead when figuring how much space I needed for the different items in the event I needed to replace something down the road. Such as: could I get mugs or bowls of the same height to fit between the shelves? This is why I did the adjustable shelves. Take into account the sizes of aluminum foil boxes and paper towel rolls. I didn't and everything would have fit better if I made the box ~1/2" deeper.
Concern about unknown sizes of eventual replacement items is also why I didn't incorporate a camp stove into the design. It would not be nice to design the checkbox around a particular stove only to have it's eventual replacement not fit.
I think that's about it.
Thank you so much!
Thank for all the information. Really appreciate it
Thank you! Use Shift+Enter to create a new single line. Just Enter by itself will create double line spacing.
Wow, one of the best chuck box designs I've seen.
A nice, tidy and functional unit 👍
I absolutely love this! Beautiful workmanship, perfectly executed idea. MUCH RESPECT FOR YOUR SKILLS!
Awesome design, you really should make some plans available for it. Top notch build sir.
Thank you. I'm working on developing a plan set. I'll post up here when they are available. Last weekend I had a chance to test it out on a camping trip and it worked out really well.
If I remember correctly I think the box is about 26 - 28 lb. empty. And that includes the base. All the cut-outs and skeletonizing shaved about 8 lb off the total weight.
Awesome. I would just add some latches to attach the stand to the box while closed so that when you pick up the box, the stand comes with it. Just a suggestion...
I’m nicking a couple of your ideas. Absolutely brilliant 👍
Neat setup. Running a F150 4X4 with Tonneau cover. Hope to build a box within tailgate and height measurements.
Very nice! Prefect for a tailgater or picnic.
Really nice design and execution.
A few updates: I've used this a few times out camping now and it has worked really well. It is bulky in the back of my Jeep but I'm fine with that trade off for the organization it provides. It's also very stable out at the campsite. To protect the feet I put on a few coats of Herculiner on the base feet. After all, they just sit in the dirt when it's set up.
Awesome one of the best ideas for camping i've seen
Très beau et bonne idée 💡 j'aurais aimé avoir les plans en système métrique, merci pour le partage
Very nice!
Well Done! Nice design and well thought out.
Thank you. Yes. It's constructed out of 1/2" ACX plywood and finished with five coats of Daly's Seafin Teak Oil.
That was a design feature I went back and forth on: Ultimately, I opted to omit it as others had pointed out, built-in stove storage / functionality tends to get the chuck boxes messy, particularly if you cook with the stove nestled into the top of the chuck box. Besides, stoves come in many different sizes. I didn't want to get locked in to a particular size, nor over-build the cavity and waste more space.
Try checking at a smaller lumber yard or specialty wood supplier. We have Dunn Lumber which is local lumber store but they carry the specialty plywoods and can order things if they don't have it in stock.
I have checked out this video a number of times. This is by far the best chuck box I have seen. Any plans available. I did see in the comments that you were trying to find time to get them together, I think a couple of years ago. Any chance you could post them.
I used 1/2" ACX fir plywood for the chuckbox and main shelves and dividers. 1/4" plywood was used for the utensil tray and the other box on the middle shelves. It worked pretty well, though I would probably have been better off doing a hardwood ply such as a baltic birch. If for no other reason than some of the screws and fasteners would have gotten a better bite in the hardwood vs. the softwood. But I was concerned that the exterior glue used in the ACX would hold up better outside.
Brilliant! I love that, may have to copy that!! thank you!
I like it! Wish it had a place to store a Colman stove.
Your Chucking Box is Great! The Size you show on your video looks perfect, any ideas when you will have the Detailed Dimensions available for the exact one you show on video, p,us any tips or hints on construction without too much fuss? Thanks for Sharing your Ideas
Great Box, well thought out !!!!! what are overall dim of box and what does it weight empty ? Great video Thankx for sharing.....
nice work practical and pleasant.Thank you from turkey
Very nice work!
Also, the intention of this design was to organize cooking gear and basic supplies. It wasn't designed to carry the stove or food stuffs. The stove I have just packs separately in the Jeep. And I keep my food stuffs either in a cooler or a small tote bin. The system works well. it anchors down with ratchet straps to a cargo deck I built in the back of my Jeep. The deck is removable from the rig and convers to a camping table with built-in folding legs. Chuck box + Cargo deck = awesome.
Excellent design and build! Could you share dimensions and plans?
Any word on basic plans for this, yet? I'm looking to make a chuck box over the winter, and I really like some of your features.
Fantastic !!! Hope you don't mind but I am definitely going to make one!!
Hey I love this and want to build my own. Do you have plans for it?
Excellent box......any plans available:
Sweet Jesus!,...I need those plans...
Nice job.
Fantastic design . It is what I have looking for it seems. What are the dimensions Sir. Have you produce them to sell it so how much?
Hi Nikko, Check out the responses in my recent posting above. They answer a number of questions I've received over the years. To you specifically, sorry but I do not sell these or have the plans available. Overall exterior dimensions for the main chuckbox are: 18"w x 14"d x 17.25"h with the door being 2 5/8" thick (which is included in the 14" depth). Keep in mind these aren't magic numbers, rather simply the end result from figuring out the interior organization and space requirements of what I wanted to pack.
Any chance for buying the plans for this smaller chuck box as it would be perfect? Also unloaded weight?
Wow, perfect. Can I buy one from you?
Spectacular!
awe.. i want one.love it..
Can you tell me the exact size of your box and how much space is in between the adjustable shelves? looks like a great box
Really awesome and are they for sale
I was wondering why you waffled the shelves - to save weight I suppose?
Wow are you selling these. Or at least the plans. I could probably make one if I had plans. otherwise I'm not that good at it.
That awesome now I have to make one and do you by any chance know the name of the first song
Awesome kitchen box champ, well done........have you got plans somewhere though with measurements so we can build one similar ?
Cheers from down under !
I am interested, if there are any plans available. Awesome. How long did it take to build
Do you have any plans for it I'm wanting to build one of my own
👍 super cool
I can give plans?? is a super nice
What is the total weight loaded? Unload?
May I have the plans pliz
Very Nice
Dear sir..may i know what is total weight ? Thanks
Genial👏👏👏👏
Sir any news on the plan?
Супер! Если не сложно, скиньте размеры.
what are the dimensions of this
excellent!
(I'm sorry, I don't know how to privately message you)
Very cool! Also thought it would be great for traveling students, but first thing that came to mind was rescue, aid workers (missions etc) where travel from one site to another with education tools, medical equipment, etc, would be needed. I've seen and tried some of the fancy storage containers out there, but have never seen one this perfect of size and so easily transportable, where you don't have to load and unload everything at the same time. I would ask the same question that the previous poster did about plans, but having had some close calls with a new dremel, I was wondering if you still make these, and would be willing to sell one my "no-profit" organization, whose current mission is training about clean water usage. If so, please let me know. Thanks. (It's hard to find materials that don't freak some isolated villages out. Wood seems to be universally acceptable. Metal not so much, as student scared children by having braces.)
Hi there do you sell these?
NICE 1~!
Size
Would you mind if you could make me one?
Nice and compact but need more utensils, not solo camping with this box.
Well dun
that is one sexy looking chuck box
Чёткая штука!👍
Manda o telefone para mim que eu quero comprar uma
Take my money
Nice, but needs to be bigger.
to little
How much to have you CNC the parts for me and ship them or the dimensions or plans. Your Chuck Box is the best one I have seen so far. Portability and Compactness for smaller people to lift. Thanks for sharing Jay