Hi everybody, I am fairly new to bonsai, I just started getting serious
about 5 monthes ago. I have a good amount of tools I use to train my bonsai,
but I am just curious what everybody uses to store their tools in. I've been
looking for a desent container, but I can find nothing. Sorry to send out
such a boring topic, but I just need a little help. Thanks you very much. -
Colin Orinda, CA





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Colin Horn wrote:

Hi everybody, I am fairly new to bonsai, I just started getting serious
about 5 monthes ago. I have a good amount of tools I use to train my bonsai,
but I am just curious what everybody uses to store their tools in. I've been
looking for a desent container, but I can find nothing. Sorry to send out
such a boring topic, but I just need a little help. Thanks you very much. -
Colin Orinda, CA

A regular tool box will do. There is also the kind of leather or canvas
"tool rolls" with different sized pockets to fit the tools, check out
http://www.stonelantern.com , Bonsai Mart in the UK sells a very nice
bonsai tools bag http://www.bonsaimart.co.uk Rubber Maid also have nice
toolbags in nylon with different sized pockets sutiable for bonsai tools.

Henrik Gistvall, Uppsala, Sweden

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I like the canvas tool bags sold by Lowe's and Home Depot. There are about a
dozen different styles and sizes.

Billy on the Florida Space Coast

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Hi everybody, I am fairly new to bonsai, I just started getting
serious
about 5 monthes ago. I have a good amount of tools I use to
train my bonsai,
but I am just curious what everybody uses to store their tools
in. I've been
looking for a desent container, but I can find nothing. Sorry
to send out
such a boring topic, but I just need a little help. Thanks you
very much. -

Golly, this is an easy one. Sears sells any number of hand-held,
or wheeled, compartmentalized tool boxes for prices ranging from
about $12 to $200. So do either of the "Marts," Home Depot,
Lowes, Scotty's, Ace Hardware, etc. etc. etc.

Or, go to a fishing supply store and purchase any of their tackle
boxes.

Or, go to a craft store and buy one of the boxes sold there to
hold crafts supplies.

If you were down here, I have an extra (empty) one . . .

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Our life is
frittered away by detail . . . . Simplify! Simplify. -- Henry
David Thoreau - Walden

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In a message dated 3/17/2003 7:52:17 AM Eastern Standard Time,
writes:

Golly, this is an easy one. Sears sells any number of hand-held,
or wheeled, compartmentalized tool boxes for prices ranging from
about $12 to $200. So do either of the "Marts," Home Depot,
Lowes, Scotty's, Ace Hardware, etc. etc. etc.


I have a larger one of these to carry the heavy not so often used tools,
wire, die grinder, branch bender, etc.

For the most often used tools, I use a tool belt that has add ons at the belt
for my Felco pruner, concave cutter, scissors, wire cutter, etc. (these are
also regular leather tool accessories). This way as I walk around it is easy
to reach for my allotted space (don't even have to look now) to grab the
desired tool. This is what I use at local demonstrations as well.

Luis Fontanills,
Miami, Florida USA

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For the most often used tools, I use a tool belt that has add
ons at the belt
for my Felco pruner, concave cutter, scissors, wire cutter,
etc. (these are
also regular leather tool accessories). This way as I walk
around it is easy
to reach for my allotted space (don't even have to look now) to
grab the
desired tool. This is what I use at local demonstrations as
well.

I guess I wouldn't make a very good gunslinger. I dislike (mild
term for what I really feel) things draped around my waist. I
prefer to arrange tools on the table (or simply to have the tool
chest set on the table or floor beside me).

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Our life is
frittered away by detail . . . . Simplify! Simplify. -- Henry
David Thoreau - Walden

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin Horn"
Subject: [IBC] tool box


Hi everybody, I am fairly new to bonsai, I just started getting serious
about 5 monthes ago. I have a good amount of tools I use to train my
bonsai,
but I am just curious what everybody uses to store their tools in. I've
been
looking for a desent container, but I can find nothing. Sorry to send out
such a boring topic, but I just need a little help. Thanks you very
much. -
Colin Orinda, CA

Colin,
I have a "few" tools, so for many years I've used a JENSEN electronics tools
box. They make many varieties and inner pallet styles. The inner pallets for
electronic tools work great for our tools.I'm sure they have a web pg
or/and go to a large electronics parts supplier in your area. You know, the
places where tv repairmen buy parts, etc.
Hint....buy a bigger one than you need right now!!
Regards,
Dale Cochoy, Wild Things Bonsai Studio, Hartville, Ohio
http://www.WildThingsBonsai.Com
Specializing in power wood carving tools.
Yakimono no Kokoro bonsai pottery of hand-built stoneware

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An intriguing question...

A friend gave me one of those tool pouches that fits arount a 5 gallon
plastic paint bucket, & I think that might be good. I'm in an old habit of
spreading a cloth tool roll out across the roof of an English setter's
doghouse that sits near my bonsai. That dog has been gone for over 45
years, but the rooftop of her house is still mighty convenient though
becoming a bit shy of the shingle-grit that holds the tool bag in-place on
its slanted plane.

You can overconstruct efficiency until the whole exercise lacks character.
Invariaby, I upturn a paint bucket, a garbage can, a stack of strurdy
nursery pots et al. on end to set a sturdy and broad turntable for most
bonsai work that takes more than 5 minutes.

You usually want extra soil nearby and often want a variety of annealed wire
and soil screening wire as well as containers to catch the residue for soil
repotting, and pot-hole screening... and maybe your landscaping saw or even
a heftier pruner than normally among your tools to remove those pesky limbs.
The bamboo skewers on hand are usually just a little to short for the job
needing doing, so I scurry off to locate another set.

I keep a Foredom carving tool hanging from an tall portable wrought iron
pole stand with three snake like legs that remind me to use it with
caution-- like other bonsai tools, it charms the user. Occasionally, I
pull-out the butane torch for enhancing jin and shari, but a friend more
often borrows it to prepare caramel glaze for creme brullee.

Come to think of it, I have never really 'organized' this activity at all &
have probably wasted enough steps to climb the Andes twice or circumnavigate
the Southern states. Better listen to Jim who can save you steps in raising
bonsai and horses at the same time... :-). One day Jim will write the
definitive book on horse-hoof picks.

If Bill Valavanis had my organizational skills, he'd use two tractor trailer
trucks and perhaps the hold of a cargo plane for his spring club tours. It
is like magic to see the content of his van at a club event. He disgorges
enough material to fill three vans, yet the van still looks over half full.
He must be cheating reality with some space-time warp or magic gourd
technology.

Elegance & comfort come in many packages... so whatever tool box you choose
will come to suit your style to perfection.

Best wishes,
Chris... C. Cochrane, , Richmond VA USA

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Better listen to Jim who can save you steps in raising
bonsai and horses at the same time... :-). One day Jim will
write the
definitive book on horse-hoof picks.

Don't forget the farrier's hoof snips. ;-) Great for big roots.
$30 cheaper than the same thing with "bonsai" tacked into its
label.

Alas, for all the preaching I do on keeping your bonsai tables
and work area neat, my work area is a disaster. I keep my
toolbox inside an old, homebuilt cabinet I made to hold my very
first Kaypro CP/M computer. My bottles of fish emulsion,
seaweed, and Peters fertilizer sit on top of the cabinet, beside
the Concern pyrethrin spray and the Bacillus thuriengenesis
concentrate, along with several now-empty spray bottles into
which will go my homemade soap or oil sprays if I need them. My
workbench is another cobbled-together batch of left-over wood
upon which an old, plastic printer stand sits with one of Gary
Marchal's turntables sitting atop it, and a smaller, wooden
turntable tucked underneath. There's a third, aluminum,
turntable somewhere. Five of those paint buckets with mixed
soil, OLD mixed soil, compost, pine bark nuggets, and freshly
collected sphagnum moss sit beside, underneath and just out of
reach of the old, rusty folding chair I sit on. A rickety table
beside me contains several rolls of wire on its top, another
bucket with a LOT of shorter, salvaged pieces of wire in it,
assorted trowels, hand rakes, half- and whole-chopsticks, a dead
trunk that SOMEDAY may make a tanuki, and ETC. (mostly etc.).
All of it covered with a general scattering of wasted Mule Mix
litter, old soil, and rags for vainly trying to clean dirt off my
hands. Also on hand THIS spring is a bottle of mosquito
repellant! (WILL IT EVER STOP RAINING????????)

So, do as I say, do not do as I do. ;-)

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Our life is
frittered away by detail . . . . Simplify! Simplify. -- Henry
David Thoreau - Walden

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