Texas Heritage Woodworks Saddle Bag

Tool: The Orginal Saddlebag Buy Now

Manufacturer: Texas Heritage

MSRP: $80

I’m a fan of having my tools out and at hand in the workshop. It’s easy enough to mount the saws to the wall, whip up a chisel rack and tuck the planes on a shelf, but the small items rarely have a good spot to sit – so they end up on every horizontal surface, in the way and subject to being knocked around or, even worse, onto the floor.

When Jason Thigpen over at Texas Heritage Woodworks was building his Dutch tool chest, he was looking for a good way to solve the same problem. With his skill on the sewing machine and savvy in creating tool storage solutions, he came up with the Saddle Bag, a small footprint tool organizer that’s at home in a tool chest, on the wall or even attached to the side of the bench.

With 12 pockets of various sizes (from 1″-3″ in width and 3″-4″ in depth, including two pass-through pockets for longer tools such as combination squares) it easily handles miscellaneous items such as pencils, rulers, screwdrivers and squares, with plenty of room for tools that I use less often, including nail sets and countersinks. The leather-reinforced eyelets along the top of the Saddle Bag allow it to be mounted with four #6 screws. The double stitching and hand-peened copper rivets in the 14.7 ounce canvas (available in a range of colors) ensure its longevity.

At $80 it’s not an inexpensive item, but the quality of construction and durability make it a lifetime solution to the clutter of small tools. As with any storage solution, you may not find an item for every pocket, or vise-versa, but in my case, I found a home for the dozen or so small items that always bounce around the shop.  PWM