Yep,,,, Peace,,,Moosie

 

I spent a fair amount of time looking at tool chests when I was shopping. The HomeDepot Husky items are pretty poor quality. How can I tell? Open and close the drawers.

First, look at a $1000+ Craftsmen with ball bearing sliders. They are smooth as silk in their movement. Then look at one of the el cheapos. Trust me, you'll get what you pay for. The low-end ball bearing sets were a bit pricey for me, about $500.

But ... Wait for a sale at Sears. There's a mid-range (non ball bearing) tool chest they sell for $300. It includes a rolling lower chest, 8 drawer top chest and free 3 drawer middle chest. I've had mine for about 5 years. Then .. go to walmart and get a couple rolls of rubber shelf liner and line your shelves. You now have a great place to keep your tools.

One more tip: Try to plan your big purchases in advance and wait for the annual Father's Day Sale.

Good Luck

 

I was in Costco last week and they had a big stainless upper and lower box for $650 it had roller slides and was a nice box. I would have grabbed one if I had the space to ship it. There is no way I would ever pay $2500 for a supposed US made box.

 

I also only have a sledge hammer, vise grips, duct tape and some wire. I have never figured out how to get a tool chect in my CORVETTE to get it home.

 

If there is an Orchard Supply in your area, try them. They carry Craftsman products

 

Definitely get ball bearing drawers. It's hard to find an American made box. Most of the better ones are made in Canada. A lot of the big name boxes like Mac and snap-on are made by waterloo. I have a s-k 41" wide, 13 drawer bottom box and it looks just like a waterloo, because that's who makes it. It cost me $1000 6 years ago. It's very high quality.

 

uhhh, do you guys live in Beverly Hills? I bought a setup from Sears 2 days ago. They have setups from $179-4000. There were around 7 different setups for less than $500. Not all ball bearing, but unless you beat the hell out of your toolboxes, you don't need ball bearing drawers. I got a 12 drawer set for $230, and it'll last forever. If all you could find at Sears was a $2500 set, you must have a fancy Sears! Were you walking on rose petals and sipping champagne served by scantily-clad supermodels?

Wallyworld? I hate to go there, so I don't...but hey, look at it this way, the poor and under-showered shop there, so the lines at Sears and Home Depot are shorter. If there was no WalMart, all those smelly losers would be ahead of you in line at the store. Be glad.

 

Waterloo makes Craftsman toolboxes. Find someone that has an account from MSC industrial supply co. Very good toolboxes at a reasonable price.

 

Bite my shiny metal azz. If I don't shop there, I can't get anything in this town.

 

I would have to disagree. for the standard home mechanic the husky boxes
work great.
how can i tell? i have had my roll away for going on 6 years and im in and out of it just about every day.
never a problem with any of the drawers and that includes the 3 in the bottom box that i keep all the air tools and heavier items in.

 

i bought my kid a "taskforce" 5 drawer unit from lowes a couple of years ago for Christmas and its holding up ok, i have no complaints about it and it was fairly inexpensive, all my tool chest are craftsman, sometimes with tools you just have to let the wallet make the decisions

 

All my tool chests are by Kennedy. I like the brown wrinkle finish.Cost a little more than Sears but well worth it.
Roger

 

I got this one on sale at Sears about a year or so ago. $299 for the 8 drawer top, the 5 drawer bottom, and they threw in the two drawer for free.

I wanted more room than the 2 drawer, so I got rid of it and bought the four drawer intermediate on sale for $134. Percentage-wise, the 4 drawer was not a great deal, but right now I have two empty drawers that will have tools in them soon.

This is the Quiet Glide. A great box. Craftsman friction slides have been used for decades, and the Quiet Glide cuts the friction a bit more. A drop of oil and they slide as well as a friend's ball bearing set. And I have more weight in the drawers than he does.

The white things on each drawer are magnetic labels. I got some of the telephone card magnets at the local library (a lot of businesses pass them out like business cards), painted them with white enamel, and used a Sharpie to label what is in each drawer. If I ever sell the boxes, there are no labels to peel off or lower the value to the next guy.

You get what you pay for in toolboxes. The cheap ones have rough slides, small casters, and thin steel. You can load up 500 pounds really easily and the cheap ones will break casters or flatten so they don't move. Many only recommend 10 pounds in a drawer, so figure out how many wrenches and sockets make that. Well, if you use those girlie-man 4 mm and 11/32 ignition wrenches, you may be fine, but drop some man-sized 1 inch and 1-1/4 inch wrenches in there and see what happens to a drawer.

And the first time a drawer jams shut, or open, see what new words you can invent.

The little red box is a Craftsman. 20 years old, and it has been all over the eastern half of the US, from Moroso to Watkins Glen, Bridgehampton to St. Louis. Still slides well, just out grown. And it is still being used for drill bits, files, and electrical parts.

It and two other small boxes made loading the van much easier. A top box is heavy empty. With tools, it is a tough two-man job to lift. So if you need to move your tools around a lot by yourself, like to the track, and you don't have an enclosed trailer to roll the roll-away in, you might want to plan of two or three small boxes you can lift. The red one loaded used to run about 90 pounds.

The old Craftsman red with charcoal drawers Pro series (now called Premium) is being phased out and you can get some good deals if you frequent the Sears stores. Some can be ordered online from Sears.com but often the best deals is in the return section of the tool department.

 

To bring up Unions is like bringing up the subject of Religion or Politics never a good thing.

 

How do you guys even see what is in those tall boxes. I'm 5'7" and most of those tall boxes I have to stand on my toes to see in them. I have to go sideways instead of up so I can get to the tools. I have an old Sears non ball bearing that I have had for 25 years. I even worked as a GM mechanic back in the early 80s for 2 years with it. Never failed me yet. Not the biggest and best but it does the job.

 

Crap....I thought u were being coy by saying a "tool" chest and were gonna show something else....

 

Northern Tool has some really nice toolboxes. A refrigerator sized one is in the neighborhood of $1,000. Smaller ones less.

Or you could build your own.

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m...Picture274.jpg

Cost about $1,200 including wood, full extension drawer glides and stainless drawer pulls (24"D x 48"W x 44"H). It's worth every penny. Then there was the week of silence my wife bonused me when she found out how much. It's all good.

 

That's how I got my machinist tool box and rolling cabinet years ago for about $300. The scratches were on the top of the rolling cabinet, but it came with a rubber pad so you couldn't see them anyway!

 

The 3 drawer and storage compartment Craftsman roll around I bought 35 years ago is still going strong in daily use. It has held up through 4 moves around the country, being banged by cars, loaded into pickups to move between house and work, even jet blast that sent it traveling across an airport ramp. I have acqured several more tool boxes but still consider that old Craftsman the cornerstone of my shop.

"Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten!"

 

The lower cabinets are $88 each (Lowe's), the top chests were on sale for $49 (HomeDepot).

Great thread.... made me spend money