Toolboxes

I had a thought: why are toolboxes so expensive it's just sheet metal, rivets, and drawers right? Is it particularly difficult to manufacture a quality toolbox or is it a case of craftsman, snap-on, and the like knowing that you'll pay whatever it costs. Has anyone tried to make a large, 4'-8' x 4'-6', toolbox in their home shop?

I'm not justifying the price, but the better toolboxes have features like roller bearings in the drawer slides as well as generally heavy-duty construction (not flimsy at all), good chrome on the handles, extra-beefy wheels, often sprung so there's no twisting load on uneven floors, etc.

As for how much it costs... figure how many drawers, how much square feet per drawer, box height, lid, internal surfaces, double-walledness in many spots, times the price of 16ga sheet... it's not particularly cheap. How much does 500-1000lb of raw steel cost?

The rest of the $50k that Snap-On charges for a toolbox is because screw you, they're Snap-On.

arvoss wrote: I had a thought: why are toolboxes so expensive it's just sheet metal, rivets, and drawers right?

Don't forget the tracks and rollers/bearings that expensive ones use to make it easy to pull a heavily loaded drawer out of the box.

I think it was on 'Gearz' where they do a "how its made" type of deal and the process is rather complex.

I've seriously considered building my own tool box. Have you priced bearing slides? Ouch.

With that in mind, I've been modifying my design to mimic some wood-working style boxes, which are generally designed to be more static and ornate, rather than requiring the security of a professional-style mechanic's box.

Metal forming a box that's identical to a Snap on pro would be difficult, time consuming, and probably expensive. Building something of your own design would probably be MUCH cheaper, but only get you 80-90% of the functionality and reliability of a manufactured box. Is that extra 20% worth it? YMMV

Or just buy a used one like I did. There's always someone upgrading.

Learning to settle on the big boxes with roller bearing drawer slides and big ball bearing castors that Sam's Club sells for $399 - $799 is worth every penny not spent. Who cares if it is "the last tool box you will ever buy". It is like a Sub Zero fridge in your kitchen. Is it good? Sure. Is it worth $5k to keep your food at the same temp as the Kenmore that runs $799? No berkeleying way. It is fashion for the shop.

I guess I didn't consider the cost of the bearing slides. I guess all the odds and ends add up: casters, handles, etc. Even though you can tell the quality in a nice toolbox, I could never justify spending 10K on a box. That's enough money for a hellava fun car. I haven't finished reading the thread, but this is sorta what I had in mind: http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?t=3688

$10k would buy you a Macsimizer half-box... in 1996.

Lets face it. The roller bearing slides and casters do not come close to making a box so expensive. A snapon Epiq 120" starts at $9275 add an extension or heaven forbid a top chest and you can easily get into 14-16 thousand dollars.

You can buy a whole new car for that. You know with an engine and a computer and all the other bits that make a car a million times more complicated than a freaking tool box.

This Harbor Freight box is the best thing you can buy at 3 times the price.

+1 for HF

I would imagine that a toolbox at cost is almost exclusively the price of material. The fact that the snap-on manufacturing plant probably buys sheet metal by the 100 tonne and has the assembly line and machines specifically for this purpose means that the cost to them is about the same as the cost of material if an individual was building it. This in turn means that they've probably got around a 1000% markup/profit margin on these things. I'm not sure how anyone would justify paying more than a down payment on a nice house for a box. Even if it is your profession spending 30k+ is crazy. It's not like they've got a huge R&D department making breakthroughs in toolbox technology, it's one of the simplest designs imaginable. A crate ls9 from a Corvette ZR1 only costs 9k and it makes almost 650hp! that's infinity more hp/$ than a toolbox!

Knurled wrote: Or just buy a used one like I did. There's always someone upgrading.

qft. I bought my matco 5 drawer+top "cart"/decent sized box for $100
its an 800 dollarish cart new.
I also just bought an IR titanium impact (the TiMAX2135 aka close to top of the line) for $100 off the snap on truck used.
There are tons of used deals out there, and snap on is especially worth it.

when you make your living out of a toolbox you have to deal with enough bullE36 M3 every day without having to deal with a toolbox with drawers that don't support correctly, don't have a lay out that makes sense, don't open or close correctly, don't have enough space to afford good organization, etc etc etc.
I'm not condoning buying a $10k snapon because that is just frivolous, but I'm staying away from new crapsman and HF just based on the quality of the crapsman I have right now and most of the HF tools I have right now/the price of the HF box.
They are that cheap for a reason, for the most part.
this, however, I can get with.

I actually saw that tool box at Lowes the other day. I was kinda surprised to see that it had speakers in the top and a mini fridge in the bottom. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I can get behind a good used Craftsman toolbox though. My father and grandfather both have about 3 boxes from the 60s-80s and they're still solid even after the abuse I put them through when I was a kid. How does everyone feel about a well organized shop without a large toolbox? It almost seems that most of your tools can fit nicely on the wall with pegboard or whatever, then a single 6 drawer roller can be used to get the vital tools close to the car. Sort of makes a bit 8' pointless, at least for the non-professional.

are the HF ones worth a lick? The big lower chests posted above.

CarKid1989 wrote: are the HF ones worth a lick? The big lower chests posted above.

I think so.HF has two different levels, the red ones and the black ones. Stay away from the black ones.

I did a craftsman ball bearing roller and top a couple years back for right around 300 and I've only had two problems: it still doesn't run around behind me picking up the tools I neglected to put back; the midnight blue color I got is great, but they don't make most of the other components in that color any more, so matching expansion is a problem.

The biggest difference I've ever seen in quality is all around the drawer slides. Some of the super-cheapy boxes have the cheapest slides to be found this side of the Great Wall, and for tools that can be a struggle. My wife has the cheaper crafstman with the cheapy slides up in the bedroom and uses it for beads and small beading tools. That works quite well for that job.

About five years ago we got a craftsman "professional" for one of the shops I work in, I got a Matco at the other one. In January I replaced the craftsman with a Matco, the craftsman drawers were broken down, it had rusted and generally was falling apart. The Matco one was still like new; I don't mean that as a generality, it was still like new. Some things make sense to buy the quality version of.

The key point is how will the box be used? If you are a pro, using the box 8+ hours a day, five days a week then you need something very good. For a home shop that will see use maybe one or two days a week max for just a few hours, you can skate by with something cheaper. I have two Craftsman boxes packed with tools and I keep them clean, organized and pampered and they've been great for many years. They get used so rarely that they will last the rest of my life for sure.

It's hard to say when it comes to the H-F box. I've been fondling them at the stores for years and the quality seems to be hit or miss. On some of them, the drawers can be hard to open or bind up on the chassis. I actually wonder about the stiffness of the chassis and whether some of the drawer binding may be from sitting on an uneven display platform. If your garage floor isn't perfectly level, then there may be problems.

While they drawer bearings slide well enough, you can tell the sheet metal is thinner than a similar box from even Craftsman. If you open the top, full-width drawer, lifting one corner slightly will result in noticable flex. Just trying to close it from the end of the drawer can result in binding - and that's with an empty drawer. When I've done the same test on a Craftsman box (where display models often have a display weight in them), the drawer closes better and just feels better made. Of course, you're paying 2x the price for a Craftsman version of that box.

Ian F wrote: I've seriously considered building my own tool box. Have you priced bearing slides? Ouch. With that in mind, I've been modifying my design to mimic some wood-working style boxes, which are generally designed to be more static and ornate, rather than requiring the security of a professional-style mechanic's box.

Why yes i have you need to know where to look! https://www.surpluscenter.com/sort.asp?catname=misc&keyword=XD11

44Dwarf wrote:

Ian F wrote: I've seriously considered building my own tool box. Have you priced bearing slides? Ouch. With that in mind, I've been modifying my design to mimic some wood-working style boxes, which are generally designed to be more static and ornate, rather than requiring the security of a professional-style mechanic's box.

Why yes i have you need to know where to look! https://www.surpluscenter.com/sort.asp?catname=misc&keyword=XD11

Ooo... nice. $12/ea (22" version) is a little easier to take.

Their caster prices are pretty good as well.

If you own a shop equipment is a tax writeoff.