After looking at the 10 drawer Gerstner chest for $2300 ...
... (I know I will never own one of those) , I looked the the same model 052 box as a kit and it is $800 to build it yourself. I was shopping around the internet and found a box I may like. Now , a friend of mine has a wood shop and since I help him a lot , he has offered to help me build the box of my dreams from solid cherry wood. This is going to be a winter project and take months to build, so I thought about buying a cheap knock off to do for a while. I came across a nice looking box from Grizzly for $195.
It has 12 drawers. Is made of maple ( Gerstner now offers one made of maple also. ) Well ..... I ordered it and it came today. This box is amazing. The large panels are maple veneer, the drawers,front panel , and smaller sections are solid maple. Guess what...... The Gerstner is built the same way now. Thier large panels used to be glued up from solid boards but now they too are using veneered plywood. The drawers on this box are solid maple front , sides and back. ( The Gerstner is not). All the hardware is identical to the Gerstner. The joinery is excellent. Usually the Chinese knockoffs have filler in the poor fit joints. I can find no filler anywhere on this tool chest. As far as materials, this chest is as good as a Gerstner. As far as construction quality, it is close to a Gerstner. I looked closely at the Gerstner kit and in my opinion, this box is built a little better. The factory built Gerstner may be a shade better, but not $2100 difference better. Here are a few pics of the box. It is 26" wide, 11 1/2" deep, and 17" high.
Usually there are flaws and repairs on the knock off items, but there are none on this box. ( Maybe I just got a good one, I dont know). But I will be proud to show this tool chest off in my shop. I am still building the cherry box this winter, but it will be hard to beat this for the money.