Machinist tool chest

I agree the Gerstners and Kennedys are nice, but I can't justify that kind of outlay. At least, not while there's tooling to buy!

Originally, I chucked everything into stackable plastic storage boxes and those small-parts organizers. I grabbed a $100 Gerstner-knockoff from Amazon and am using that for the delicate measuring stuff, and a cheap cantilever toolbox for setup/clamping hardware. Most of the actual hand tools are on pegboard.

Oh yeah, made a fruitless trip to the local orange box store as well. Pretty depressing selection of toolboxes. How is it that quality has dropped from even five years ago, when it was already abysmal?
 
Think about the tools that you will store if you are a "machinist", most tools are not very tall such as mic's, calipers, rules, thread gauges, squares, indicators, gauge blocks, pin gauges, bore gauges, radius gauges, thread ring and plug gauges, dial depth gauges and so on.

If you have a number of large measuring tools such as 36"+ calipers, mic's, height gauges, gauge blocks, squares and straight edges keep them on shelves in the boxes that they came in when you bought them, these are to big for the average roll around tool chest.

I bought this Husky roller from Home Depot, it has many wide shallow drawers which are perfect for this application, it was around $500.00 in New Jersey so all bets are off in HI.
I have one Brown Box that is very small and 50 years old, do not be swayed by the idea that real machinists only use brown.
 
Even if the dent is fairly substantial you can probably tap it out with a body hammer and dolly. I've got several old Kennedy boxes and the sheet metal in them isn't that thick.
 
I'm hoping on the dents. I have realized that mechanic tool boxes, work, but do not fit the need of the machinist. I have the top drawer of my 40" Husky stacked with my metrology tools. They/I need better, so I hope this works.
 
Slightly OT, but a fun story. We recently ordered a large steel cabinet from Global; it came severely dented. They replaced it; the replacement was dented. Third try was fine. They didn't want either 1 or 2 back, and our facilities director started his career in auto body work, so now we have three for the cost of one. And, it benefitted me -- not having received a replacement butcher block for 2 or 3, my home self traded with my work self: the Ikea pine table I had in my room, to make room for my Logan 820, for an old set of very heavy wood drawers that were now unneeded because of the extral Global drawers, and the pine table was cut down to make the surface of 2.

Tim
 
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