Let’s see your toolboxes!

[15Michaeljoseph]

Well, I'm elbow deep in the subframe and rot repair on my car... taking advantage of the quarantine since I've not got much else to keep me entertained outside of online classes. Here's a look at the HF 44" setup, The top three drawers are what I use the most, of course. The rest (not pictured) contain hammers, trim tools, consumables (hose clamps and O-rings) and "oversize": prybars, huge pipe/adjustable wrenches, and most of the power tools. Blow molded cases/test kits are stored on a shelf and under the workbench (which Das Delfin actually built for me-- Its an awesome piece).

The top drawer is my favorite :b

[Das Delfin]

Here was my garage last fall when I was finally able to push the bmw out of the garage after extensive firewall rust repair, respraying the engine bay, brake line, fuel system, and suspension replacement. I built this 9.5' tabletop with a HF chest underneath (second one is my roommate's) into my rental to do this build as well as my subaru's headgaskets.


I added a top box for more storage/organization and remade the long table top into a more standard size 5'x2' with storage for tires underneath. The major critique of placing a tool box under a work space is needing to get to the tools when something is in the way of the box, like your friend working on your subframe or a piece of work mounted in the vise. This setup is smaller but I mostly used the length of the other bench for storage of parts I'd removed from the car, which isn't necessary now. The top box is great for things like plier sets, screwdrivers, and electrical stuff. HF makes organizer trays for bolts etc that fit perfectly in the thin drawers of this storage box, which has helped with my old way of keeping loose bolts in a small cardboard box and dumping them onto the table every time I needed one bolt.


My 3/8" and 1/4" drawer - 1/2" is in the drawer above. I like these socket holders because you can pick up the whole set and bring it with you.


Random bolts, clips, washers etc drawer. Oetiker clamps in the back and a couple extra brake pad wear sensors in there as well


Electrical gets its own drawer too.

[LateFan]

Don't put 300 ft-lbs on your breaker bar, or standard sockets. Just FYI.

I went and got a Horror Freight electric impact and some NAPA impact sockets after this.

[R3Z3N]

As a courtesy to other forum users, best to quote without inserting the pics.

However to answer your question, foam is from https://shadowbox.tools/

I would trace the tools differently next time or 3d scan them... I layed them on top of red foam that I had, drew the boarder for the box dimensions, then filtered out all red to get me an easy outline to trace. From there every tool is a layer in gimp that I can move and manipulate. They were ~$35 shipped per foam.

An example of a file and a problem with this is getting the camera as parallel and centered as possible, (which the software lets you skew as needed to compensate for this, and input the width and depth. From there with taller tools, its hard to find the edge without cutting out part of the depth that you see when removing your green screen effect. The other option is build a black box with up lighting and only take a picture of one tool at a time for better accuracy, so that you do not get ~22in of perspective issues.

[Conrad311]

Doing a test run for my temp tool box until I also get the 2 US General 72 and 56" boxes. I decided I do not like the rectangles for the 3/8 tools, but instead will do like Sonic Tools and cut them as circles to take up less space. Example of the type of layout I want for the future:

Where did you get the foam? And what are you cutting it with? I too really like the sonic tools set ups and their tools. Just after I left my last shop the boss bought everyone a loaded tool box to keep in their second bays. I was very jealous. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[15Michaeljoseph]

I've had the HF 44" box for just about a year now, and absolutely love it. Build quality is great for the home shop (though I have seen a few holding up in pro garages). It holds all of my tools aside from the blow-molded case test kits and such, but I already kind of wish I saved up for the 56" The more cars I work on, the more of a tool addict I become.
I'll post up some pictures once I've got this subframe/trailing arm mess cleaned up.

[Conrad311]

Not as flashy as all y'alls.......

Flash doesn’t help get the car fixed. It just eats up more money Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[R3Z3N]

Doing a test run for my temp tool box until I also get the 2 US General 72 and 56" boxes. I decided I do not like the rectangles for the 3/8 tools, but instead will do like Sonic Tools and cut them as circles to take up less space.





Example of the type of layout I want for the future:

[LateFan]

Not as flashy as all y'alls.......

[flyboyx]

looks pretty good though....

[Nick_S]

Untitled by Nick Smith, on Flickr

I'm embarrassed to show inside the drawers, haha.

[Kershaw]

I'm not done building out the garage and it's starting to get packed so I am hesitant to buy more tool boxes, but what I have is not enough. The floor needs to be finished before I buy anything else. Anything that comes in will have to go out for a bit this year. I would really like a little more organization in the individual drawers. Super handy to pull around the garage and drop motors on to though.

[benwalsh91]

great inspiration! i just got my first house which has a double garage! ordered a new toolbox last night. cant wait to get everything set up and a garage build done!! will shoot some photos when i am done.

[Conrad311]

I got very lucky in mid 2018 when the local Ford stores consolidated and built a new store. I got a helluva deal on their old parts dept storage stuff, so I bought ALL of the drawer cabinets they had, and kept what I wanted and sold the rest

That’s a great deal! Those are expensive cabinets. Looks like a nice setup you’ve got! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mrsleeve]

I got very lucky in mid 2018 when the local Ford stores consolidated and built a new store. I got a helluva deal on their old parts dept storage stuff, so I bought ALL of the drawer cabinets they had, and kept what I wanted and sold the rest, so I have ended up with 6 Lyon cabinets for less than 200 each after selling off the rest of them and a bunch of other shelving and what not. They are no where near full, in fact most of them are empty, but I am slowly working on filling them with just supplies and stuff to just have around to keep trips to the store when working on random things to a minimum. the 2 gray ones on the left will likely become my main TOOL boxes, the 2 tan ones on the left contain PPE, Power tools, all my fasteners, 2 drawers for random plumbing, 2 for eletrical supplies and networking stuff and just random things that needed a place to live. the 2 on the far right are empty, the old Cman box is my FIL's that I found a home for now, since hes got no place to put it. These things are industrial and very similar to Lista and Vidmar, and will hold 400lbs PER drawer. Away mission tool bags and kits sitting on top of the left boxes

20200122_193132 by mrsleeve, on Flickr


20200122_193608 by mrsleeve, on Flickr


My main box is this old Sams Club Stainless thing I got 15+ years ago, thats starting to show its age in the sliders and the bottom is starting to sink around the casters so the bottom couple of sets of drawers dont work too well anymore, just haven't decided on how to go about the move to the new boxes and haven't had the time to spend doing it yet. Couple of the most used drawers full of old Cman/ Cman Pro, with smattering of Proto, Wiha, knipex and decent sprinkling of Wright stuff in there as well. Oh and %of time you can see most of the top of my work bench........ about 10% of the time at most.

20200122_193118 by mrsleeve, on Flickr

20200122_193026 by mrsleeve, on Flickr

20200122_193039 by mrsleeve, on Flickr