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Hey gang,

I've got a toolbox conundrum. This weekend I bought Craftsman's 8-drawer, 40" Griplatch top chest (pic below). At some point in the near future, I'd like to get a bottom cabinet to put it on. I could go nuts, and get a 52" bottom cabinet, but it's $840 (or $950 for black, but it's the same product??). The two choices for 40" cabinets (shown below) are:

6-drawer
$364, or,

14 drawer
$630.

They have essentially the same volume, but does the additional drawer count justify a ~$260 increase in price? For that difference, I could easily pick up a side-cabinet for another 5-drawers and additional space. There are more shallow drawers, and a big bin drawer in the 14, but then the 6-drawer has full-width drawers. One quirk in relative benefits is that the 6-drawer is not available for store pickup, which either means ordering it to a store (takes time and hassle to get the online price), or delivery, which apparently costs $207! I'm not in a hurry for this, so I could wait for it to arrive in store, or whatever, but I don't know if $207 is worth it.

Anyway, any experience with tool boxes and the pros and cons of more, but smaller, drawers over less, but bigger, drawers? Thanks for the insight.

It might depend on how OCD you are.

I ~REALLY~ like a drawer for each genre of tool. My Robertsons have their own drawer. An Electrical drawer. A puller drawer. A punch and chisel drawer. An air tool drawer (this one is deep). A measurement tool drawer. A tap and die drawer. Etc.

If you need order in your chaotic life - the more drawers the merrier, in my opinionated (and OCD) opinion.

_________________
The Lethal Locost
The Lethal Locost 2 - Even More Lethalerer

Personal preference. ..

Bottoms are more useful than tops. Ummm....... let me restate that since I do live in the Bay Area.
An advantage I've found to using mutiple roller lower sections vs an upper and a lower (and I happen to have the 5 1/2' tall Craftsman 3 pc set in the garage) is that it provides mobile tabletops for small stuff and a place to keep your tools at hand while in use. The middle section works real well for a benchtop box for light use stuff. ...

_________________
"There are times when a broken tool is better than a sound one, or a twisted personality more useful than a whole one.
For instance, a whole beer bottle isn't half the weapon that half a beer bottle is ..." Randall Garrett

More drawers is better in my book. Easier to stay organized, and to identify where something is.

And since this is the Locost forum, check out the rolling cabinet from Harbor Freight. Many say its better than the Craftsman stuff, and MUCH cheaper. I really like mine, especially for the price. http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/show ... hp?t=53369

More drawers is good, but it's better to just make or put in dividers. Then each section can be just the right size. You can take aluminum and pop rivit it in or just rip some nice wood strips. This way you can also have dividers that go accross the drawer.

So big drawers and dividers, you save money and organize better.

_________________
Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
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YMMV, but in my personal experience, top boxes (which are easy to find cheaply) hold tools and roller cabinets become crap-catchers. Folks that are more organized than I may have better systems than I do.

My two top chests are dedicated to commonly used tools, sockets, ratchets, wrenches, allen-keys, special tools, electrical and goops (loctite/silglyde/gasket-dope/etc). Combination wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers hang on the pegboard.

I always have great intentions to properly use the bottom drawers but, they're big enough to hold parts, so...

Cheers, Ted

I like that idea. For $260 cheaper, I can buy a side cabinet and materials for some nice dividers. Now just how to figure out a way around that shipping charge. Where are these things manufactured? Maybe I'll just drive down there.

UPDATE: Nevermind. Apparently they can't get around the $207 shipping fee, and the 14-drawer was just reduced to $470, so it's cheaper (and faster) to buy the 14-drawer model. I've ordered it and it's already available for pick up.