Has anyone built a tool chest / roll cab?

[RichardM]

Hi, Try filing cabinet and office drawer runners, I found and liberated some discarded metal drawer trays and runners at work for my heavy stuff.

Colin

Seconded for runners from filing cabinets. Office drawer runners are more usually the type you find in kitchen drawers now

 

[Mike B]

You’re right that it’s not a massive challenge. I’d love to see what you come up with. GSF or Accuride drawer slides are good. They aren’t cheap but don’t skimp on them and buy a decent brand that you know will be around in ten years. I’m planning something which has similarities: a load system for an off-road vehicle. Box section, plate and decent full extension sliders. Getting some sort of neat locking drawer latch would be tricky I guess. If it’s never moving far you could just buy sliders with detents fitted. They mean you need a bit of effort to get the drawer initially to move. That could be easier than messing with locking latches.

my 54” snap on roll cab is about 300kg empty. Yours will probably be around 5-600kg at a guess! There’s a decent YouTube video showing how snap on cabinets are made. Might give you some insider tips. Plenty of U sections seems to be the key to the strength if you’re going for a braced skin type construction. I think your box section frame is a good idea. I’d err away from a powder coated finish too. Once it chips and flakes the lot starts to peel. Properly prepped (blasted?) then decent etch primer and hard coat afterwards. Tough and easy to touch up. I’d be interested to see what you come up with! There’s a guy on YouTube built his one box too. Might be useful

 

[Alan Reynolds]

Looking at building my own roll cab, my current ones are falling apart, Clarke ones which have split it the corners from to much flex. Ball bearing fallen out the runners etc. Total was about £800 about 7yrs ago.
Looking at them earlier thought to myself they are so flimsy from such thin steel and wouldn't resist any theif.
At the end of the day its a box wheels, I'm thinking building something that is extremely heavy duty A) to last forever & B) to actually provide a bit of protection against theft.
I'm thinking a skeleton frame built from 40mm x 20mm box section clad in 2.5mm possibly 3mm laser cut steel panels. Draws made from 2mm laser cut steel sheet.
Roll cab 2m long 0.6 wide with a 40mm solid oak work top all powder coated.
I reckon could be done for less than £1000, it would be a about 5 times the weight of any normal box, so just picking it up and dropping in the back a van would be issue 1 for any theif plus the fact it 3mn thick. But it would also last and still cost a fraction the cost of a snap on box.

Has anyone built there own roll cab?

I weld up a front frame from 25mm angle with a flat strip along where the lid closes, then nut and bolt it to the front of the box. They always crack at the corners, especially if they are in a vehicle. Nice bit of ply on the bottom to prevent scratching.

 

[Mike B]

I weld up a front frame from 25mm angle with a flat strip along where the lid closes, then nut and bolt it to the front of the box. They always crack at the corners, especially if they are in a vehicle. Nice bit of ply on the bottom to prevent scratching.

On the underside of the cabinet? Basically acting like a skid plate? Nice idea, maybe a hard plastic would be better? Either way it’ll protect the paint. The other thing you could do is extend the sides forward of the drawers with some box section to protect the drawers. Snap on cabs have it, only it’s a really flimsy almost decorational alloy channel. I’d prefer 20x20 box section verticals to protect your hard work

 

[armalites]

What's a Eurobox. Open or lidded?

They can be either, they are a standard format. I have shallow and deep that are stackable. The trolleys were built so I could fit deep one on the bottom and shallow on the shelf. It just means I can move my tools back to the workshop in one trip without anything falling off.

This kind of thing, they aren't expensive and can often be bought really cheap from factory closures.
https://www.bigdug.co.uk/storage-bo...kuRQef5K5ae9v2NgnRI5uBZ_q6y4YPvsaAh-8EALw_wcB

 

[Shox Dr]

I would look a Polstore cabinets before you get too far into building your own. At some point this yr I’ll be replacing my cabinets with them, will cost about 2.5k. Snapon would be 30k, and nowhere near as good.

I spoke to them before it all kicked off. Nice bloke to speak to.

https://silverbackstudios.co.uk/3dissue/polstore-express/

 

[mtt.tr]

I would look a Polstore cabinets before you get too far into building your own. At some point this yr I’ll be replacing my cabinets with them, will cost about 2.5k. Snapon would be 30k, and nowhere near as good.

I spoke to them before it all kicked off. Nice bloke to speak to.

https://silverbackstudios.co.uk/3dissue/polstore-express/

they are very nice looking.
what sort of money are they?

 

[Shox Dr]

they are very nice looking.
what sort of money are they?

Those prices are not far off the mark, best off calling them (said the Spider to the fly)

My cabinets sit under a 740mm deep bench, an area of 1.7sqm. I’ve calculated draw space in my current draws at a measly 0.6sqm. Replacing them with Poltore 725 deep draws, will recover as much as you can expect. Giving me another 0.9sqmish of storage

 

[cammy9r]

I have had halfords industrial boxes for 12 years and they have held up well. Also have a snapon 26" chest and cab (all bought used). The drawers on the snapon are sturdier than the halfords. Both of these are no thicker than 1.2mm sheet steel. Before getting any of these I considered making my own but for me was not cost effective.
One thing I did miss out on if I had made my own was efficient use of space. Some drawers are too shallow for eg. screwdrivers but end up with wasted space when putting them into the deeper drawers
Consider the tools going in to the drawers and design it to best suit what you have with a bit of wiggle room for expansion.
I liked the roughness of these but not the price tag
https://rhinosafe.com/ironworks-iwtc4372d-tool-chest-43h-x-72w-x-23d/
I say build your own and make it they way you like but it does not have to be a tank unless you want it to be
Edit: im also limited to 600mm folds with my pan break unless i get creative or spend another small fortune on a 4' break.

 

[arther dailey]

the advertising makes me laugh , a hierloom....

 

[fizzy]

You’re right that it’s not a massive challenge. I’d love to see what you come up with. GSF or Accuride drawer slides are good. They aren’t cheap but don’t skimp on them and buy a decent brand that you know will be around in ten years. I’m planning something which has similarities: a load system for an off-road vehicle. Box section, plate and decent full extension sliders. Getting some sort of neat locking drawer latch would be tricky I guess. If it’s never moving far you could just buy sliders with detents fitted. They mean you need a bit of effort to get the drawer initially to move. That could be easier than messing with locking latches.

my 54” snap on roll cab is about 300kg empty. Yours will probably be around 5-600kg at a guess! There’s a decent YouTube video showing how snap on cabinets are made. Might give you some insider tips. Plenty of U sections seems to be the key to the strength if you’re going for a braced skin type construction. I think your box section frame is a good idea. I’d err away from a powder coated finish too. Once it chips and flakes the lot starts to peel. Properly prepped (blasted?) then decent etch primer and hard coat afterwards. Tough and easy to touch up. I’d be interested to see what you come up with! There’s a guy on YouTube built his one box too. Might be useful

I was going to post that.
Ca Lem does some great work - the young Vietnamese equivalent of This Old Tony!

 

[no idea]

I built my own tool chest with 25mm box section (2.5mm wall). The drawers were folded from 1.5mm sheet by a local fabricator with the vertical corners spot welded together with small angle pieces. The drawers were no name dull drawer extension runners (400mm long I think), the sort you can get from Ironmongery Direct and have been fine in all the years I have used them. I used two sizes of drawer, eight were 400mm wide and four were 850mm wide. I haven't got a picture of the completed box but I'll try to take one later. I started welding with a Cosmo welder which ironically is why I joined this forum in the first place all those years ago and that set me down the costly path of better mig welders and the discovery of tig.

These are some of the build pictures I have:

Part assembled and trial fit:

Holes drilled for drawer slides:

All the drawers folded up and spot welded by the fabricator (now sadly closed):

The "workshop" and highly specialised equipment lol:

All painted up and ready for drawer slides to be installed:

 

[J.F]

Thanks for the replies, probably be a while before I get round to it. But will update once I have.

 

[armalites]

Unless you are hell-bent on doing it as a project or have a need for a specific size/shape you really need to go into with your eyes open. Decent quality runners that can take a bit of load could easily be £40-50 a pair if buying new so you could be into £4-500 in runners before you start. As @sako243 says server rails are often built carry hundreds of kilos and you could get them cheap or even free.

I see this the same as building a trailer, it's something many dream about and would be a fun project but it will always be a one off home made trailer that will have a limited resale value. A home built tool box will be the same and thats fine if you could do for a few hundred but once you get to the point you are spending £1K you are into decent 40" Snap On stack money. No matter what anyone thinks their first big tool chest will only be the right one for a period of time.

I started with a home made wooden one that used kitchen drawer runners, I then went to a Halfords Industrial stack, then to a big stainless box and outgrew that so I am now looking for something to replace it.