[AT] Tool boxes

[Francis Robinson]

	Willard's post got me thinking about this... As a tool nut I also look at tool boxes a lot and have a bunch 
of them. I have one set of shelves that has maybe 14 or so of various sizes sitting on them. Each box has a 
certain class of special tools in it. Just as an example one large one has all of my soldering stuff in it (well, 
except for one soldering gun, a small spool of solder and a little can of flux that I keep out near the main 
bench). The box has a bunch of heavy coppers, cans of flux, spools of solder and several electric irons and 
guns. Another smallish box has several hammer staplers and their staples in it. Yet another has several 
regular staple guns and their supplies. Another is all special copper tube tools and so on.
	I am sorting out some tool sets for the trucks now. I have to re-do this every few years. I have two 
boxes I like well that have gable roof shaped lids that open from the top center. They have a handle on each 
lid that when the lids are closed you use the two handles as one handle to carry them by which also keeps the 
box closed. If desired a small padlock attached to both handles keeps people out of the box. They have a lift 
out tray too. I like the simplicity of the concept. The weak point and first place many tool boxes fail is the silly 
little latches many use. Many times the latch gets bent from banging around handling them and far too often 
a slipping latch will let the box open and dump half of your stuff out on the floor (or worse yet, dump out into 
tall grass and weeds). I have several machinist tool boxes with all of the tiny drawers. They can be nice but 
somehow the drawers are always 1/8" too short in height to hold the particular items you want to keep in 
them...   :-) 
	When I bought the pickup I am driving now I was going to transfer the single lid rear opening tool box 
over from the old truck. I have several of the two lid boxes but found them a little prone to leak driving in heavy 
rain. I have never had the single lid one leak. Instead of transferring the old box over (I still have it) I bought a 
larger single lid shiny all aluminum box with the step plate pattern. It is huge and deep inside but I am missing 
being able to slip a trailer spare or the ends of long boards under it. I can put a few boards under it but it is 
only about 4 or 5 inches from the truck floor. I also sit a step shaped fuel tank in the truck when doing field 
work and the lower part of the tank will not fit under it. I am considering raising it up by placing some wood 
blocks between it and the bed rails. That might make it a little harder to reach stuff but with the step bumper it 
is easy to climb up in the truck bed. If I can not find a happy medium I will pull it out and put my old single lid 
steel box in this truck and put this one on the one ton Chevy project truck.
	Tractor tool boxes have been silly for an awfully long time. Just waaaay too small and sometimes in 
locations that are almost impossible to see into. One of the better ones I recall at the moment was the box on 
the IHC 300-U. It sat across behind the seat above the fast hitch. We have added additional tool boxes to 
about every tractor we have owned. I have always saved any tool boxes off of old equipment I have gotten rid 
of. Combines used to have good sized tool boxes. I have several of those. 



"farmer"


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net