Oreilly's seems to be giving away those magnetic cup holders to different car shows to hand out. I really don't take drinks to my garage when I am working (if I need a drink, I go inside, relax, drink a pop or water and then back to work). Well, I got that and had no idea where to do with it. It is a nice magnetic holder (strong magnet, had a rubber pad do it should not scratch paint). I found it supported the weight of my torch and I said "perfect". Been that way for about 2-3ish years.

 

That's funny! It fits so well, I assumed it was made for that.

 

In the research that I was doing throughout the year, the ICON series from Harbor Freight is actually pretty decent. They are pricier than the Craftsman counter parts, but supposedly pretty good!The only thing thats supposed to be in my top box now are my adjustable wrenches.

 

I will admit, their store display is pretty enticing. Was just in there a few days ago to pick up a specific one time use tool and theyve got about 3 or 4 aisles wiped out in the center of the store for a nice tool box display. Certainly a lot more visually impressive than the big box hardware store displays of them, epsecially with all of the crazy colors.

The quality looked good to me - certainly above the typical HF stuff. Definitely something I'd consider. I saw they ran a sale a few months ago clearing out the gen 2 stuff for gen 3 (may be off on the numbering, but it was a model wide changeover). After considering my current lack of space with all of the building materials for my garage, I decided it was better to hold off.

 

Bumping this old thread as I finally made the jump. Ive been loading a lot of stuff into the garage and I really needed a place to start unpacking all of these moving boxes of specialty tools / tool sets. The tools are worthless if I cant find them when I need them and I did a miserable job at box marking when we moved last.


Spent an obscene amount of time researching and ended up with a Harbor Freight / US General Series 3 box. Did the 56" lower with the two 15" side hangers. I do plan to get the matching upper box at some point, but it wasn't on sale this week / only the lowers and short sides were.

I did really try looking into Craftsman. Unfortunately Lowes is an absolute train wreck (as they have been for a few years now, at least out by me). My closest store didnt stock any of the wider lowers - only the 2X" wide stuff, but said another store showed one on display (I figured I could just order if I liked it, but wanted to actually touch one first). Went to that one - nope, inventory error, but this other store has 3 in stock. Also nope (once I finally tracked down and employee by going to customer service twice for help - the store was a ghost town for employees). I gave up after that...

Went to Harbor Freight to spend some hands on time with their beautiful central aisle showcase of boxes. They really do a nice job making their stuff look enticing.

I did look at the Icon stuff a bit as some had suggested. Absolutely a nicer box (and certainly way nicer than Ive ever had / used), but man are they steep! They're north of 3x the cost of the US General stuff (or Craftsman / Husky / Kobalt - everything in that budget price range). I just can't justify that much extra for the same size, at least for my light duty hobbyist use. Even this US General one is significantly more robust than my old basic Crafstman and that thing is still doing fine 20+ years on. I really think the Icon series must be for folks wanting a competitor to SnapOn like boxes.


Got the side boxes mounted. Need to scrub the rocks out of the casters so I dont scratch my new floors all up (unloaded it in the driveway and rolled it in - picked up a bunch of embedded pebbles along the way in the super soft outer rubber). Then she'll be ready to start loading with tools!

 

Wow that's a nice one for sure. Back in September the wife was on a kick to clean up the Garage and she decided to arrange my too; chest and now I cant find anything. So if I cant find it I just go get a new one.
we are on a little down south thing winter Texan deal and I was at home depot and seen some nice Husky brand tool boxes I need to up grade and that might be just what I need they are medium sized so with the limited room I have it might be just what I need.

 

I'll say I was very close to going with them myself. We're in Home Depot several times a week for the garage + other projects, so Ive had a chance to look at them pretty closely. They do look to be nice boxes for this tier. I do think theyve got the better drawer opening mechanism of the two (both using the drawer handle lip as the unlatch and the soft close mechanism).

Two reasons I didnt go that route:

1) I liked the options / modularity of the HF box setup. They've got 4 different lower cab widths, two different top box styles, and two styles of optional side hanger boxes (the half height like I got and the full height locker style). Plus a bunch of color matched accessories like the paper towel holder, spray can holders, etc. The Husky seems to be more of an all in one setup instead of piecemeal.

2) Our local HD stores usually put them outside. Theyll rotate through grills, ladders, tool boxes, big plants, lawnmowers, etc every few weeks to draw attention. Im not some kind of tool box snob, but Im not thrilled about spending a grand on something sun faded that Ive got to clean the sand out of on day 1. I suppose I could always special order some oddball spec that would HAVE to come from the OEM instead of local stock.

I totally hear you on that! Unfortunately that's the mode Ive been in the last few years (not due to my wife, but just due to this move / everything being buried in random boxes). If it's not a basic socket / wrench / screwdriver / hammer, Ive been buying new to avoid hours of digging to try to find it. Ive certainly had my fill.

I'm thinking with this new box / everything in disarray anyways, I may just dump everything on the floor in front of the box and let me wife go to town on organizing it. She loves that stuff and is super good at it, Ive just never let her help before for the reason you mentioned - the muscle memory of knowing exactly where X is without having to think.

But since I need to relearn everything from scratch now anyways, I may as well let her work her magic.

 

Upper came in almost a full month early to plan. Going to start loading her up once we get this electrical project done.

 

Oh that looks NICE! I am having trouble seeing the brand name, is it US General (Harbor Freight)???
This is something I keep thinking about, treating myself to a big, shiny new tool box!

 

Yep, it's a Harbor Freight US General series 3. I shouldve taken the picture with the top hutch open - it's got the US GENERAL logo in a font size you could read from the space station, lol.

Admittedly it's a cheap box, but it should do just fine with my recreational use. I just couldnt justify the price leap into the really nice stuff, espeically when my existing cheap boxes have held up so well for so long. I was just at my wits end with having tools spread out everywhere, so Im hoping to get most everything co-located into this one spot. I am still going to keep my old Craftsman box for potential future overflow.

My only dislike about them so far is the drawer lock system. They've got this goofy finger lock where you have to reach under the lip and slide left (the finger holes run the whole length of every bar though) to unlatch the drawer before you can pull it open. I have a hard time getting a hang of how hard to pull / how much to move it, so it seems like I pull the drawer 2 or 3 times before it actually opens.

My old box drawers dont have any latch system (besides the actual lock), and the ones I occasionaly use at work have the tilt latch (where pulling the lip rocks it a bit to disengage the latch - so there's no extra thought on your part).

Even just from initial setup and putting in the drawer liners, Ive already almost had my fill. I'll see if I get the hang of it with some real use soon - but Id bet I end up disabling them.


I do also need to invest in some 3D storage solutions. These drawers are far deeper than my old ones so I can be a lot more space efficient here standing things on end (pliers, wrenches, etc) where before they all had to lay totally flat to get the drawer to close.