So you buy tools so your friends can see you with them?
Reminds me.... of my first day on the job.
COSTCO Kirkland Giant Toolbox
- Thread starter dnschmidt
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So you buy tools so your friends can see you with them?
Reminds me.... of my first day on the job.
If I ever pay anywhere close to $7k for a toolbox, I would hope someone would have sense enough to shoot me in the back of the head.
TAMPAGT07
Well-known member
Years ago, at aviation school, I spent about $10G's on SO tools and boxes (We got 51% off)..About $2500 of that went towards my box.. If I could go back in time, I would have taken that $2500 and bought more hand tools, as the price of those would be worth at least 3x what I paid.. The box was a bad investment, as it's probably now worth about $800 (if that). Back then there weren't a whole lot of boxes, and at the time SO boxes held there value alot better then today..
Herod
Banned
Is it cool if we keep exchanging like this? I mean, I like you guys.....you, too; Canada. This is my Monday. But I'm not trying to insult or "attack" anyone. Don't wanna get banned.
I have pre-recorded some episodes of Spongebob, Chowder, and Gumball that need watching. But they can wait........
I have pre-recorded some episodes of Spongebob, Chowder, and Gumball that need watching. But they can wait........
sleepy127
Well-known member
+1 My father has spent tons of money on SO. He still has many other brands in his box and is in no way loyal to any brand except what works for the job. The main reason he has truck brands is because he usually didn't have the cash to pay for what he wanted. I imagine at some point once you have spent so much on one brand at 2 to 5 times the cost of other brands you have to find a way to justify your expenditures.
Bigblue&Goldie
Well-known member
I don't think $2,500 for a box is out of line for a professional tech. If you use it over 20yrs, your cost per year is minimal, especially if you can recover ~50% if you sell it when you are done. People love to lecture others about how much they spend on ****, but they rarely talk about what they spend ridiculous money on in other aspects of their lives.
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Ill tell ya what, the box nor the tools make the mechanic. A friend of mine was a diesel mechanic for years. Alot of his stuff is older CMan, williams, and various other mixed bag. He also makes specialty tools you would pay 2 arms and a leg for off a truck or even online. Somehow or another he was excellent, he didnt spend big bucks on a box either. Somehow he made alot of money at his job and wasnt in debt to the tool trucks. He only gave it up b/c he got bored of it and hurt his back anyways.
Also: The worsy looking shops Ive ever seen, where tools were all over, tools were quite old and not all truck brand, the mechanic was covered and filthy, the shop was a mess-not only was the mechanic the most honest-but was one of the best mechanics. Ive seen it several times before.. A friends shop is like this, the dealer cant figure out the issue, another mechanic cant figure it out-but somehow his guys can.. Amazing isnt it?
I used to roll with a 26" husky box, full of stanley, older husky, cman, some snap on and mac, matco, etc. Total mixed bag. The guys would always laugh at me and claim I didnt spend on tools. But I didnt owe $$$$ to the tool trucks and got to keep my paycheck every week unlike them.
Also: The worsy looking shops Ive ever seen, where tools were all over, tools were quite old and not all truck brand, the mechanic was covered and filthy, the shop was a mess-not only was the mechanic the most honest-but was one of the best mechanics. Ive seen it several times before.. A friends shop is like this, the dealer cant figure out the issue, another mechanic cant figure it out-but somehow his guys can.. Amazing isnt it?
I used to roll with a 26" husky box, full of stanley, older husky, cman, some snap on and mac, matco, etc. Total mixed bag. The guys would always laugh at me and claim I didnt spend on tools. But I didnt owe $$$$ to the tool trucks and got to keep my paycheck every week unlike them.
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DennisH2014
Well-known member
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"For the price" can be ridiculous depending on the item/purpose of the item in question, but in this case I think you're entirely wrong.
It really has nothing to do with treating yourself; sure some people may opt for a Snap On, or similar for the luxuries, but the reality is that most people don't truly care that much, and chests, such as Harbor Freight's US General line, do the job excellently, and for a fraction of the cost of Snap On.
Example: 2 mechanics buy a chest, one pays $500 for his, the other pays $2000, and they're the same size. At the end of the day, they both get their jobs done, the chests are both perfectly functional in their purpose: holding the tools that make the money. The difference here is that one mechanic paid 4X as much for the exact same net result.
Are Snap-On's boxes not made of sheet metal but rather of titanium or platinum? When I looked them over they seemed magnetic and made of sheet metal to me. I built high end microprocessors for a living in a billion dollar wafer fab. We could produce chips superior to others because we had tools (wafer steppers/scanners primarily) that were much more capable than most other factories in the world.
It's a piece of sheet metal bent into a drawer using a metal break. It uses Accuride style slides just as everybody else does. What special power does Snap-On have that 20 gauge sheet metal bent by them is somehow superior to that bent by others and worthy of a 10:1 premium. I had a five million dollar ASM scanner at Intel, most other fabs didn't so I could make more powerful chips with the special tools I was given. COSTCO'S vendor has a metal break, Snap-On has a metal break there is no advantage of one over the other. Does anybody truly believe there is some magic act going on here. It's a frickin' tool box. They are not high-tech.
LB-1911 has the pictures of the box I'm talking about.
It's a piece of sheet metal bent into a drawer using a metal break. It uses Accuride style slides just as everybody else does. What special power does Snap-On have that 20 gauge sheet metal bent by them is somehow superior to that bent by others and worthy of a 10:1 premium. I had a five million dollar ASM scanner at Intel, most other fabs didn't so I could make more powerful chips with the special tools I was given. COSTCO'S vendor has a metal break, Snap-On has a metal break there is no advantage of one over the other. Does anybody truly believe there is some magic act going on here. It's a frickin' tool box. They are not high-tech.
LB-1911 has the pictures of the box I'm talking about.
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Yep. Why buy tools to make money when you can buy tools to impress all of the big, sweaty manly men around the shop instead?
For the record, I have a HF 56, one HF 44, and two of the red HF service carts. I've had them for years...as a professional. No sign of them spontaneously falling apart or drawers buckling or whatever you're saying they'll do.
espyking83
Well-known member
There are some **** mechanics in my hangar that have $11k+ boxes, and there's some Guru's that have Husky boxes. The type of box says absolutely nothing about the quality of maintenance you will get. Nothing.
I try and stay out of this stuff, but after seeing 100's of threads talking about how much better this brand is over that brand I have to call BS. Yes some of the boxes are better than others but and this is the real deal no box made by anyone is worth anywhere near what the tool trucks charge.
If you think that the name on the outside of your box you a better tech than a guy with a old box full of HF CM Husky etc.. then you need a reality check.
The only real difference between a guy with a truck box full of truck tools and the other guy is that one can take home more money at the end of the week.
I would never choose a tech by what brand that they use, more important to me is how they treat their tools and customers.
For me I had the choice last year of keeping my old service cart (re-used hospital cart) and either a new rubber maid or a Milwalkee. Of course the old cart would be cheapest but it needed new wheels the Rubber maid was $99 and the Milwalkee was $249.
I chose the Rubber Maid and putting new wheels on the old one for a total of $135, now I have 2 carts.
Would having the Milwalkee made me better at my job, No but damn I could have the flashiest cart around, oh wait I'm there to do a job not impress the other guys working there.
Flame on
If you think that the name on the outside of your box you a better tech than a guy with a old box full of HF CM Husky etc.. then you need a reality check.
The only real difference between a guy with a truck box full of truck tools and the other guy is that one can take home more money at the end of the week.
I would never choose a tech by what brand that they use, more important to me is how they treat their tools and customers.
For me I had the choice last year of keeping my old service cart (re-used hospital cart) and either a new rubber maid or a Milwalkee. Of course the old cart would be cheapest but it needed new wheels the Rubber maid was $99 and the Milwalkee was $249.
I chose the Rubber Maid and putting new wheels on the old one for a total of $135, now I have 2 carts.
Would having the Milwalkee made me better at my job, No but damn I could have the flashiest cart around, oh wait I'm there to do a job not impress the other guys working there.
Flame on
I was gonna delete this... But I think I'll just close it so that people can laugh at the folks that argue and bicker over a tool box.
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