Thanks guys. I didn’t include pics of the primer coats. After an initial scrub down with brushes and Simple Green, I used an orbital sander and drill with wire wheels to get the bulk of the rust off, then gave it an over night soak in Evaporust. I applied plenty of primer and enamel coats especially to the inner areas that will hold the tools, as I want it to be a long term functional box.
It weighs 20.2 lbs empty; I can’t image what it will weight full of tools.
The inner tray paint initially wrinkled because I made a rookie mistake of applying a coat of Rustoleum over an initial coat of Krylon Colormaster Paint + Primer without waiting long enough between coats. I don’t recommend the Krylon paint because it required an entire “tall boy” 15oz can just to cover the inner tray and the color still looked anemic and watered down. All of the Rustoleum worked well and their colors were rich.
I was most impressed with Rustoleum Hammered paint on the hardware. We’ll see how it will all hold up with heavy use. I like the patina on old boxes and would have kept the box as is (with a clear coat) but ultimately felt the new paint would protect it better from future rust. Also, the traditional Craftsman Red color appears to fade with time into a cool looking shade of red-orange, which prompted me to consider pure orange for the new color.
It was a worthwhile, fun little project.