Calculating Tool Box Capacity

[Misfire]

Looking to change out my 30 year old Craftsman stack with a new HF 44 bottom chest this Friday. Mrs. Misfire claims there's no way all the tools in my current boxes will fit in a single HF 44.

I no longer have any of the information that came with my old Craftsman boxes stating the capacity and to avoid trying to measure each drawer I simply measured the outside dimensions. Current stack is as follows.

26x12x15=4,680
26x16x13=5,408
26x18x27-12,636

Total of 22,724 cubic inches.

Harbor Freight claims 14,000 cubic inches in the 44 inch bottom but if you take my method and apply it to the HF 44 you get.

42x22x40=36,960 cubic inches

I think I'll have plenty of room and even a drawer or two sitting empty once I move everything over but I'd like to be sure. If I'm going to a bigger bottom chest I'd like to do it now and not have to immediately buy a top box.

Thoughts?

 

[pstemari]

What I find really matters is the area of the drawer bottoms, but I hate digging through stuff and try to keep everything in a single layer. Your tolerance for digging may vary.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Mr_B]

How much you gain really depends how crammed your current box is and how well the 44" drawer size works out for your particular tools . I'm another one who don't like stacking items thus not a big fan of too many deep drawers .

 

[Wamsutta]

Square inch capacity is more useful than cubic inch capacity unless you don't mind piling the tools on top each other. That's where the HF 44 will come up real short is at square inch capacity.

 

[Misfire]

Interesting, it wouldn’t be too tough to figure out the square inches of drawer space I currently have. I know the HF drawers are about 19 1/2 inches deep but I’ll have to see if I can find the width online.

Most of my stuff is mechanic’s tools so I don’t have a huge need for deep drawers. The top one will handle my deep well sockets and the bottom two should take care of my power tools.

 

[Mr_B]

Yeh I would go on drawer footprint over anything else .
Pretty sure you'll find the series 2 drawer sizes in a thread on here, if can't find it i'm sure someone will link or provide measures .

 

[Mr Ratchet]

You need to start by measuring the drawer foot prints. If you have tall objects, than you can check the drawer cubes. The CM is only 18" deep compared to the HF that is 22" deep. That extra depth adds up fast. I used to have a tall CM stack with mid box that was about 6' tall and had 24 to 26 drawers. I did not find it to be extremely efficient at storage especially with longer tools.

 

[Wamsutta]

Here's an extreme example of square inches. warmpancakes's box.

 

[Wamsutta]

Here's another example.

 

[Misfire]

Measured my current setup and I have 4,345 square inches of drawer space over 16 drawers if you count the open space under the lid of the top box as a drawer. I would sure think the HF 44 cabinet would have way more than that. Hopefully I'll be able to get those dimensions in the next couple days. I appreciate the replies.

 

[sharpie22]

Cubic inches for toolboxes are typically measured as the following. Some manufacturers do it differently to claim more cubes, but this is the industry standard method:

- Depth of drawer from rear of face panel to inside of back of drawer (if drawer has a bend that would prevent dropping tools in, that area doesn't count)
- Width of drawer from side to side (if there is a hem on the outside of the drawer moving inward, measure from inside of hem to inside of hem)
- Height of drawer from bottom of drawer to the top of the side walls

 

[bobcatdan]

Generally speaking a 40" bottom is about equal to a 26" give or take in storage capacity. To gain any more rooms, add a 40" top box.

 

[Mr Ratchet]

For sure you want to count the under the lid area if you are using it to hold tools

My guess is that you will gain about 1,000 sq in with the HF over your current set up. Your stack does not have a ton of drawers so you only loose three total but, are much bigger.

 

[Mr_B]

^
less than that, you gain about 700-800 over his current setup .

 

[Pitalplace]

Mrs. Misfire claims there's no way all the tools in my current boxes will fit in a single HF 44.


So if Mrs. Misfire says its not big enough then I would think that is permission to buy a bigger box. Never ever argue with the Mrs. if it in your benefit.

 

[bobcatdan]

For reference, a snap on krl1022 which is 54×29x45 is a little over 33,000 cubic inches of storage so your method is a bit flawed if you think a HF 40" has 36,000.

 

[DFB]

Face it, whatever you get...is never enough!

 

[Strouty]

Here's an extreme example of square inches. warmpancakes's box.

I can one up it by a drawer.......

 

[Wamsutta]

I thought I seen another one around here somewhere.

 

[Strouty]

When I ordered it this way, everyone thought I was crazy, except warm pancakes.

 

[johninct]

It is impossible to get your answer without actually putting your tools in drawers. I feel that you need to arrange tools in a somewhat logical design and be able to take stuff out without having to remove everything. Also, draw height matters. Real world verse theory.

 

[Misfire]

I think there's a lot of truth in that statement. It's not possible to haul tools in and try out a box before buying so I'm just looking for a decent way to compare old to new. It does seem that square inches is a more reasonable standard to use vs cubic inches simply to avoid having to stack items in drawers. I have quite a bit of that now and would like to reduce/avoid that in the new box.

Got to spend some time at Harbor Freight with a tape this afternoon. The 44 inch roller measures out as follows.

19.5 x 37=721.5
19.5 x 22.25 x 6= 2603.25
19.5 x 12 x 6=1404

Totals 4,728.25 square inches, lets just call it 4,728.
Current stack has 4,345 square inches. Buying the 44 only gains me 383 square inches of space and I have tools right now that are not in my current stack because I'm out of room. So if I go with the cabinet it's going to be full the second I put it in the garage. Got to admit I was pretty surprised and the wife was right. Too small.

Next I measured up the 26 inch single bank with the top chest.
19.5 x 22.25 x 13=5640.375
19.5 x 6.25 x 3=365.625
21.5 x 20.5=440.75

Totals 6,446.75, lets round it to 6,447. Subtract the area of my current stack, 4,345 and I gain 2,102 square inches of drawer space. That's a 48% increase over what I have now. Fits better in my garage than the 44, leaves more room to get out of the car, and the money is a wash. I lose the ability to work on the top of the cabinet. That's one thing I was really wanting.

Thought I was going to get real smart for a second and get the 26 inch cabinet and and hang the 14.5 inch end cabinet from it but the top drawers aren't deep enough for deep sockets standing and and I don't want sockets in lower drawers. Plus it only gives me 491 square inches more room than I have now for slightly more money than the larger capacity 26 inch stack.

So that's a long way of saying the 44 is out of the running. I'll probably go with the 26 cabinet chest combo but I need to think on it some more. It wasn't really on my radar but seems like the best solution for storage though I hate to lose the work area.

 

[DFB]

I dunno about all this speculating

Guess it all depends on drawer depth AND how you organize or do a layout of your tools


Or lets say...what tools you really have!


Don't ya think that's what counts


Some years ago I replaced a Craftsman stack, (had a 12 drawer top, a 4 drawer middle and a 3 drawer bottom with door storage which still sits empty at moment) with Craftsman 41" top and bottom. The stack had a lot of shallow drawers with small width and depth. Though I thought that was what I wanted at the time to layout all my screwdrivers, nutdrivers and wrenches. Way back when I was just a pup wrenchin' my scoots seen a guy with all his sockets loose in the small side drawers, ratchets and accessories in the middle. Clean little setup but not what I needed First thing I found out was with most of the narrow drawers was that the larger sized wrenches of a set stacked on edge in most any rack holder the drawer wouldn't close. Total waste of space using the next deeper drawer IMO. .


The bottom of the 41" with it big deep drawers alone holds way more than that stack ever did for me, big tools...large combos, pipewrench, large groove joints pliers, deadblow hammers, rubber mallets 3/4" drive sets, tap and die sets, drill bit boxes, pullers, pickle forks, bushing and seal drivers, 3 drawers full of wrenches DBE, OE, combo ratcheting metric and SAE. A deep plier drawer, AND one for pinch clamps, hose pliers and oil filters.

Shoot the top is just pretty much small stuff still...screwdrivers, nutdrivers, prybars, ball peens, punches, chisels, scrapers, precision measuring tools, snap ring pliers, hooks and spring pullers, specialty small engine tools and some air tools I never really use. Now I also do it different than some others because all my chrome sockets, ratchets breakers and extension bars are in the top of the top chest and not in drawer. Still I had to add an xtra 5 drawer 26" (again with deep drawers) for the impact sockets and most of the recent cordless tools like the impact wrenches, ratchet, grinder, hackzall.


Long story short I was in HF today I grabbed one the storage tech carts for less than $80 and did take a good long look at the 44" Nice unit but in IMO no way will it ever hold as much as the Craftsman lower I have. Lots of drawers ya...but mostly shallow.

I'm thinking you should go for the 56" lower...and don't look back!



I still have figure what to do with that old tower of shallow drawers.

I'm thinking I'm going to organize a lot of electrical in it, crimpers, strippers, cutters, heat shrink, and connecters, automotive wire, looms, spare bulbs, battery tools. My non contact temp gun and RPM tachometer several multi meters


I do have a bunch of specialty Harley tools but I have kept them in a total separate box