Chris Adams
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2007
- Messages
- 2,117
I buy and sell boxes of all sorts, but the last year have been mostly the big brand boxes (Snappy, Mac, Matco) but I have messed with lots of Craftsman in the past, ranging from the cheapie homeowner line to Craftsman Industrial.
Today, on a whim while walking through the swap meet, mostly for exercise, I bought a 'new' homeowner box. Cheap 5 drawer, an obvious scratch and ding refugee.
It cost more than it should, 55 bucks, but heck, I haven't messed with a box is several weeks so it was just an excuse to fiddle in the shop.
Now I've bought and sold about ten of these homeowner bottom chests. Friction slides, light weight.
It was amusing as the vendor artfully showed how good the box was by only opening the top three drawers...
So I tossed this one in the Tracker and drug it home.
It had two un-anchored drawers on the bottom.
Fixing it was nothing.
The bent up slide anchors on the bottom the drawers took about ten minutes with a sheet metal hammer and a small dolly, another couple minutes straightening the bent rail, and about two minutes removing the rather awful stickers Sears had slapped over the box when they decided to sell it cheap.
So now the box looks no worse than the floor models at Sears.
Now the depressing thing; The box is ****. The metal was so thin that as I type this, I'm bleeding from 'paper cuts' from the thin metal on the box.
As I said, I've fixed and sold something like ten of these exact model.
This one I could fold up the drawers in my bare hands, crush the body like a beer can.
None of the older boxes was like this. The boxes with the same part number, build two or more years ago, were much heavier.
This box retails allegedly for 199.99, but is always on sale at 109.99 at Sears.
One reason I picked up the box was I was thinking of installing ball bearing slides on the drawers.
Silly thing to do, but I get people asking all the time 'can I convert it to ball bearing?' usually about some older Mac, or SnapOn, and I was thinking of actually trying to do it.
Sort of a feasibility study.
I don't think the sidewalls in this box could hold the rivets without tearing.
Sad and depressing.
Today, on a whim while walking through the swap meet, mostly for exercise, I bought a 'new' homeowner box. Cheap 5 drawer, an obvious scratch and ding refugee.
It cost more than it should, 55 bucks, but heck, I haven't messed with a box is several weeks so it was just an excuse to fiddle in the shop.
Now I've bought and sold about ten of these homeowner bottom chests. Friction slides, light weight.
It was amusing as the vendor artfully showed how good the box was by only opening the top three drawers...
So I tossed this one in the Tracker and drug it home.
It had two un-anchored drawers on the bottom.
Fixing it was nothing.
The bent up slide anchors on the bottom the drawers took about ten minutes with a sheet metal hammer and a small dolly, another couple minutes straightening the bent rail, and about two minutes removing the rather awful stickers Sears had slapped over the box when they decided to sell it cheap.
So now the box looks no worse than the floor models at Sears.
Now the depressing thing; The box is ****. The metal was so thin that as I type this, I'm bleeding from 'paper cuts' from the thin metal on the box.
As I said, I've fixed and sold something like ten of these exact model.
This one I could fold up the drawers in my bare hands, crush the body like a beer can.
None of the older boxes was like this. The boxes with the same part number, build two or more years ago, were much heavier.
This box retails allegedly for 199.99, but is always on sale at 109.99 at Sears.
One reason I picked up the box was I was thinking of installing ball bearing slides on the drawers.
Silly thing to do, but I get people asking all the time 'can I convert it to ball bearing?' usually about some older Mac, or SnapOn, and I was thinking of actually trying to do it.
Sort of a feasibility study.
I don't think the sidewalls in this box could hold the rivets without tearing.
Sad and depressing.
