Harbor Freight 2 Drawer Intermediate Chest..

[ariscus]

Does anyone here have any experience with this tool chest? I am getting ready to redo my work bench and have thought about dropping 2 or 3 of these into the front of it for some added storage as my craftsman tool chest is getting very limited on space? I know some of HF's tool chests are pretty good but couldn't find much about this particular chest with a quick search here. Thanks for any info you guys can provide.

 

[SMKS]

The flat black chests like that are worse quality than the 26", 44" and 56" boxes that many of us here own.

Unless they've upgraded them recently, the black chest has friction slides and overall isn't as nice as the other boxes. I can only assume the matching intermediate drawers are the same.

Go to the store and play around with the black chest of drawers shown in the pic. Many stores have them on display. I haven't been impressed.

 

[03protege]

Those black HF chests are very poor quality. I would recommend going into the store and checking them out.

 

[cheechi]

That set is junk. If you are going to put toolbox drawers in your workbench, that is a good idea but I would go for either something like this or similar. Depending on your workbench, they also make single drawer 40" intermediate's I've seen done the same way.

You can't get that intermediate separately anyway, unless your HF has some that were loose/damaged.

 

[RCStocker]

It is the bottom of any tool chest line. If you use 2 tools a month at home it might be ok but the Red box for $299 on sale is a fanstastic box. The boxes you posted are not going to fit other boxes. They really are junk.

 

[dcm223]

Craftsman has a good selection of intermediate chests. Just wait for a sale on the model you want.

 

[ariscus]

They have their black 2 drawer for $80 right now so I might grab a couple of those, they are the ball bearing units. Any have anything against those? And can anyone tell me why the identical chest but in red is $50 more? I don't really care which color I just can't figure out the price difference.

 

[cheechi]

I assume by 'they' you mean Sears. The short answer is nobody can really explain most of the things they do.

They may be getting rid of one kind for another, changed suppliers, had a problem with one that the next gen will fix or (quite possibly) moving from one COO to another. do some more research on them, but the short version is if you build it into a workbench well enough, the only thing you'd really have to worry about is if the slides have a problem. Granted, if you build them into a workbench the wrong way, expect the chassis to deform in some kind of way. Support the bottom and sides so it can't slide around AT ALL. Just saying, not that it ever happened to me.

 

[Schwinn68]

Menards just had their intermediate boxes on sale. Much better quality and very good price. I have a two drawer craftsman intermediate that sits on a shelf under my workbench. I like that setup a lot.

 

[cdubb]

Look at the edges of the craftsman boxes the black ones are just one piece where the red ones are folded over and crimped kinda hard to explain... The black ones are a lower quality built box . The slides and hardware are the same just the construction is different... I found this out when they had a sale on the black ones I went in and they up sold me on that..

 

[ariscus]

Got it. For my specific use I don't "think" the side construction will be of great importance, not to say its of no importance, but it will be mostly enclosed except for the front and it will be well supported. I'm still not 100% sure what I will end up with I like the three drawer Waterloo that was posted by cheechi, and its a great price. Thanks or all the info so far guys.

 

[Big Gus]

junk

 

[Danglerb]

I bought a Craftsman intermediate, thinking its 3 or 4 drawers, top one maybe split, less than $70 at OSH clearance last year. Things to keep in mind.

Dimensions, not just width, but depth and depth of the actual drawer it can be a LOT less than expected.
Wasted space, frame around the drawers to support a top chest.

Industrial storage can be a good alternative to an intermediate box, big deep drawers etc.

For a work bench you might also be able to hang a drawer below the working top.