There are two versions of this box sold at Depot under the same SKU. Because they have the same SKU you can not tell which one your store has in stock via the internet, or their in store lookup. You have to look at the box. The older version was made in China and the newer version is made in Vietnam. There is a
post on GJ where most people prefered the newer Vietnamese version, but I had both side by side in my garage and prefer the Chinese version. They are almost exactly the same and both are decent boxes, not junk, not Snap On.
Chinese Version
Vietnamese Version
Here are the differences I noted:
Chinese version has rubber grommets at both corners to allow wires to pass into the top box. Vietnamese version has a knock out that is not knocked out on the left side.
Chinese version has a lip around the perimeter of the bottom box to center the top box. The Vietnamese version has no lip, but uses a small piece of angle iron at the back corners to hold the top box to the bottom.
Chinese version does not have any advertising stickers on the box, Vietnamese version has red stickers with promotional information on the drawer fronts. (Easy to remove)
The Chinese drawer liners are a smooth, thin foam. The Vietnamese liners seemed nicer and have more gloss and a macro texture.
The Chinese drawer slides **** the drawer all the way in when you get it almost all the way closed. When you open it, it takes a little extra force to pull past the latching mechanism. The Vietnamese version just has increased friction at the end of travel. You have to push against the friction when closing and pull against it when opening. I liked the Chinese slides better so I searched for Chinese boxes.
The Chinese version is listed as having an 1800 lb capacity (100 lb per drawer) and the Vietnamese version is listed as 1400 lb.
The country of origin is written on the side of the cardboard box for the lower unit by the SKU. If you do go searching for one country of origin or another, in all the boxes I saw the Chinese ones always had white banding around the cardboard and the Vietnamese always had yellow banding. YMMV, but I looked at several boxes at about 6 different Depots.
I ended up picking up 4 of these... I searched several Home Depots for Chinese version and ended up finding a Depot that had the box on clearance and they price matched all the boxes to their clearance price. Out the door with 6% MI sales tax and 5% off for using a Home Depot card they were $542 each.
Here are 3 set up, 4th is still in the box and I am debating need as I transfer tools from my old boxes to these.
I measured the drawer thickness with a micrometer today, and it was 0.038 for both the Chinese version and the Vietnamese version I measured at Depot with rolled edges. I assume that is 20 gauge steel (0.036) + paint.
I did not take a drawer out of the Depot Display model, but the Chinese one I had has 1 3/8" drawer slides with 10 bearing pairs. Cabinet uses qty 6 5"x2" casters. The two deep drawers have two slides per drawer.
You can compare that to the ones Mister Moose reviewed previously and it is not the best, but not paper thin garbage. I also stopped by a Sears today and almost all of their drawers were 0.038" thick with the exception of their homeowner line, and workbenches with drawers underneath which were 0.025" thick. The Craftsman drawer slides ranged from 1 1/16" to 1 3/8" tall.
