OK, ever since signing up to this forum I have been drooling over everyone's tool boxes so I thought I'd post up my little project. I have been doing my own work on the bike and car for the past 6 years, and my collection of tools has slowly grown. Tools now fill up two cupboards, but I need something for my most frequent tools that I can keep in the garage. Because we are not allowed to store items in the garage(renting), the toolbox had to be small enough not to attract any attention.
I was searching for a genuine Snap-on I could refurbish, but even beaten up 40yo ones still go for £200+ and I just don't have that money at the moment. After searching around for a month or so on Ebay and gumtree I came across this toolbox. Made by Talco, who it a British toolbox only manufacturer. It was solid, as a rock, and back in its day retailed for £400, so maybe not a snapon, but a goodun nevertheless.
Bought the box for a song, and the restoration started:
All the bubbling paint scraped off to reveal true finish, As you can see it was straight, however completely faded with some surface rush :
All drawers removed:
All slides removed and cleaned up:
Then I stripped back all the original paint. This step took about 4 hours and I managed to destroy a wire wheel and a whole pack of sand paper:
Everything then got wiped down with some IPA and it was time for the primer. The front of the drawers got sprayed first:
Followed by the box:
And the front:
In total 4 coats of primer were applied. This was then flattened back using 1000grip wet and dry and base coat was sprayed. Total of 8 coats of red were sprayed. Then left to cure for 24 hours, flattened back using 1000Grit again, and whole process repeated with the clear Lacquer:
The lacquer was left to cure for 48 hours, and then the whole box was machine polished to give it some real gloss.
The lock was replaced with a new one
All slides were cleaned up, and packed with some lithium grease
All drawer edge trim was replaced with new chrome trim
New badge was put on
And here is the finished product after about 10 days of evenings work:
As mentioned at the start, this box is just provisional to keep my most used tools in the garage. When I move into a house which isn’t rented, I’ll make sure to have a big *** box which can store all my tools but this will do for now. Here is how the box got filled:
Top: mainly ratchets and extensions:
Screwdrivers
Pliers, circlips, cutters, ect:
Drifts and Allen keys:
Sockets:
Combi Spanners and ratcheting spanners (love them):
Torque wrench, impact driver, digital calliper, ect
Hope I didn’t bore you too much
Thanks for reading
Mig
I was searching for a genuine Snap-on I could refurbish, but even beaten up 40yo ones still go for £200+ and I just don't have that money at the moment. After searching around for a month or so on Ebay and gumtree I came across this toolbox. Made by Talco, who it a British toolbox only manufacturer. It was solid, as a rock, and back in its day retailed for £400, so maybe not a snapon, but a goodun nevertheless.
Bought the box for a song, and the restoration started:
All the bubbling paint scraped off to reveal true finish, As you can see it was straight, however completely faded with some surface rush :
All drawers removed:
All slides removed and cleaned up:
Then I stripped back all the original paint. This step took about 4 hours and I managed to destroy a wire wheel and a whole pack of sand paper:
Everything then got wiped down with some IPA and it was time for the primer. The front of the drawers got sprayed first:
Followed by the box:
And the front:
In total 4 coats of primer were applied. This was then flattened back using 1000grip wet and dry and base coat was sprayed. Total of 8 coats of red were sprayed. Then left to cure for 24 hours, flattened back using 1000Grit again, and whole process repeated with the clear Lacquer:
The lacquer was left to cure for 48 hours, and then the whole box was machine polished to give it some real gloss.
The lock was replaced with a new one
All slides were cleaned up, and packed with some lithium grease
All drawer edge trim was replaced with new chrome trim
New badge was put on
And here is the finished product after about 10 days of evenings work:
As mentioned at the start, this box is just provisional to keep my most used tools in the garage. When I move into a house which isn’t rented, I’ll make sure to have a big *** box which can store all my tools but this will do for now. Here is how the box got filled:
Top: mainly ratchets and extensions:
Screwdrivers
Pliers, circlips, cutters, ect:
Drifts and Allen keys:
Sockets:
Combi Spanners and ratcheting spanners (love them):
Torque wrench, impact driver, digital calliper, ect
Hope I didn’t bore you too much
Thanks for reading
Mig
