DIY Toolbox

Everyone Needs a Toolbox

Almost everyone who enjoys building or wrenching on cars has a collection of tools. We need tools to work and we need a place to store them. Everyone needs a toolbox. No matter if your collection is small or large a safe place to keep things organized is necessary. I use the word toolbox loosely because I know that tool storage can come in many shapes and forms. From Adam Savage’s first order of retrievability philosophy of tool storage. Where tools have homes out in the open on carts or peg boards for easy access. To my humble tool bag I used while living on the third floor of an apartment building. Tools need homes! So how do we provide a home when we run out of space and budget?

DIY Filing Cabinet Toolbox

Years ago my dad brought home an old filing cabinet and drug it into his nice new shop. I was afraid he would fill it with shop manuals and books about cars. Even though were now in the Internet age where everything can be found online within seconds. But to my surprise he started filling it with tools. Drills, saws, battery chargers, blow molded cases, ect. I fell in love with his little idea. All the oddball tools you can’t quite fit into a standard toolbox got stuffed in the filing cabinet. And it worked great!

Now obviously he didn’t reinvent the wheel or even come up with the idea. But it was new to me and seemed like a perfect solution. Once you get deeper into your hobby you will start to gather tools other than simple hand tools. Some items will come in big blow mold cases or no case at all. Even if you do have a drawer in the bottom of your standard toolbox, odds are you will out grow that drawer quickly. Most of these tools are not in use daily anyway so there is no point leaving them out and easy to retrieve. You will need to find a place to store them, somewhere easy to get to but still out of the way.

Thankfully filing cabinets come in all shapes and sizes. From small ones from Ikea to fit under your desk. All the way to industrial units from doctors offices. Chances are you can find something out there that will fit your space. I decided on a 4’ wide 4 drawer cabinet that came out if a office building and was never used! Knowing my tool collection was only going to keep growing I wanted the largest one I could get.

Budget dictates everything, even our toolbox. The cost of a toolbox is more or less waist. Its an “overhead” cost. One of those things that doesn’t really help you get the job done, but you can’t live without it. So investing in a toolbox can be a hard sell. Obviously we all want a nice shiny box because we want to look cool! Only a career service tech using his toolbox 40+ hours a week for the next 25 years can honestly justify spending $10,000 with one of the tool truck brands. So that leaves most of us hunting for a good deal to fit our needs. So how does free sound?

Not everyone will have a connection to get a free filing cabinet like I did. If you have asked around with friends and family and come up empty handed, its time to hit the classifieds. Even having to pay for a second hand filing cabinet you will save you big for tool storage. The box stores charge a premium on anything with there name brand on it. Can you think of a few name brands of filing cabinets? Ya me either, so you aren’t getting charged for the name on the front! Even still don’t overpay. Watch the classifieds for a few days to see how much they are selling for. Some people ask a ton for them because they paid a lot for it when it was brand new. With so many available it keeps the cost down so if you hunt you should be able to find any size for under $150.

Are Filing Cabinets Strong Enough?

I get asked this a lot on my YouTube channel so lets settle this once and for all. My cabinet has 4 foot wide shelves that can be filled to the brim with paper. Now imagine picking up a stack of paper thats 4 feet tall! I couldn’t do it thats for sure! While yes they may not be as strong as some brand name toolbox’s they can more then stand up to your tools. Unless you own a machine shop and fill it with tungsten tooling you probably won’t overload a filing cabinet.

Another plus of using a filing cabinet is the built in safety they offer. Larger industrial cabinets have a locking mechanism that will only allow you to open one drawer at a time. So as long as you load it correctly with the heavier items at the bottom you should be fine.

There are some downsides to using a filing cabinet in your shop or garage. They are a bit hard to move around without casters. I don’t know of any toolbox on the market today that doesn’t have casters. Mobility is a great option to have in your work space. I move my main toolbox around often to shoot videos or photos. Some times it gets rolled out just to clean. So if you want to move cabinets around you will need to get creative and add some wheels. Honestly though with filing cabinets generally being taller and top heavy it may be a good idea to make the cabinets a permanent fixture in your space.

Get Creative

My filing cabinet looks nothing like a filing cabinet anymore. I enjoy my garage and take the time to make it look nice. So for me the bland satin off white color had to go. Thankfully its a simple and cheap job to make it blend right in. So get creative, don’t just settle for boring. A coat of paint and some cheap 3m adhesive back chrome completely transformed my cabinet into something worth having in the garage!