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Tool cabinets ...

To: <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
Subject: Tool cabinets ...
From: "Arvid Jedlicka" <arvidj@visi.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:47:33 -0600
I have been given permission to acquire a large tool box. What has caught
my eye is the stainless steel cabinets that are available at Sam's Club, CostCo,
Harbor Freight, etc.

A "good features" appear to be the basic materials. They claim to be 18 and
20 gauge 304 stainless. The cabinets that I've seen at Sears claim to be 20,
22, 24 and 28 gauge.

They all have ball bearing slides and the quality control seems to be 
reasonable.

Another good feature appears to be the price - quite a bit less than Sears, 
Snap-on,
etc..

The questions I've got are:

"Is stainless a reasonable alternative to the traditional painted cabinet?"

and

"Should I be concerned that most of the construction uses pop rivets?".

As an example, on the cheaper cabinets the drawers are pop-riveted
to the slides but on the Sears cabinets the slides have a tab and the drawer has
a hole into which the tab fits. Surprisingly the pop-rivet give a much more 
solid
feel as the tab and hole affair is not tight fit. But what is the long term 
outlook
for the pop-rivets. The tab and hole is loosey-goosey from day one but will
not get any worse and will remain that way forever. The pop-rivets are much
more solid but if they loosen up it will continue to get worse until they become
unusable.

and

"Any other comments or suggestions".

Thanks,
Arvid






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