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Anyone ever use the Lista Knock Off's from Global Industrial?

Has anyone ever used the knock off Lista type modular cabinets from Global Industrial?

The drawer weight rating is 200lbs per, as where a Lista, Equipto etc are 400lbs per drawer.

Has anyone any experience with these? Good deal or pure junk?

Cabinets | Modular Drawer | Global™ Modular Drawer Cabinets - GlobalIndustrial.com

Reasonably sure that's the same stuff, different paint code, as Big Box if-not-also HF carry, one or more of just about all of those here over the years.

Not "junk" exactly, but just NOT in the same league as Lista or Vidmar, and the weight carrying capacity is a tad optimistic even so.

No fear.. I'm good with some cabinets stronger than others, just arrange my s**t accordingly and spend the money on what goes into them instead of on the box.
 
So of late I've found one cabinet at HF, and to my surprize an even better one at Home Depot. Here's the problem (which applies lots of places in the modern age) - you have to either see in person, or see one somebody bought, to know which are really pretty good vs which are really not so good, when the two may be side by side on the showroom floor.

To my eye the units in the pictures look like a couple steps up, from HD or HF, but I've not seen/used/owned one.
(The dimensions might be copied from storloc, but they lack the forklift pockets etc.)
 
I would recommend just getting Lista "scratch and dent specials" from American Workspace. These could be demos from trade shows to stuff that got dented in shipment. I have purchased from them in the past and have been pleased with the results. They claim 40-60% off of list price.

Save 4-6% on New Lista Cabinets,Lista Work Benches,Lista Tool Boxes,Lista Expert,Lista Parts - American Workspace Inc.

+1 Still not exactly cheap, but does make good sense.

I settle for "office grade" locally, straighten the odd panel, replace a hinge or latch, add 3/4 ply bases with SERIOUS casters, add thinner ply to stiffen drawer bottoms.

None of which is hard, after all.

Just a tedious distraction if you have revenue work to do instead.

2CW
 
We have tbe grainger version at college. Full height, about $900?

Cabinets are not vidmar quality. Fit and finish good, but thinner and slides weaker. Here is the kicker. Opening them requires so much force to overcome catch it will give you carpal tunnels. If we had a safety nazi on staff when they found out they would send them back to avoid repetetive strain injury.
 
We have tbe grainger version at college. Full height, about $900?

Cabinets are not vidmar quality. Fit and finish good, but thinner and slides weaker. Here is the kicker. Opening them requires so much force to overcome catch it will give you carpal tunnels. If we had a safety nazi on staff when they found out they would send them back to avoid repetetive strain injury.

Made bones initially on telco gear when a rackmount might weigh a hundred Avoir, not 5 lbs or so. Early-on, we were trying to utilize rails with baked-on Molybdenum Disulphide in slickery polymer to avoid the spend on ball-bearings. Not HORRIBLE if the gear only needed pulled out once or twice a year, but still...

Nowadays, cheap Asian ball-bearing slides in-stock at Big Box, several lengths, all ya hafta doo is get ANAL about alignment, and you can double-up on both sides for some serious mass handling per-drawer. No metal-bending gear here, but I can chop-up plywood, metal channel, square tube, or extrusions well enough, so my "heavy" cabinets are DIY.

Cheap-shot?

The bottom drawer isn't even really a drawer. Platform, "parked" in a garage stall, rather. Serious-heavy rollers under, if not skates, damned HIGH upper-bound as to what it can hold.

Best of all? Pulling it out CANNOT "tip" the cabinet above it, even if it is still empty!

Try THAT with yer Listas and Vidmars!

:)

We are folk as can "make anything", and yet we limit ourselves to store-bought storage that Lybarger's Corollary dictates will ALWAYS be at least slightly the wrong size?

80% of the time, surely good enough. Otherwise, JF build what you actually NEED. Not as if it had look good enough to go into the Royal Dining hall at some damned palace.
 
Check how far the drawers open. Depends on how you store stuff, but a lot of the less expensive tool boxes don't open all the way. My Kennedy opens almost past the handle. A lot of them stop about 2" from the front drawers.
We have some Lyons at work, wish they had bought Listas, not held up well.

Dave
 
I still think any & all of these cabinets are way overpriced.

It's a sheetmetal cabinet for crikees sake !

Yes, they handle heavy loads, yes they are very nice....but for how much ?
 
I still think any & all of these cabinets are way overpriced.

It's a sheetmetal cabinet for crikees sake !

Yes, they handle heavy loads, yes they are very nice....but for how much ?

For the fact that, as, said, most any of us CAN build stout cabinets, "bending" optional.

But that's time away from "revenue" work. Or time away from "f***-around" NON work that is less booooring!

:)

And.. convenience thing .. yah buy em but ONCE. Even shite-grade ones gets kept, just re-purposed.

My oldest decent one is from the 1960's. Some auto-parts chain carried 'em.
 
The only reason I'm considering this cabinet, is my son wants one for a clothes dresser in his room. i REFUSE to pay Lista money for undies storage....lol.

But i do agree, you have to see and feel these things in person. The HF boxes actually aren't terrible. Their newest line of 22" deep stuff is by far better than Depot/bLowes/Crapsman.

But I'm REAL hesitant to drop 1200 bucks on anything i can't caress in the flesh before i commit. :)

I did notice the rollers on the Global boxes are plastic. Im not sure if the low weight rating is from crap slides, or just crap overall construction. Unfortunately the wife has forbid me from driving the forklift in the house {Dave Decaussin Style} so the lack of fork pockets isn't really an issue. Though as i recall they do have fork pockets, theres just a cover over them.
 
Make one from plywood (and use Bondo to fill the grain) and simulate steel.
Buy drawer slides for kitchen cabinets.

Make it a learning experience for both of you.
 
Make one from plywood (and use Bondo to fill the grain) and simulate steel.
Buy drawer slides for kitchen cabinets.

Make it a learning experience for both of you.

Better yet, limit the use of plywood. Build it open-sided on square steel tube verticals. So you can easily attach stock ball-bearing slides.

WHEN it all suits yah, THEN just clad it with anything you like the looks of to keep dust and swarf out.

When there's a frame and the "skin" ain't "load bearing", yah have tons of options.

Surplus laminate flooring here. Seriously good dent and abrasion resistance. Replaceable in sections, should I trash a panel. And it even looks nice.
 
Lego Cabinet.jpg
I have made a lot of what I would call Lista Fan-Boy Cabinets, precisely because I fell in love with Lista at work and wanted similar quality for my home dressers etc. I would therefore echo the comments above and build a custom cabinet using high quality drawer slides. I like the side mount 150lb Accuride slides but there are good bottom mount options and self closing versions of each. Making your own allows you to get size the cabinet optimally for the site, as well as getting the right drawer depths. For dressers for example I've done 1x2" drawers at the top for small items and then 4" and 6" drawers for the clothes. If you were a tremendous enthusiast of the sartorial arts you could have more thin drawers to display all your socks in one layer, but it might get annoying if your mom was doing the folding!

I had a great woodwork mentor who gave me tips on drawer and carcass construction, mostly stressing building with biscuit joinery as fancy joints were for when there wasn't good glue in the world. More recently I've gotten good at sheet metal design. The cabinet above was designed to fit exactly into an Ikea Ivar bookshelf at 33.5" wide by 14" deep. It has 20Ga CRMS drawers laser cut and folded, the sides riveted on, then commercially powder coated and the inner drawer slides riveted on after. The drawer pulls are 16Ga, each with four screws and barrel nuts that allows fine adjustment of the drawer fronts so you can get them to line up perfectly. (I think this one still needs some fine adjustment!). I'm in the process of making another of these cabinets to go on the other side of the bookshelf which will be taller, since in the grand tradition of Lista cabinets in shops, you end up with different cabinet heights here and there. But the wood and the pulls will be identical so it will be Lista-Esq. I plan to make some more in this style in the future. The powder coat colour, is "antique white" by the way, which was chosen as they piggybacked on another job. I was worried it would look weird with the birch cabinet fronts but they overall effect is very warm and perfect for the home Lista look.
 
that is a bad ass cabinet! Now if only i was half the craftsman you were, i wouldn't need CNC machines to make me look professional :)
 
that is a bad ass cabinet! Now if only i was half the craftsman you were, i wouldn't need CNC machines to make me look professional :)

Hey I need CNC laser, waterjet, and the CNC back gauge on the press brake to look this pro! Another pro feature on this was waterjetting a template for the screw holes for the outer drawer slides in the cabinet sides. You drill them all with a hand drill with the template and then the drawer slides are in exactly the right place. Solidworks is the true key here. The next level is to price out getting a CNC router shop to do the cabinet parts. There's a good local wood supplier that accurately cuts rectangles for the cabinet but I could see doing fancier things with a CNC router.
 








 
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