Machinist's tool chest

Anybody know where I can get a good used one? (besides ebay)

I like the Gerstner style, but the price and waiting period are major setbacks.

Thanks!

Dan

Make one. Some of these guys have really nice boxes. I made mine out of available raw materials. Mesquite and Oak. Problem is that's it's so nice, I don't use it. I keep some stuff in $50 cigar boxes.

Routered-out pockets in drawers work good too.

Gerstner.........ooooooooo I bought one over from the US in 1979........its still in its cardboard box........too nice to use, nice to see they are still in business.

I went to "ReTool" in Michigan and got a nice straight Kennedy machinists sheetmetal box for $30. Paint mostly intact. Carry handle a little rotted but who uses those anyway?

Major problem is the green felt is extremely ratty inside. I have new felt but not the time to install it yet.

I also inherited a very small (smaller than the smallest Gerstner, sheetmetal outer with wood front drawers) machinists box....given as a present from my grandmother to grandfather before they were married. It's well used but there's tremendous sentimental value. Plus it is still working! Holds all my taps, dies, reamers and transfer punches.

It seems like the deal on a Gerstner might be in a local garage, estate, or want-ad sale. Ebay seems to drive "WOW" prices for anything Gerstner IMHO.

-Matt

.........I just use a 7 drawer Kobalt I bought at Lowe's. My shooting buddy's grandfather was a machinist (long passed away) and he still has his old oak dovetailed box and some measuring tools. Nice box. Well used, grease and oiled up, some chipped corners and a few loose bits here and there. Probably cost a grand to buy one like it now. My cheap steel one is more durable and probably longer lived, but it doen't smell like cigars, nor does it have the same soul. Oh well.

Rick

It depends on setting:

If you are working in a rough shop where you aren't assigned a bench the metal Kennedy's are the way to go.

If you have your own bench at the shop or you have your own shop, the Gerstner's are the best.

Not only are they very good utilitarian tool boxes, but they indicate that you are serious about your trade in a way that few other outward signs can.

You don't have to be a machinist to know that anyone who has taken the care and made the investment in a box like that isn't just fooling around.

Gerstner boxes are a tradition in the trade.

The guys at Gerstner have gone out of their way to make the Gerstner tool chests look as masculine as they can while staying within the practicalities of design.

If this wasn't done, Gerstner would always be backlogged.

Women just love them! They want to put all their rings and jewelry and litte stuff in them.

Look at the crappy jewelry cases women have to put up woth.

We men get to have the Gestner chests for all of our little treasures but they are just a little too Manly for the girls.

Hmmmmmm......

Messrs. Gerstner, are you listening?

Gerstner tool boxes.

Sometimes you can find Gerstner tool boxes at gun shows. I have also found some useful machinists tools'/instruments at gun shows. I have seen them in garage sales and occasionally in an auction (middle ohio).
I have purchased several Gerstner tool boxes over the years for sister, daughter, etc. (wife likes horses not jewelry). They have really liked them. My sister calls hers "Fort Knox".

Gerstner has had a booth at the Cabin Fever Expo and N.A.M.E.S. in the past. They have had some really great prices on "dent and scratch" boxes.
Having seen the "dent and scratch" boxes in person, my opinion is that there is a good chance they are regular stock sold at a healthy discount but they call them blemished so as not to get in trouble with their distributors for selling them so cheap to the public. Either that, or their Q.C. department is really, really picky.

I didn't go to NAMES this year. Not sure if they were there this time or not.

Dave

Yes, yes....Gerstner's are wonderful.


Thanks for the tips so far.


What Buckshot said is so true. The metal boxes lack "soul". The old wooden ones are great, because they're handmade, no 2 alike.

That's what I'm interested in.

I'm a knifemaker with my own lil' shop. I desperately need some organization and this is the way to go for me.

Dan

I see some foreign copies of Gerstner boxes - has anyone here tried one? Are they any good?

The deal of a lifetime on toolboxes is at Costco - 19 drawers, double wide, top and bottom, one drawer for hanging file folders, big casters, all in STAINLESS STEEL, for only $650. One of my guys bought one and it's beautiful - wished I had room and need for one more box...

You can never tell where toolboxes pop up for sale - my brother-in-law bought a new large Kennedy for $5 from a co. he worked for when they went under - he ended up giving it to me (I treated him to sushi for the gesture). Another time I went to my neighbor's moving sale - they gave me one for nothing. I also could've bought a large Kennedy box with two drawer bottom add on for $75 at a shop closing sale. I like Kennedy boxes - the one I bought in '82 is still in great shape. I also saw a small Kennedy for sale at a pawn shop for $5 - needed a new lock - but those are only a few $ and easy to replace. Now if I could just get my friend down the block to sell me his old dad's Gerstner...
Good luck,
Tom B.

Where's a good place to check for shop closings? I'm in the DC area.

check out a group called "PATINA" in the DC area..... they are a antique tool collecting group and folks sell and trade things at their meetings.....

http://www.patinatools.org/

Pendentive:
your "from" tag just says MD, are you in Mont. or PG county?

The old shops have already closed or have been consolidated. There are mostly hi tech CNC shops around D.C. now.

That is a young man's game and many people who work in those shops are operators not machinists. they don't have Gerstner tool chests.

I haven't been scrounging around Balamer lately, some old line shops there have recently gone out.

A lot of guys in my age group were going into the trade in the 1970's but they were content with the metal tool boxes. Young machinists tend to move around and Gerstner chests don't like the stress of moving.

The wooden tool chests were the standard item of the generation before mine and I bought mine from a retired Navy Yard guy.

Examples in very good condition are going to be difficult to find on the used amrket and they will probably fetch a good price.

Ma--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I went to "ReTool" in Michigan and got a nice straight Kennedy machinists sheetmetal box for $30. Paint mostly intact. Carry handle a little rotted but who uses those anyway?
Major
tt

Can you tell me what city Retool is in in Mich ? Thanks chris

New Gerstner chests can be the start of a grand tradition in a family of fine craftsmen decending over generations.

An old mentor offered me his 25" Gerstner with the tools in it when he retired. We were prety close the time as sometime happens between the younger and older generations in the work place. I declined because he had a grandson coming along and said so. I remember him saying "Not much will come of that".

That was true but as soon as I said that my old mentor was a little hurt that I refused it. I wished I'd taken him up on it. When Grandpa died grandson looted his grandpa's shop using the ruse of "cleaning up and organizing". Grandma didn't know what hit her. Grandson hocked what he could and sold the rest to his bar bum buddies for nickels on the dollar. Thus the heritage of a great old guy was scattered for money to fund a drug binge. What a crime.

So when people tell me that old so and so dies I make sure the younger guys in the trade know about it and make sure they attend any estate sales. The artifacts of departed mechanics, woodworkers, and machinists are the means by which their memories are perpetuated.

I got enough heritage tools to require a week to spin all the acquisition yarns from and another three weeks to go through the personalities and histories associated with them.

"That's an old surface gage you have there. Where did you get it?" "I bought it from old Bob Chouinard's family. Remember him? Loved the big machines? He thought me how to thread on a G&L 340T horizontal in 1964. Couinard was a water color painter. He did fishing flies mostly but once in a while he'd take on a favorite fishing spot and render it precisely as a photograph. His grandson is a city counselman now..."

I've seen some woodworking plans for sale on the net. Anybody ever try ordering plans for one. I think that's the way I'll go for my next box. If you make it yourself you can make a drawer just the right size for that odd sized tool you made and now have no place to put it to keep it safe.

Nobody has mentioned yet that Gerstners also show up in antique shops now and again. I got mine at an antique sale in Fishersville, VA many years ago, but have seen several in shops around Central VA as well.

As for the foreign knock offs, I bought two small oak chests, one basic box and one cute little unit with two drawers from China by way of Wally World...the price was embarassingly low and the quality surprisingly good. I also found a BIIIGG multidrawer chest at Sam's Club and since it had been reduced from about $100 down to less than $50, it lives at my house now too. I guess you could say I like those oak chests!

GF

Forrest..... I like your story about remembering where and who you got a given tool or chest..... i collect antique machinist tools and am allways interested in the stories behind these men and there chests..... it is also frustrating for example to have a "one generation" (not handed down) chest say from the 1870's that you know nothing about..... i have one by a C.M. Lenord who made most of his own stuff and it is kind of nice such as his hand drill.... brass and steel body, ebony brest plate, rosewood crank and deer antler side handle....... his hand filed taps have a flatened tang (like the 18th century style) and below that are forged to a square so both types of tap wrenchs will work....... the chest contains his snuff box, bone handled tooth brush and even the owner stamps he signed his tools with.... also a stamp of a ball peen hammer about 3/8" long he marked on some tools after his name....... any way it is such a shame there is no history with it..... maybe we all should write down what we know about special things and put them in the box with them..... (I should do this too!!!!) anyway Forrest maybe we should start a thread of neet old tool (and the guy's that used them) stories.

Chris:

Check out Retool locations here:

http://www.re-tool.com/location.html

I've been to both Royal Oak and Pontiac stores....they have different stuff in them depending on what's available. Inventory of course changes from week to week.

Be careful, there's a lot of ragged out junk that carries a high price IMHO. Sometimes they reduce the price from week to week if the thing isn't moving, so there's kind of a game to be played here.

There are some deals, tho...I got a Mitutoyo 3-4" mic for $9.95 which was just dirty. Leadscrew nice and smooth, carbide faces in good condition, and no major dings, cleaned up quite nicely. Perfect for a special project.

Don't buy all the goodies before I go next 8-)

-Matt