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Lista Vidmar Cabinets--Are There Alternatives or Used?

munruh

Hot Rolled
Joined
Jan 3, 2011
Location
Kansas
So this question again......Looking for another cabinet to organize tooling, mainly inserts and lathe tooling, but also carbide drills and taps. I have a quote on a Storloc cabinet and it is high. I know Lista is even higher. I've found a couple places that sell used cabinets but they also are really high. Are there any good alternatives or do you know a place to buy used ones? I would like to find something for less than $1,000 shipped. I need something either 45 inches or 60 inches high and with some 2" deep drawers with dividers.
 
They are pretty common used but nobody gives them away. I bought two for about $800 each used and I think that was a good deal. That's the market. I do know people who have gotten them for a little bit of nothing but you can't plan that.

And there are alternatives. Quite a few. Where I used to work we had a bunch of equipto cabinets that were about like vidmar cabinets. Also the fastenal bolt cabinets we had were about the same in a no name brand as far as I could see. Both seemed pretty good but I have never seen them for cheap either.
 
So this question again......Looking for another cabinet to organize tooling, mainly inserts and lathe tooling, but also carbide drills and taps. I have a quote on a Storloc cabinet and it is high. I know Lista is even higher. I've found a couple places that sell used cabinets but they also are really high. Are there any good alternatives or do you know a place to buy used ones? I would like to find something for less than $1,000 shipped. I need something either 45 inches or 60 inches high and with some 2" deep drawers with dividers.

For right about 2 or 3 times that "cube" I've spent about $1,000 on re-purposed "office" cabinets and draftsman/architect flat-files. Downsides? Those are flimsy, the both of them, for tools. It helps to be in a MAJOR urban market with high turnover in that arena ESLe even those are hard to find and/or too costly.

If you've looked at Storloc, you must have already browsed the relevant PM threads?

On my "RTWL" is to start-over with at least two Storloc underpopulated chassis-frames, migrate my El Cheapo & DIY into those by way of a bit of bracket fab, see if it works.

If so, I "have a plan" so they can gradually be replaced - if NEED BE - with Storloc's own sturdier OEM modules.

Lista & Vidmar are grand, but not very flexible on incremental budgeting.

One needs a LOT of it and even then - you adapt to what it is. It doesn't adapt so well to what you need as Storloc can do, if-only because what one needs tends to CHANGE.


2CW
 
After getting pricing from Stor-Loc I couldn't believe how cheap they were. I don't know how Home Depot sells toolboxes with Stor-Loc in the world.

If you want that size of toolbox for that price, shipped, you'd need to do some Craigslist shopping or buy some really crappy boxes. I remember needing to plan for $1400 for a Stor-Loc shipped for what I was looking at. That's dang cheap for something that's going to be there forever.
 
After getting pricing from Stor-Loc I couldn't believe how cheap they were. I don't know how Home Depot sells toolboxes with Stor-Loc in the world.

If you want that size of toolbox for that price, shipped, you'd need to do some Craigslist shopping or buy some really crappy boxes. I remember needing to plan for $1400 for a Stor-Loc shipped for what I was looking at. That's dang cheap for something that's going to be there forever.

And there you have it. Some of my El Cheapo's have been there fifty years already.

And have wasted space and aggravated the piss out of me too-damned-many days OF it.

:(
 
I picked up a 60" 15 drawer Equipto off Craigslist for $400.
Its no Lista or Vidmar. But, as close as any others I have seen.

Equipto build quality pics for reference:

20150114_101444_zps3367a9a1.jpg

20150114_101754_zpsadcfb33d.jpg
 
If you can live with the shallow drawers, HF has some very nice, large
toolboxes, just don't install the wheels.
 
If you can live with the shallow drawers, HF has some very nice, large
toolboxes, just don't install the wheels.

I've heard that a lot recently. I was in HF a few weeks ago and decided to try their boxes out. I did the usual deflection tests on the drawers side to side and put my weight in the center. They seem like total shit, I don't know how people say they're good. Super floppy, thin gauge metal, and a few of the boxes flopped all over on three wheels. And they aren't THAT cheap.
 
I've heard that a lot recently. I was in HF a few weeks ago and decided to try their boxes out. I did the usual deflection tests on the drawers side to side and put my weight in the center. They seem like total shit, I don't know how people say they're good. Super floppy, thin gauge metal, and a few of the boxes flopped all over on three wheels. And they aren't THAT cheap.

In real usage...are you going to put all of your weight in the center of said drawer ?

Or some tools ?

Price wise, have you seen the snap off prices ?
or the OP Lista prices ?

Maybe this is you ?:
** NEW All Steel Industrial Work Bench With Tool Storage - tools - by owner - sale
 

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..just don't install the wheels.

Both issues are easily improved. Either add c-channel or a sheet of plywood under the bottom, use BETTER wheels.

Add thin, rigid liners to each drawer to better carry the loads to the edges.

None of the "technology" in a tool/parts storage cabinet is at all mysterious.

We just tend to KEEP the buggers 20 or 50 years, so "mostly" have lost MORE money buying cheaper and suffering off the shortcomings than buying better and suffering less.

Near EVERYONE HERE is craft-capable enough to beat the quality of any brand so far mentioned off nothing more complicated than the lend or hire of a decent box brake and a choice to use heavier-gage metal to begin with.

Ball-bearing slides, wheels, latches are all commodity items, "frames" even easier to fab than drawers. Drill, then rivet or bolt, weld if you can do, and soon DONE.

We simply, "on average", have other s**t to DO with higher-priorities or more money at stake.

So we use a sub-optimal compromise.... and kick the can down the road.

Yet-again. BFD. It ain't a hotel nor GI mess-hall walk-in food-freezer nor a bio-Warfare storage vault. It only has to work better than NUTHIN atall and we make the spend.
 
Holy shit-balls! I completely understood every word of that one!

No foul. I understood YOUR post too. But maybe we BOTH need to see a shrink?

I consider shit-balls most UNHOLY, y'see.

Not "religion", mind. Just kinda messy to deal with unless one has the right sort of custom drawer for a Lista or Vidmar. Can't always count on them being a proper fit to a 5C collet rack, yah?

Business don't soon pick up, you'll get it in one.

Need a Webster-Whitcom collet rack as they diminish in size off leaner rations.

DAMHIKT. More to a trade than just metallurgy, speeds and feeds.




:D:
 
FYI. Ordered a new StorLoc. That seemed to be the best option.

Thanks for the update.

I'll presume you already have "other storage goods", as most of us have.

It could be interesting to hear back as to how you rate the StorLoc vs "whatever" you have been working out of.

The pricing seems to be more reasonable than premium, the very modularity lowers the other barriers, and they are even "Made in USA" - so they are on my "priorities" list for the coming year as well.
 
In real usage...are you going to put all of your weight in the center of said drawer ?

Or some tools ?

Price wise, have you seen the snap off prices ?
or the OP Lista prices ?

Maybe this is you ?:
** NEW All Steel Industrial Work Bench With Tool Storage - tools - by owner - sale

Just as a test of how well it’s going to hold up, I think of my dads Kennedy that weighs at least 1500lbs and comparatively I just don’t see the HF box holding up long enough to justify buying it. Two harbor freight boxes is more expensive than a Stor-Loc with wheels.

I also like being able to open a drawer from somewhere other than dead center without it jamming. They might be fine boxes for several years, but the premium boxes I think are worth it in the end.

If anything, a HF box is worth nothing used, a used Stor-Loc is worth at least the MSRP just because you’re saving someone shipping.
 
I also like being able to open a drawer from somewhere other than dead center without it jamming. They might be fine boxes for several years, but the premium boxes I think are worth it in the end.

This is "half" of my own "purple button".

The OTHER half is the ease of re-configurability, plain and simple,and whether once in 20 weeks, 20 months, or 20 years.

The combination can save me space, and more importantly, it can save me TIME.

Every day. For long years. And I bitch NOW only because I had not twigged to the value of that forty and more years ago when I had more time to be saved.

Y'all younger lot can still gain off of that. All I have time left to do is BURY old frustrations and hope for a pleasant grin over it now and then as my only real "payback". But "grins" I shall have, nonetheless!

:)
 








 
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