I travel around the country installing Commercial Food Service Equipment. I drive a full size van that is crammed full of tools. I carry most every tool that I might ever need because I like having the right tool for the job and because I am kind of a tool nut. I had the opportunity to bid on a job in California a while back. I normally would have passed on it because it is too far from Michigan but work has been kind of slow so I decided to bid on it. I ended up getting the job but it is way too far to drive so I will be flying out there this Wednesday. I wanted to get some military type tool cases but after a while searching on the internet I was discouraged at the prices. Chicago Case Company seemed to be a pretty popular choice and Sears had some at fairly decent prices. This Craftsman Case sells for $269.99 plus tax and shipping. It is one of the ones that I wanted but I couldn't justify the price.
I had a job to do up in Minnesota and would be passing right through Chicago so I called Chicago Case Company to see if they had any deals on cases. The lady I spoke with said that they did have a few seconds that they would sell with a heavy discount. I stopped in there this last Thursday to see what they had. I explained what I wanted and they brought me out a case exactly like the Craftsman case that I wanted. There was a problem with the case that made it a second but I was confident that I could fix it. I was going to need two cases so I asked what else they had available. The Craftsman case had a telescopic handle and wheels like I wanted but I wanted a slightly smaller case without wheels that I could strap on top of the Craftsman case. After looking through the three smaller cases that they had I decided on one. It was a yellow case made for the Klein Tool Company and had their logo on it. What made it a second was that there was some black paint or something splattered on the top of the case.
I have attached a picture of the Klein case. If you look hard you can see some of the black splattered on the top.
Other than the black splatter on this case there is nothing wrong with it. They gave me a set of keys for it and let me choose which style tool pallets to put in it.
Here is a view of the case open without the tool pallets in it. That wide black strap on the inside of the top of the case is to hold documents.
Here is the case with the tool pallets in place. Instead of getting the tool pallets with the different sized pouches I decided on these pallets which have adjustable elastic straps.
So back to the Craftsman case. These cases have an aluminum moulding all around the edges with a tongue and groove in them so that when they shut they are more rigid and it keeps the elements out. The case I bought had a problem in the back right hand corner. The moulding on the top half of the case did not line up with the moulding on the bottom half of the case in that one corner. The case would still close but the tongue and groove would not mesh properly.
This picture shows the tongue and groove. If you look at the top half of the case (on the right) you can see that it sticks out a very strong 1/8" further than the other half of the case.
After I cut the moulding down I pressed it back onto the case. Then I put a clamp on the moulding to press it over so that it would line up with the moulding on the bottom of the case. While the case was closed and I had it all clamped up I drilled and tapped four new holes through the hinge, case, and moulding. Then I put some Locktite on some stainless steel screws and screwed it all together.
Here is a picture of the new screws. I used a Sharpie marker on them to try and blend them in. If you look closely at the old hole on the left you can see how much I have moved things over. The edge of the hole in the case just barely shows up through the hole in the hinge.
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