Machinist Tool Chest Storage Experience

[korbendalles]

I had been spreading my paraphernalia for my fountain pen hobby across several smaller boxes, desks, etc for a while. I found one of the Costco machinist tool chests (Trinity brand, I think?) on CL for $30 and decided to give it a try for consolidation. Here are my key takeaways...top shelf section is NOT tall enough to hold Noodlers or regular Iroshizuku ink bottles (it does hold the small 15ml bottles fine though), however, it is tall enough to hold ink sample vials if you have the right holder. The center taller drawer is a perfect fit for Pilot and Noodlers bottles though (as long as you don't have very many!

 

The challenge is that the typical holder is the test tube vial stand (holds 50) and there is no way to get more than one of them in the top (and I have close to 125 samples at last count). So, I came up with a slightly different solution...see pics (I made a small insert that fit 3 rows of vials with about 1mm of clearance both in length and in height and am still able to close the drawer without catching anything. Otherwise, I was able to consolidate just about everything into this thing. Three drawers are lined with GoPens liners for pens (holds 8-9/drawer), one drawer for my dip pen stuff, one drawer for all my wax stamps, big drawer for ink samples and big drawer for small notebooks and stationery. All told, this was a super convenient solution! If I could get a larger machinist chest, I would like to as that would enable me to put all the ink samples in the top, but for cost/convenience, this one is hard to beat!

[setriode]

Handsome indeed.

[T4TEXAS]

Nice job.

[fountainpagan]

Absolutely beautiful.

[masterguns]

@Korbendalles - if you want to get all your ink samples in the top, try this trick.

Find yourself a few sheets of 5mm dense foam (they sell these at Hobby Lobby and Michaels craft stores). I say a few, but I think one sheet might be large enough to cover the bottom of the top storage area. In any case, cut the foam to fit. Then you just cut holes in the foam a touch smaller in diameter than your sample bottles. Think like a cookie cutter. 5mm is thick enough to get purchase on the vials so they stand upright and in place. I know this will work b/c I did just that, albeit with a smaller sheet for 16 vials (4x4). The tough part is finding something to stamp out your holes for the vials. Because I had so few, I think I just used and empty vial to firmly press into the foam to leave a strong mark, then cut out the holes with an exacto knife. It might be a tedious project for so many sample vials, but you'll only need to do it one time if you do it right.

Cheers

[dr saleem ali]

Lovely !