Tool trolley recommendation

anoccasionalyachtsman said:
You still get Halford's Warranty, and I've never had any trouble taking stuff back for refunds if not needed, so I don't really understand what I might be losing?
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We buy all our Halfords stuff by using my Son's Halfords trade card as he works in the industry. The guarantees have always been exactly the same as a normal consumer.

Richard
 
Poignard said:
I envy anyone whose workshop is so large that they need a tool trolley! Everything in mine is within a few steps. :cry:
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The idea of a tool trolley is you can take what you hope is most of the tools you'll need to the front of the garage as there's no chance the car will go in the garage.
I'm thinking of mounting more of the stuff in my workshop on castors, so I can make more space according to what I'm doing.
More space to move around when there's a dinghy in there would be nice.
My place is more like an assault course than a few steps sometimes, the thing you want is on a shelf behind a motorbike and you have to step over a bunch of timber and a workmate to get there.
 
lw395 said:
The idea of a tool trolley is you can take what you hope is most of the tools you'll need to the front of the garage as there's no chance the car will go in the garage.
I'm thinking of mounting more of the stuff in my workshop on castors, so I can make more space according to what I'm doing.
More space to move around when there's a dinghy in there would be nice.
My place is more like an assault course than a few steps sometimes, the thing you want is on a shelf behind a motorbike and you have to step over a bunch of timber and a workmate to get there.
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That makes sense.

I follow the Merchant Navy practice and put the tools I need for a job in a bucket. Unfortunately there's no donkeyman to clean up and put them away afterwards! How are the mighty fallen! :D
 
Rogershaw said:
Quite some years ago when South Africa was in a major drought it was proposed to tow an iceberg from Antarctica to get the fresh water from it.
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In the early 80s when I was at Scott Polar Research Institute the Saudi Arabians sponsored a conference on the topic - it looks like an easy way to get water to where it's needed. I'm afraid it was pretty quickly shown that it was impractical - despite their ability to sink ships, icebergs aren't strong enough to be towed at speeds that would get them there while still having something bigger than ice-cubes! And towing them slowly enough for them not to break up would result in them melting before they got there. It would only be cost-effective if you could use big icebergs, and big icebergs are too weak in relation to their size. There were also serious environmental concerns - you would (willy-nilly) be making part of (say) the Persian Gulf both much colder and much less salty, with potentially devastating effects on the marine life. Strangely, there are also issues about melting the ice when you get it where you want it - melting ice takes a lot of energy, and natural insolation wouldn't be fast enough. Desalination plants work out at being cheaper and more reliable, though at that time the technology for industrial-scale desalination was in its infancy. And to get back to a yachting perspective, the technology of large-scale desalination is much the same as that used in the Reverse Osmosis kit that many use.
 
Poignard said:
I envy anyone whose workshop is so large that they need a tool trolley! Everything in mine is within a few steps. :cry:
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Mine isn't enormous, but it's a useful size. It was originally the village smiddy, later on served a the village hall and then a mushroom farm and was, when I bought the place a rather large double garage. I added a concrete floor with pit, a lot of benches and some storage space aloft. Having a trolley is just a handy way to keep stuff - a benchtop chest would do fine but would be difficult to locate (I have a fine working area, a heavy working area and a car bay, with benches between them) and would also be visible to passers by.

lw395 said:
My place is more like an assault course than a few steps sometimes, the thing you want is on a shelf behind a motorbike and you have to step over a bunch of timber and a workmate to get there.
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Shudder. Yup, that's mine tough it's getting better. At the start of last week I could barely get in it; now it's almost clear except that with the tip closed I have boxes of scrap and waste all over the place. One day ...

Anyway, Clarke have won the day with the CBB215B five-drawer cabinet, which I bought from Chronos who are a little more expensive than Machine Mart but deliver for free (£255 vs £240 + 40). Halford close second. Many thanks to everyone who helped with advice and suggestions - I really appreciate it.
 
Just checked mine. Also Clarke. Been happy with it.

Hope you checked overall dimensions, some look huge in pictures but can be quite diddy.
 
Stemar said:
There are ways round the weakness and melting:

Project Habakkuk - Wikipedia

Bit of a problem getting the water out, though.
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Yes, I know about that one. But do you want to be spitting sawdust out every time you have a glass of water?

Habakkuk never came near operational use - small-scale tests showed that the ice would deform too rapidly if unsupported by a steel framework, which would make the cost too high. There were also problems with insulation.

As icebergs a) don't come with sawdust ready embedded and b) there are no sources of reinforcing material in Antarctica (the major source of large icebergs), it's a non-starter in this case, where the point is to use ready-frozen icebergs!
 
My two piece toolchest is well over 40 years old. It is not a premium brand, but not a cheapo job either. Its makers badge says 'American Pro' The paint is badly faded, now a reddish pink instead of bright red. One of the large sliding drawers sags a bit from being seriously overloaded all its life. It can be dated by the stickers on it - 1976 Ulster GP, Mike Hailwood 1978 TT Winner etc.

I shall not be getting a new one....................................
 
AntarcticPilot said:
Habakkuk never came near operational use - small-scale tests showed that the ice would deform too rapidly if unsupported by a steel framework, which would make the cost too high. There were also problems with insulation.
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I was the technical consultant for an attempt a few years ago to make a Pycrete boat. Unfortunately my advice was ignored, and reducing the ice thickness to just a few inches between the cockpit and the hull outside resulted, as I expected and predicted, in a very rapid holing and sinking.
 
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