Learn me tool transportation/bags

Now that I'm living a more mobile lifestyle (READ: small apartment with no garage), I need a way organize my many tools into a way that is easily transported.

One of my friends, an electrician, had a neat little open top electricians bag. This, along with a discussion that Adam from Mythbusters had about how he is obsessed with designing his sculpting workflow to fit into two handbags which he can place next to himself... got me thinking.

I can go on Amazon and poke around but most of the bags don't even have photos of what they look like inside. (dafaq?)

Anyone have any suggestions of what to look for and where?

What tools? How much weight? I'm thinking box on wheels. I've accumulated so much stuff over the years it would be more like box truck if I had to go mobile.

Go to Lowes or Home Depot. Lots of bags to poke at.

Something one step up from a junkyard crawlers setup.

I've got one of these for my track toolbox. It's great. Hard sided box with expanding top trays, wheels with an extendable handle, and it stands up on legs so it's at waist height when you're working. Didn't know they were available again. http://www.homedepot.com/Tools-Hardware-Tool-Storage-Portable-Tool-Boxes/h_d1/N-5yc1vZc22a/R-202018275/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051#.UHbp7VHNnw4

There's also a Husky rolling soft-sided bag that is just a little bit too big to be used as a carry-on. Too bad, because I would have loved to set my road-warrior wife up with one.

But seriously, you know what tools you have, how you're going to use the bags and what you want to do. Home Depot.com lists 250 soft sided options. Go poke around!

I was thinking along this line...

but saw this,

or a backpack...

My junkyard setup has evolved to the point where most of what I need for a simple job is in there. It's a bit haphazard in the bag, but what I use is a backpack with a plastic bin inside it. The backpack makes it easy to carry the tools, the plastic bin makes it easy to pull them out and gives me something extra to carry stuff in if I need it. It also helps keep the tools from poking the crap out of my back through the backpack.

It is perhaps not ideal for what you have in mind but something to consider.

I use a yellow $6 Harbor Freight bag.

I stuffed my traveling toolkit for the Challenge in it.

I had everything i would have needed to swap a transmission and axles if need be.

As someone who hasn't had a lockable garage until recently, I have a 150 piece 1/4, 3/8, 1/2" Stanley socket set and a Craftsman tool box. Between the two of them, I can fit 90% of what I need for any given job. I also have a set of metric and SAE HF 6pt impact sockets that I use with my breaker bars for stubborn bolts.

Now that I have a garage with lockable storage, I'm still going to use my 150 piece set. It's easy because I know what's in there, and it's obvious if something is missing, which has helped me to keep all the tools intact over the past 10 years!

Surplus ammo cans work well. In a .30 cal ammo can I can carry everything, except long ratchets, hammers or pry bars, to change the engine on a Miata. It is not an ideal tool kit, but it gets the job done most of the time.

I use an ammo can to carry my recovery equipment in the Land Rover. It's a bit heavy (might have something to do with 50' of chain in the bottom) but works a treat. The one I have is too tall and narrow to work well as a toolbox though.

I hate the bags/ kits w/ each tool in it's own frickin' place bags/ slot/ pouch. Lay all your tools out and find the bag that'll carry 'em all to yur satisfaction. Factor in socket racks, combo wrench sets, ratchets etc. Plan to add more than ya thunk.

i had all my tools in a full size Craftsman tool box top/bottom combo when i lived in an apartment.. i kept my 3.5 ton jack and 4 pairs of jackstands in my front closet..

I fill a 4-drawer Craftsman "Rally" box to go to the track. I've got everything to fix anything I'd be willing to fix at the track.

This season I've left it full rather than shuttling everything back and forth.

For home tools - as a serial renovator I have pretty much a contractor's worth of stuff - I have a bunch of the Home Depot Husky bags. The zipper 20" ones for small power tools that don't come in plastic clamshell cases, the medium open top ones for electrician's tools, a bigger open top for the "most common small job tools". I use plastic alligator bins for painting/drywall/masonry/demolition tools, and plastic 20" "homer" boxes for plumbing tools.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: I use a yellow $6 Harbor Freight bag.

I used to have a nice leather and canvas "plumbers" bag, it wore out, replaced it with a HF cheapo.

Tools and rugged environments (junkyard, ground) tear up bags, so I just get a new one every so often. I prefer a plastic or re-enforced bottom with soft sides and handle. I buy when on sale because I know they will wear out.

I make an effort to only bring what I need. Non-portable stuff I'm not using stays at the apartment.

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?P65=&tool=all&item_ID=646915&group_ID=681882&store=snapon-store&dir=catalog
I've got this deceptively small bag from snap on
I think it was $50 and it is very durable
I've had a screw gun, wrenches 8mm-24, with several duplicates, 3/8 sockets 8mm-19mm, long handle ratchet (still in the box with sockets, so it took a bit more room up than normal), several extensions, two hammers, random big sockets, small flashlight, drift punches, a 12" pry bar, 3 or 4 screwdrivers, and probably some more stuff I can't think of right now.
at the same time.
It's got several zippered and velcro'd pockets inside and out, plus what looks to be a gun pocket?
lol
All told it was around 40-50lbs, no problem.
I'm pretty sure HD or Lowes makes something with almost the exact same layout.
those rollaway things are awesome too

I've found it's easy to overload myself with toolboxes so large I can't carry them. That's just not fun to me.

Eventually, I gave up on almost all of them and put a big upright chest in my apartment and would walk out with the tools I needed for a given job. Lots of initial walking, true, but I didn't give myself a hernia trying to carry a 200 lb box. I still have that big upright chest.

I do have a favorite tool box. One that sizes to me just right. When you find your unicorn toolbox, get it. I personally don't like clamshell boxes, they always fall over and don't close well and weigh a ton. Lots of little drawers means I can't find things. Wheels mean the box is stupid big and heavy for me and I die trying to pull it up stairs and the like, or through mud and gravel. YMMV.

I also have ended up with a soft bag, very similar to the linked snapon bag. That's become by generic trunk bag that I try to remember to switch to whatever vehicle I'm driving. It carries tools and hardware to fix just about anything, as well go scrounging in junkyards.

+1 on a bag from Harbor Freight.

I got a small one and wish I got one just slightly bigger, but I just keep all my most commonly used hand tools in there, so if I need some tools around the house, just grab the bag. Visiting rents and need to fix something for them? Grab the bag. Use a tool and don't want to put it back where I found it? Put it in the bag.

Beats trying to look around the garage to find a specific tool, now I only have to sort through an unorganized bag.

I never really use bags. Not organized enough. The one exception is the rally car toolbag, but that's because it has to live inside the spare wheel. It does have a bunch of pockets so I can quickly grab the spare main relay without having to dig through pliers. Most of my tools have a particular place where they live in the garage, not in the mobile toolboxes. I have a pull list in the mobile box so I can rip through the shop in 5 minutes and know I have everything I need packed.

I have a few tool rolls that are great. One for SAE wrenches, one for metric. I wrote the size of each wrench on each pocket so I can quickly grab what I need and tell at a glance if anything is missing. I've also got a tool roll full of pockets that works well for pliers, screwdrivers and crimpers but it's fallen into disuse.

Sockets live on HF plastic socket rails. Grey rails for metric, black for SAE. Again, easy to find what you need and you can tell at a glance that you have everything.

This makes me sound like a real tool organization nerd, but that's not the case. I've just found it's easier to work when I know where things are and I don't have a lot of extra space in my shop. When I'm on the road, if something needs to be fixed, it needs to be fixed now. And people are always looking to borrow a tool, so I need to make sure they all come back.