It is a dock for tools and no not a boat dock.
Can you imagine a harbor with 10,000 boats at anchor and the
harbor being just a mile wide? CHAOS! Therefore, docks are built
and all the boats fit with room to spare. Now imagine you garage
with all of your tools and the ones you want to buy. Now imagine
heavy gauge steel cabinets holding all of those tools and using
only two or three workstations to mount your power tools on.
Maybe you work from your garage Maybe you just have a small
work shop like the type I was forced into when my wife and I
sold our house in town to live at my very small house on Klamath
lake. Try fitting a band saw, two table saws, two drill presses,
two planers, my heavy equipment tools, Sanders, jigsaws, lathes,
and enough other tools to fill a warehouse. CHAOS! Luckily for
you, my readers and myself there is a solution that will not
take five months to build wall-to-wall cabinets, benches and
tool stands.
I
am talking about a modular system of tool cabinets and tool
racks! This allows us to use one tool and them take it off the
tool stand with the aid of a special insert and then put it
away and use another different tool on the same stand. When
I saw the pictures of this system on their web page https://www.tooldock.com,
I thought they might be small. WOW, was I ever wrong. I ordered
their router bench and a side table that uses the router table
as part of its support.
This system is not a cheap Chinese made piece
of junk but a quality product made by Waterloo Industries, Inc
in the GREAT USA. I have bought many rollaway toolboxes when
I worked as a diesel mechanic and Waterloo Industries made the
best.
Don’t
get me wrong, a custom set of homemade cabinets can be a very
gratifying project to build. You could use router joints or
build inside frame or no frame. I have done this in the past
and after every thing is said and done you end up paying more
for materials than the very nicely made Tool Dock cabinets.
The metal cabinets have a very nice finish and will provide
a lifetime of hardy use. The very best part is that you may
spend a day putting them together but you can start building
boats after that. They also have a very nice workbench I think
I will get for my new shop.
I hate moving. I would rather be shot in the
head than move! I built a very nice shop with all the cabinets
and built in benches but when I sold the house the real estate
people told me that since it was all built-in I couldn’t
remove them or I would loose money. With the tool dock system,
your cabinets are able to move with you. For me that was an
excellent selling point since I figure that in a few more years
I might move to the Columbia Gorge where my big boat will be
docked. I can build another bow roof shop there but I don’t
have to make it so big. Just big enough to build a few boats
under thirty feet.
If
you go to the website
and look at these stands, racks, and benches, understand that
they are made with the finest American Steel. They have only
the finest American craftsmanship and they look very nice! You
can put most of your bench top power tools in the tool storage
rack.
When you need to change a tool you simply pick
it up after unlocking it from the multi stand and changing it
out for the other tool in the tool rack.
These
tool benches and racks are big and made with heavy gauge steel.
When my shipment arrived I got my neighbor to put them on my
hand truck and move them to my small shop that will become my
wife’s crafts room this summer. After seeing these units
I have ordered the tall rack system and a few of the multi stations.
I had to assemble them but I didn't mind that. The router station
weighed in at 131 lbs! It has a great top and very nice fence
system but you can put just about any type of router top and
fence on this indestructible cabinet.
If you look again at the home page you’ll
see a very nice dust control system mounted on the wall. It
is not a Tool Dock System component but it and the power unit
are made by Shop-Vac and I am doing a separate review on them
because they are also outstanding and really go hand in hand
with the Tool Dock System. The problem with my shop is that
I need three tool racks because of all of my great boat building
and wood working tools. This summer I plan to build my 60’
X 30’ boat shop. The racks and multiple tool stand will
work so well I can hardly wait. I will finish my brick this
spring and start my ultralite boat series. I will need the shop
space soon and the Tool Dock System that I endorse my readers
to purchase. The nice feature is that you don’t have to
buy them all at the same time when starting out. Just a cabinet
here and there until you’ve got a complete workable set.
My
router cabinet has room for the router and the full assortment
of bits I have collected over the years, plus a couple of more
routers from my collection. Now that is a huge amount of space
in that cabinet. The only change I made was to fit locking three
inch casters. They have the capacity to roll this very heavy
cabinet all over this shop. I’ll have to borrow a fork
lift to move this thing out of the shop now.
Check out this system and don’t be swayed
by cheap harbor freight cabinets. Any others are made in China
or Pakistan and are not worth the time it takes to assemble
one I still have a roll away tool box that Waterloo Industries
made in the early 1960’s and was used in the roughest
conditions possible. Now that is what I call stout! This new
tool storage system is worth every dime that you put into it.
Remember you have spent a lot of your hard earned dollars on
those tools and they need the best possible storage so they
will remain good tools well into the future.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate not building
from wood. What I am advocating is a set of custom cabinets
that you can buy and give you more time to build your boat from
wood if you desire that. I love the cabinets and I am sure that
you will too, once you see them. The paint on these cabinets
has been applied by an expert and there is no panel lighter
or darker than another. The smooth finish and color shade are
uniform on every panel.
I do have to warn you, before you begin, that
you will need a thigh high table or platform covered with a
soft blanket for construction. You will need only simple tools
and sometimes a strong back because this metal is made for strength
and not lightness. Everything is made so well that all of the
holes lined up with little problem. If you're like me, you’ll
want to keep going when building one just to see how nice it
looks. I will stress this point once again, these cabinets are
much bigger than they look in the pictures. What does that mean?
It means your getting nice large work spaces made from very
strong steel!
So
if you have overflow from your tool space please at least try
this new docking system. You will know the great value and performance
you get from these units when you see them. I know my wife would
be very happy if all my tools were organized on my half of a
garage. You could actually build better boats when you use this
system because you won’t have to hunt and fetch the next
tool. All that wasted time can be spent on building your dream
boats.
From my now organized tool crib to you.
