Waterloo Industries is probably not a company that trips off your lips when you think about tool storage and organisation. But the truth is that their storage products are around us in a variety of guises and many users probably don’t even realise it.
 Waterloo is part of the multi-million dollar Fortune Group of companies and is the world’s largest manufacturer of tool storage products with over 4.4 million toolboxes and chests made every year.  Charged with bringing our knowledge of Waterloo Industries products to a wider audience in the UK is Kieran MacCourt, a man with a wide experience of storage products in various guises. He is currently based in Colchester and has the task of covering the counties and representing the brand. He left me with five products that cover the basics of the Waterloo range to look at.
 The first of these was largely plastic portable tool chest. Aimed very much at the professional market it is very soundly constructed from tough ABS in yellow with a black lid. It feels quite weighty to carry, but it is rigid and strong, so there is no danger that it will distort and spill the tools out like a light duty DIY chest might do. I really appreciated the meaty and comfortable carry handle and strong rustproof latches on the lid. The lid opens, on its long continuous hinge (for strength) to reveal a shallow tray that is completely clear with no compartments or divisions in it. Although only about 50mm or so deep it will accommodate most of the regularly used tools of an electrician or plumber say.
Underneath the lidded compartment are three shallow metal tray drawers. These are held securely locked in transit by a plunge lock activated by closing the lid, and cannot suddenly spring open. A very clever idea, and one I have seen used on filing cabinets, but not on a tool box.
 The all-metal tool trays are rigid pressed steel constructions with alloy extrusion handles. They are slung on metal drawer slides that ensure free running and easy movement even when they are fully loaded with tools and gadgets. While the criticism might be that the all-metal drawers are heavy, they do ensure a long service life and will not distort under the weight of the tools stored in them.
The logic behind this particular tool chest is very much aimed at a professional like an electrician where the most commonly used tools are available immediately by lifting the lid of the chest and the less commonly used tools, often in sets, can be neatly and logically stored in the remaining three metal drawers. It is the fashion these days that many tool sets come in custom fitted dense foam inserts that slot neatly together, and these would be ideal to fit into these drawers. Although Waterloo wouldn’t recommend it I used the chest as an informal step when I was doing some decorating recently and it easily withstood my weight.
Priced at £59.99 I am sure that many tradespeople would not think it too much of a price to pay for a quality chest that provides a good level of time-saving tool organisation.
 Heading off into a more conventional set-up of tool chest was a smart black-coloured little number. This is probably the chest that I would choose for those occasions when I go out on site and I have to fit a range of woodworking tools like a plane, a cordless drill, a couple of small saws and various other accessories.
The whole box is much lighter than the one above, despite the fact that the base is made of sheet steel. This gives the box a rigidity and strength necessary for confidently carrying a weight of tools around. It also helps for being kicked about on site and being slung in the back of a white van. The lid, handle and box sides are made from high quality ABS mouldings that are riveted to the steel base. Once again, the carry handle is generous and comfortable to hold, the latches are rustproof and strong, and there is a loop to lock the box closed if wanted.
A long continuous hinge is used to hold the lid in place. This provides a lot of extra strength and prevents distortion of the box as the hinge spreads the lifting pressure evenly.
Inside there is a shallow tray with some divisions. The tray has a lifting handle and stuff can be piled up as high as the handle because there is a generous space in the lid. Underneath the tray is a space measuring roughly 27cm wide, 54cm long and 14cm deep. I packed in as much stuff as I could including a bench plane, a set of chisels in a roll, a cordless anda couple of workbox saws and there was still quite a lot more I could have fitted in. Truth is that there is more space than I would have the strength to carry it all. Informally again, as it is not recommended, I found that I could use the box as a step when I needed to, and my guess is that I have that in common with many tradespeople who might not admit it for health and safety reasons.
In order to save space and cost in transit for retailers, this workchest comes in a combo of three that fit inside each other for a mere £69.99.
 A little sideline for the tool chests that I was left to try out was a Masterlock. This is an ingenious padlock variant that neither uses a key or a more traditional round combination to open and close it. It has instead a sort of 4-way cursor that would be familiar to any X-Box regular. When you buy the lock it comes with a simple 4-stage combination of left, right and up or down movements to open it. Once the user has mastered this, (a matter of 30 seconds or so) it is possible for him or her to set their own combination of up to 10 or more movements to customise their own lock. Having a security rating of 6 the Masterlock is good enough to be used on site and will deter casual thieving as well as being very quick to open with the right combination of moves.
 And finally to the big stuff. We are all familiar with the kind of tool storage that mechanics use in their workshops. Increasingly we have come to judge the efficiency of modern car and other workshops by how efficient and well organised they are and this kind of tool storage is an absolute must for mechanics these days. Modern cars seem to require all manner of specialised tools as well as electronic gadgets to repair them so having a safe place to put them is a no-brainer.
I was sent a two-piece combination Heavy Duty Blackline chest and cabinet to look at and try. Straight away I took advantage of the large castor wheels to move it from the delivery spot to my workshop and was I pleased to have those wheels. They are large, steerable and braked and with the facility of a pull handle on one side of the chest it was really quite easy to move what is a weighty chest.
 The bottom part of the chest is made, as you would expect from Waterloo, with its 80 odd years of metal bashing experience, from solid bent and welded steel. The graduated drawers are similarly made with very strong steel and bearing slides to hold the expected weight of spanners and tools. I put a lot of my own weight onto the drawers and tested them to see if they slid smoothly and they did. Each drawer is lined with a dense foam mat that stops noise and prevents the tools from sliding around. My guess is that organised mechanics would have their sets neatly arranged in customised foam insets in the drawers.
 The top of the combination was a 6-drawered chest with a lid that is supported by gas struts. Again this is very strongly made in steel and is portable via the handles on each side. Frankly, I would leave that bit up to some meaty mechanic, but it does mean that smaller tools can be used or stored separately  from the base unit.
On both these units the workmanship is plain, workmanlike, strong and neat. The paint finish is very good and thick, and even though the unit I tested was a old demo unit, you could tell it still had many more years of life in it.
Perhaps not a consideration for some, but certainly one for me, is that the whole unit would fit comfortably through a standard size doorframe. It is genuinely easy to move about, even when fully loaded with the odd assortment of tools I packed into it.
The smaller chest costs £349.99, the base unit £499.99, so these products are not aimed at weekend amateurs, but with the price comes the quality needed for a long working life in a heavy duty workshop environment.
Independent Review by Peter Brett