Pro Tool Reviews: Add one more to the pile of Packout announcements this month. The Milwaukee Packout Racking Kit and shelves add mounting points for attaching your Packout accessories to a wide variety of surfaces. With these in place, you can secure your tool storage while keeping your work vans, trucks, trailers, garages, and shops free from clutter.
4 comments:
As I have written about before, I am a huge fan of Milwaukee's tools and their Packout tool boxes and accessories in particular. That being said, I am not blown away by the Packout Shelves and Racking units. My first issue with them is just how bulky they are. With how much weight you are adding with the bulk of the shelves, is seems like you would be better off building a simple shelving unit out of wood, that is the perfect size for your boxes to just sit on. You can even add a small lip on the front to make sure they can't slide out without being lifted a little. Second is that, for how bulky they are, they can only hold 50lbs a shelf? That seems a little weak. Last, and kind of a common trend with Milwaukee, is they seem a little expensive for what they are. But, you're paying for the brand and thats what it's going to be.
Like DJ, I am also a big fan of Milwaukee's power tool line. I have not had any direct experience in using the packout kit, it has definitely seemed like an enticing offer. It would be great to be able to easily customize my toolbox at a moment's notice, which is what the packout kits really excel at. My one qualm with the design of the packout kits is that they mostly focus on top storage, which is not ideal in a stack. Drawers could lead to tipping if the operator isn't careful, but having to lift multiple crates to reach the part one needs can be inconvenient or cause back pain. With the addition of the rack and shelving kit, packout kits can now be stored conveniently in one's shop or wherever else. Additionally, it looks like Milwaukee has also released some kits that have drawers, so I'm pretty sold. If only I could afford Milwaukee on a student budget...
I agree that I am a fan of Milwaukee, however my wallet is not. These shelves look interesting, but they aren't new in terms of design. The boxed are more or less what Festool offers, and Milwaukee even includes a dolly attachment that would make the two brands function identically to each other. The difference maker here is the shelving system, which appears to be a patented Milwaukee design. In my mind, this gets frustrating. There are many track systems out there available from local hardware stores to industrial suppliers that function just fine in these applications, and would give me a lot of flexibility to create custom track configurations, but instead they chose the greedier rout of making their product only compatible with their system. In the end, I understand why this is the case, but the end customer loses. I don't think I would ever get this system since in all honesty it wouldn't be terribly hard to make proper shelving to hold everything. Furthermore, proper shelving could maximize space, where the bulk of these boxes reduces space.
Why yes Milwaukee, this is what I was looking for. Previously, I had talked about my dissatisfaction for the Milwaukee Packout system citing that it was too heavy and required too much additional work to potentially access the packout that you are looking for. However, they have finally released the one thing I thought this tool should not be sold without. These wall mounted racking systems give you the ability to maintain the convenient storage all while being able to grab the packout that you want without having to unstack all of your tools to get to it. While I do not redact any of my previous grievances with the packout system, I really like to see that Milwaukee can continue to improve on their systems even after they are released. I really like the minimal look that these locking shelves provide, making them incredibly useful in a shop space or even secured inside a truck.
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