From Beerbox to Toolbox 1.0

Belgium is without doubt one of the best beer countries in the world. We have a long tradition of excellent beers and this liquid is holding the country together. North & south share one great passion: beer.

Our beers are stored in plastic boxes, like everywhere, and these are very strong (some guys made a chapel with it!). Rather than using them as bricks I chose to transform them into a toolbox.

It's a funny project (of course) that resulted in a heavy-duty, cool and spacious toolbox. I'm sure I'm going to make some jealous people on the work sites ;-)

Al you need:

- two beerboxes (one for the box, one for the cover)
- some good friends to give a helping hand
- some plywood
- a piece of aluminium sheet
- some scrap metal for the handle
- (polyurethane) glue
- chemical anchor
- a pair of hinges
- some bolts
- jigsaw
- ripper
- pliers
- drill

This step is probably the best. Share the beer with your friends and remove the whole interior of the box. I can't show the pictures because my pc crashed recently and I lost them...

Any beerbox will do the job. I chose Westmalle Tripel, a strong blond beer and one of my favorites. This type of beerbox is relatively high and has the perfect dimensions for a toolbox-project.

Use saw, cutting pliers and knife to remove everything you don't need, and keep just the bottom of the box.

I decided to glue some plywood in the beerbox. This gives a perfect bottom and a perfect surface to attach the handle and the hinges. Use polyurethane glue.

In the hand-holes I glued plastified plywood as well, shaped with a jigsaw. In this zone the hole for the handle will be drilled.

Attach the frame-side of the hinges, and almost ready is your box.

Instead of making a plywood-cover that fitted directly on the box, I chose to raise it because I wanted it to be a footboard as well.

Cut out the bottom of the second box, shape some plywood and go for the glue. Use thick plywood inside, tiny plywood outside, with a small piece of plywood on the underpart of the cover as support for the hinges. Drill the holes for the hinges.

Cut out some aluminium sheet for the cover with a jigsaw. Use this sheet as model to set out the zone you'll rip out. Use a ripper to smooth the edges and to rip out some wood from the top. Paint the edges and glue the sheet in the cover.

First lesson for DIY-projects: never throw away any scrap. I found some pieces of aluminium and some steel tube and decided to give them a seond life. You can use any material you like, of course.

Cut everything into the right size, and look out for some big wood bolts.

Drill holes in the sides of the handle and use a hammer to smash the quartered end of the bolts into the aluminium.

I didn't want to spend lots of time, so I filled the steel tube with chemical anchor and put the two prepared pieces into place.

Ten minutes later: some sanding and the only thing I had to do was to drill some holes in the downside of the handle to attach it to the box.

Final phase: paint it.

Fix the cover to the box with the hinges, and fix the handle with the bolts to the box. Use braces in the bolts to give the handle a smooth rotation.

Ready is your toolbox! Enjoy!