BOXO Tools USA Lends A Hand In Dialing In The Shop
Story By: Kyle Callen
Photos By: Tanner Yeager & Brandon Bunch
The Powersports industry is full of people that like to get dirty on and off the trail. People that will go out and thrash on their machine all weekend and wrench late into the night after work during the week. Rinse and repeat. These people come from all walks of life, all income brackets, from the left coast to the right coast, border to border, and beyond. This is a sport that truly binds people together around the common passion of UTVs and UTV riding. Whether you are a weekend warrior or a pro racer, these machines take maintenance and care to keep you moving down the trail without failure. That maintenance and repair work requires tools to get the job done and, until recently, you had two options: The affordable Harbor Freight/Home Depot specials, or the tool truck, where $50 a week for the rest of your life will buy you a sweet set of wrenches and 2 screwdrivers. BOXO Tools USA saw the obvious void and aimed to fill it.
After 15 years of being a professional mechanic on high-end luxury cars and high-end off-road vehicles, I have now landed at UTV Sports Magazine as the resident mechanic and builder—somewhat of a dream job. In those years prior, I have learned the value of the tool trucks, quality tools, and tool storage. Everything in the toolbox is a pry bar or chisel at some point in its life, and the tool needs to stand up to that. So, when we outfitted our new space with a full tool kit including the Organized Storage Module (OSM) line of cabinets from BOXO, I was slightly hesitant to take my Snap-On and Matco stuff home. The OSM line is a brand new offering, so this was a good trial run for them.
I really like that BOXO is coming into a crowded market with a fresh perspective. They want to provide a quality product that will last generations, just like the tool trucks do, but at an affordable price. The one thing I enjoyed the most was working with them to virtually lay out our space. They have a program that will take what you think you want, lay it out in the specific size of your space, and give you a picture of what the set up will look like. This was key in building our space. I wasn’t quite sure what we wanted and how to visualize it. BOXO put that into pictures and really let us go to town and design it perfectly. It was a nice sigh of relief knowing what was delivered was exactly what was needed.
Pulling the boxes upon boxes apart, there was a fair amount of assembly needed for the OSM cabinetry. It took a few tries of “put this here,” “no, try that there,” and so on. Once the system is figured out, the OSM cabinets go together very easily and are designed in a way that you can mix and match to get the perfect length and storage solution for your space. The stainless countertops look very pretty however they scratched a bit easier than I would hope for, but a quick search on Amazon and it was easy to find a mat that would protect them. That being said, the fit and finish was definitely of the same or better quality than what I have seen out of home improvement and the big-box retailers. The options and configurations are endless and looking through the OSM catalog, you could custom tailor any space to your exact needs. All drawers and cabinets are lockable, although as of right now, they require separate keys. BOXO has recognized this and is making an effort to key all orders the same.
Now that the OSM cabinets are all set up and arranged, it was time for the fun part, the tools! Most tool kits you buy come with cheap, plastic organizers. This includes those expensive tool truck options. BOXO blew me away with high-quality foam inserts that fit perfectly in their toolbox drawers. This allowed tools to have a very secure and very defined home. The red foam under the tool also lets you quickly identify if a tool is missing. There has been a strong push for this by the foam companies and the do-it-yourselfers, but it’s a pain in the ass, time-consuming, and never turns out like you see on the internet if you are custom-cutting foam yourself. For the clean freaks and organized people out there, this is a massive selling point. Bringing in these products transformed our warehouse into a real shop space, and I look forward to testing the durability and lifespan of these tools over the years to come.
