Lowes recently came out with new Kobalt 3000-series tool cabinet carts. They have a few new tool cabinets as well, but these carts, or cart-like cabinets, are more noteworthy due to their new unique designs.
To start, several people have asked about or mentioned the new lock, which features Kwikset Smartkey tech. This allows you to rekey your tool boxes to existing Kwikset keys.
Featuring Kwikset Smartkey locks that allow you to easily and quickly match your work cart lock to your house, shop or store key; re-key tool included.
That’s pretty neat. Even if you don’t have other Kwikset locks, this should still allow you to key multiple tool boxes to the same keyset. That’s possible with other brands’ tool boxes, but you often have to call for or order matched lock cylinders.
The new Kobalt tool cabinet has modern conveniences – gas spring lifts for the top lid, a magnetic power supply with USB charging ports, and what I can only describe as better-looking casters.
There are 7 drawers – 6 of them being half-width, and one being a deep full-width drawer. Beneath that, there’s an open shelf. There are recessed handles and pegboard surfaces on both ends. The product photos also show a pegboard surface on the inside of the top lid, but I imagine that you’ll only want to use it if you keep the lid open all the time.
Kobalt equipped the drawers with 100 lb soft-close ball bearing glides. This model measures 45″ wide x 18″ deep x 47″ tall, weighs 192 lbs, and has a total weight capacity of 2000 lbs.
This model has a black finish. There’s also a 41″ stainless steel cart ($499), and a 35″ cart ($349), also in black.
Price: $499
Buy Now(via Lowes)
First Thoughts
Kobalt has been trying out new tool storage designs, but with these cabinets, I cannot tell if this is an attempt to explore a new design, or to get around the new tariffs.
I can see the benefit of the design. A lot of potential users will love the large full-width drawer, which looks to be nicely sized for parts, large tools, or boxed-up supplies. But a higher drawer-count cabinet might better serve someone who has a lot of smaller tools to store.
The Kwikset Smartkey is an interesting concept, one that I cannot quite find any objections to. Well… what happens if you lose your key? I suppose then you’d have to call a locksmith. With other lock styles, you might only have to call up the brand and tell them the number on the cylinder.
As I mentioned the other day, I’m really interested in keypad locks. But this Kwikset Smartkey system seems like a convenient middle-ground, halfway between that and the factory-set keys that are currently available.
