Looking for a Weatherguard Toolbox? Read This First!

Let’s talk a little about inclement weather. That driving, pissing rain that smacks you upside the head as it falls in torrents from dark and angry clouds. In some parts of the country, it’s relentless—defeating; in other parts, it’s a welcomed gift from the heavens above. But, no matter where you live, we all face the same problems when it comes to protecting our tools and gear: keeping our investments dry and secure are absolute MUSTS. That’s why at DECKED we set out to make a different toolbox. Not a Husky, or a Weatherguard toolbox, or even a Rigid. A different toolbox, one made from materials from this century, built to withstand whatever you, or Mother Nature, can throw at it. Because let’s face it—it’s about damn time someone retooled the toolbox.

The Weatherguard Aluminum Toolbox

You’re likely already familiar with a Weather Guard toolbox. That’s why you’re here, right? It’s not a bad toolbox at all, just not one that we would put in our “Best In Class” category. Weather Guards are made from aluminum and/or steel, which many toolboxes in the industry are, but both materials have their limitations. Aluminum, while being lightweight, gets banged up easily, and a Weatherguard steel toolbox is heavy as heck.

Both materials have been used since ready-made, for sale toolboxes became a thing, but it seems crazy to us that no one had thought to utilize the new materials and methods available today to update the toolbox: a worker’s Most Valuable Player. With so much on the line when it comes to protecting our investments—our livelihoods, you would think that the toolbox industry would constantly be looking for ways to improve their customers’ lives? From where we’re sitting, we didn’t see that happening, so we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

A Weatherguard Toolbox For Sale

Howard Knaack founded the Weather Guard company after an evolution of the job boxes he started out making in 1960. Near the end of that decade, he was looking to expand his product offerings to the contractor trade and recognized that there was a deep need for a high-quality truck toolbox.

In 1968, he purchased the rights to a truck toolbox line of 10 different products that were already being made by a sheet metal contractor in St. Louis, Missouri.

Knaack built these boxes for the next three years when in 1971, he doubled his manufacturing capabilities and put in place the first wash system to clean the steel, and also added a bake oven to set the enamel paint that makes a Weather Guard toolbox functional. (More on this later…)

By 1973, he completely redesigned his product line, using feedback from contractors, and these innovations eventually became standard within the industry. Weather Guard points out on their website that Howard Knaack’s innovations were later copied by other manufacturers, but, like author Oscar Wilde once said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

While Wilde is not wrong, at DECKED we don’t have to worry about any of that, because we blaze our own damn trail. And like Howard and Charles Kennedy, the Midwestern Americans who are credited with making one of the very first metal toolboxes for sale over a century ago in 1911—a toolbox that is widely respected and still being sold today; we too believe in the power of American ingenuity and craftsmanship, and have brought to market a storage solution that we think people will still be talking about in the next hundred years. Because, at DECKED, we design our products to last a lifetime.

Weatherguard Low Profile Toolbox

What Weather Guard has done really well is offer a wide variety of toolboxes to consumers. Their styles range from all-purpose chest to gull-wing, hi-side boxes and lo-side boxes; the saddle box, under bed box, and even a wheel well box, or Weatherguard pork chop toolbox. (We’re not joking about that last one. That’s what many folks call it. We guess because it’s shaped like a pork chop?)

The thing is, though they do many things well, there’s one important factor that is not so good: steel and aluminum are not the best choices for the entire makeup of a toolbox. Engineered, high-impact resin with galvanized steel and aluminum reinforcements is—and we can prove it.

Weatherguard Crossbed Toolbox vs. DECKED. Who Will Win?

Location and Access

The crossbed, or saddle toolbox is most popular with truck owners. It’s an efficient use of the truck bed and is located at the top of the bed, up near the cab. The overall drawback to this style of toolbox is that it requires you to mount your truckbed to access it.

Now, whatever form of gymnastics you’ve become proficient in order to do that is up to you, but with a DECKED Tool Box you can forget all of that ballerina training and access your toolbox like a man, with our integrated access ladder. (Or like a woman, but that phrasing lacked the literary oomph).

This 6000 series aluminum, telescoping bundle of joy has revolutionized how we access a saddle box, and—oh baby—prepare to be goddamn amazed because it’s 100 percent legit.

Materials

We are very sorry to report that around 50% of aluminum toolboxes arrive at the customer dented or dinged. 50%! That calls for some expletives. F#@&! We’re guessing you’d be pissed off if your brand new truck bed storage solution came with a few free “gifts” of the non-re-giftable type? Yeah, we wouldn’t want to pay for that gut-punch either, so that’s why we designed a toolbox that won’t dent, ding, or rust—ever. Our toolboxes are molded, not welded, and the high-density polyethylene we use has been called the “cockroach of plastics,” because, well, it’s impossible to kill.

Rust

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, a DECKED Tool Box: Will. Never. Rust. We would shout that from the rooftops if we could, or at least from the truck beds because rust is metal’s mortal enemy and eventually, rust is going to win.

Steel toolboxes require powder-coating to prevent rust, (remember Knaack’s bake ovens?), and any little nick, mar, dent, or ding is going to invite that orange-hued unwelcome guest.

The truth is, a steel toolbox could be rusted in less than a year, and that’s a scary thought. With a DECKED Tool Box, you won’t ever find yourself Googling “weatherguard toolbox coating?” or “restoring weatherguard toolbox” or even “polishing weatherguard toolbox.”

DECKED Tool Boxes arrive dent and ding-free, and are virtually maintenance-free for life because the free gift we believe in giving you is a different kind of free: the “free” in freedom. Freedom to live your life however you choose, with a toolbox that is equipped to support your every endeavor. (Or misstep. But man, we were on a roll with the positives here.)

Weight

Steel is about three times the weight of aluminum, but a DECKED Tool Box is even lighter still. Our toolboxes weigh a whopping 103 pounds without the optional ladder, or 114 pounds with it integrated; so, about as much as your rottweiler, bloodhound, or small middle schooler. (The former two we hope are the only ones you’re chaining up in the back of your pickup, because, safety first.)

Having a lighter toolbox will benefit your rig in the long run, reducing wear and tear vehicle-wide and increasing your pickup’s payload. Lighter toolboxes also reduce the strain on your pocketbook, as you’ll be paying less for fuel overall.

Although a DECKED Tool Box is lighter than a Weatherguard 121 toolbox, and especially a 116502 Weatherguard toolbox, (steel version), what it’s not light on is industrial durability. Our toolboxes can withstand whatever you throw at it, even the kitchen sink if you’re really pissed off.

Waterproofing

DECKED Tool Boxes are fully waterproof. Weather Guard tool boxes, while having a clever name, are only weather-resistant. If you’ve ever taken your expensive weather-resistant items in or around water, you likely learned very quickly that waterproof and water-resistant are two different things. Sigh…

And while we’re at it— let’s take a moment of silence to remember all of the expensive items lost to weather resistance. Because there are a lot of them.

DECKED Tool Boxes:

Are injection molded, not welded, so the lid and the bottom tub are each their own single piece. This means fewer avenues for water to travel down in attempts to infiltrate your gear.
Seal tightly when closed with an ethylene propylene diene monomer, (or just EPDM for short because that’s too many times to say “ene”), gasket.
Are created with an upstanding lip that gets overlapped by the lid, acting as a rain gutter on the product.
When open, have a bulb seal and gasket that goes around the entire lid in yet another line of defense.
Have anti-corrosion-treated steel and aluminum hardware to coincide with our “built to last a lifetime” efforts.

Security

When we were poking around to get the facts straight for this article, one of the things we discovered was a high prevalence of people actually Googling the term “how to break into a weatherguard toolbox.”

YIKES!

We sincerely hope these folks aren’t successful, but we can’t even tell you the amount of times we’ve been driving down the road and see the tell-tale signs of a crowbar’s attempt to destroy its way into a pickup truck toolbox.

What you find on Weather Guard’s website is the claim that a “Tamper-resistant push-button lock helps protect against break-ins, but on our website, we straight up tell you that “The DECKED Truck Tool Box has a robust lock and latch system making forced entry nearly impossible.”

“Protect against,” or “nearly impossible.” Which one are you gonna pick?

Yeah. Us too.

So, here’s the deal, our tub-lid interface minimizes theft prybar points. But if some idiot-thief wants to make breaking in their hill to die on, our toolbox won’t show it at all. See for yourself on our website here, where some dude pries so hard on it his veins pop out.

The point is, our toolbox is never going to slight the look of your truck. Our slick design, one that looks like it’s from this decade will only enhance and improve the look of your rig. This ain’t your granddad’s toolbox, fellas, because it’s not 1973 anymore.

Color

You can get a black weatherguard toolbox, but you can also get a white one, silver one, etcetera. Our toolboxes only come in one color: carbon black. Do you want to know why?

We use recycled materials to create our products. We buy our used plastics in bulk and give them a second life. (And the planet too, because if we destroy it, then we can’t continue living our dreams as innovative toolbox makers!) We grind the plastics into pellets and melt them down and pour them into molds. We add a little carbon to create a uniform black color that looks great with all pickup colors, and because we add a UV inhibitor, it won’t ever fade or discolor.

Accessories

There aren’t any Weatherguard toolbox accessories that come standard that we know of. But, with a DECKED Tool Box, a D-Box, and a Snack Tray are part of the deal. Our Toolbox comes with a D-Box, think portable toolbox, that is easy to grab and has its own unobtrusive spot right on top. Fishing tackle, bits and drivers, whatever you need to organize yet access easily, that’s what the D-Box is made for. You can witness the zen here.

The Snack Tray basically looks like a mud pan and also nests right in the top of the box. It’s a great place to empty your pockets at the end of a long day and is a great place to corral your small but mighty items that have gone rogue.

DECKED is the Winner

You don’t have to be a gold-standard referee to see that what we’re doing in our facility in Defiance, Ohio is defying the odds of what is possible when it comes to the perfect toolbox.

You will never have to watch a YouTube video explaining how to adjust your brand new toolbox to make it functional like nearly 31,000 folks have with their Weather Guard ones.

You won’t have to weed through the comments commiserating with the countless others who lament that their gas struts have failed. Oh, and about gas struts… We failed to mention that part: we don’t use products that will eventually fail. It’s torsion springs only for us.

But enough about us. These toolboxes are for you. The hard-working men and women of America who deserve a product that makes their lives better. A product made in the U.S.A. by folks just like yourself, who want a no-bullshit toolbox that is fairly priced, performs longer than a Grateful Dead set, (hard to do), and is built like friggin’ Fort Knox.

That’s a DECKED Tool Box, and you can get one that fits your truck here.

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