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Toyo Steel's Stacking M-8 Metal Storage Boxes

Originally designed for organizing small parts in factories

By Rain Noe - March 13

in Organization

Japanese manufacturer Toyo Steel originally designed this M-8 for factory use. The steel box is for storing screws and other small parts.

It's manufactured by drawing, with a purposeful draft angle on the sidewalls: "The M-8 has its tapered shape in order to make it easier to scoop small parts by hand." That also makes the boxes easier to nest.

The innovation here is that they have small flip-over wings on the short ends, allowing you to stack them:

The company reckons even non-factory-workers will find these handy, and has re-marketed these for domestic use.

It comes in its natural steel color and black, as well as the moss green shown above.

They're a damn sight better looking than plastic containers, and will surely last longer, but the price is dear: These run $84 a pop.

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Ryan Cee

9 months ago

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The flip-over handle is what really sells it: for workflow efficiency being able to stack containers while not having a lid that can either get in the way, or get lost, it's a far more sensible design.

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- Ryan Cee
  
  Ryan Cee
  
  9 months ago
  
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  But yeah, as someone who's bought industrial trade containers because of how useful and durable they were at a jobsite, even small plastic ones don't come cheap.
  
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Charles Flynn

9 months ago

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Toyo makes a good utility cart, sold by MoMA. I will be putting mine together this weekend:

https://store.moma.org/products/toyo-utility-cart

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Alan Nomoto

9 months ago

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Reminds me of the Japanese Bento Boxes that I've always admired.

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