Organising your Stanley FatMax ProStack like an expert

It could be said that we have way too many ProStacks. Just as well we have all the foam Stanley FatMax Organiser Inserts we could wish for too! So that does give us a good opportunity to inspire you as to how you can totally boss it with your own Stanley FatMax ProStack organisation. Whether you have one of their shallow drawer boxes or a deep drawer box. A deep tool box or the standard height toolbox. Whatever you have, we’ve got FatMax Organiser inspiration and tips for you!

All the ProStack items we’ve worked on

We’ve already been to work on the standard height tool box using the Stanley FatMax ProStack Box Foam Inserts. We wanted to organise and protect a DeWalt combi drill and a few accessories. You probably already know that the inserts for both this range and the DeWalt TSTAK range are compatible as the footprints of the boxes are the same. So the yellow and black of the box, the drill and the insert all work brilliantly together. But if you want to mix it up in terms of colour, It’s super simple with our foam inserts. They are already cut to fit your tool box or drawer – just select the colour and depth you want and away you go.

We’ve also done some work on the Prostack shallow drawer boxes which you may have seen in a previous film. These are perfect for smaller hand tools as the drawers measure about 35mm and our inserts come in at 30mm. That makes them ideal liners in which to store and protect any hand tools. For these we maximised ease of use by adding finger pulls to easily get tools in and out.

What we hadn’t started yet was the large bottom drawer. Nor have we tackled the perennial problem of what to do with your deep box to get the most from the space. So these two projects are where we’ll start now.

Stanley FatMax Pro Organiser deep drawer

The great thing about these organisers is that they are totally customised to what works best for you. The gent who we are doing this for has asked for an LED Torch, spare battery, pack of bits and a Bosch screwdriver in there. As always we spend a bit of time planning the best layout for the items before getting to work! Then it’s time to start.

We already have our Stanley FatMax Pro Organiser insert. And our Shadow Foam full cutting kit. (nb, we always recommend you get one of these so you can wear the safety gloves when cutting!) Then it’s time to start cutting our items into the foam.

Once you’ve cut the items, it’s time to peel – remember there’s a knack to doing this so always check out our “how to” film to get the perfect technique.

Once all the tools are just as we want them, we assess the need for finger pulls. Most of the items sit proud enough from the foam that we don’t need them. However the smaller screwdriver really could benefit from them. To create the finger pulls we used our stencil set which are available really cheaply in our web store. These can come in very handy for any number of tasks.

Using the above tools, you’ll have the perfect guide to be able to cut your own custom inserts at home. Of course an important step, especially with drawers, is to test fit everything into the drawer. Making sure that the drawer opens and close once you’re done is the rewarding bit! If you do find that any bits stand a little prouder than they should and impede the drawer mechanism you can do as we did. Just cut down the parts that stick out a little deeper into the foam to achieve a nice flat finish.

The Stanley Fatmax Prostack Deep Tool Box

With this we could potentially put about about 5 of our ready made foam FatMax organisers into it. That won’t work for us in this case as we want to have some bigger items in the top. But we can certainly get a few in there.

The issue with these deep cases is that it’s hard to get them organised as things can just rattle around. We are creating this box for a data engineer. So we want to put everything they need most readily available on the top where they’re easy to access. With all the necessary but less used items being stacked further towards the bottom.

Into the box the data engineer has a Dewalt multi tool, batteries and charger which you may have seen us cut into foam previously. As to with their walkie-talkie, multitool accessories and various other items.

So in the bottom we are left with some cutting equipment, ethernet tester and various data engineering tools which we still need to cut in. Using the same process as before we plan, carefully cut and then peel the layers back. Of course test-fitting the items as we go. With this equipment it all sits nice and flush so it will make a nice flat layer to sit other inserts on top of. Of course though it also means that we will need to add finger pulls to help us in getting the items in and out easily. Again we use a similar process to earlier, but just using a ruler to show how easy it is even if you don’t have one of our stencil sets.

How does the deep box “stack up”

1. Bottom layer – a 50mm Stanley Fatmax Prostack insert containing the measuring and cutting tools
2. Next up – a 30mm foam insert containing the walkie talkies, multi tool bits etc
3. Then – a 50mm foam insert containing the multi tool, batteries etc
4. There’s 100mm of space left! So in goes another 50mm insert containing power tools

Because our layers or stacked inserts don’t contain too much weight, they will easily slide in an out. If you want to remove them more frequently, even more easily or if your inserts contain heavier items then consider using something on the back. In the past we’ve used Correx, but you could easily use acrylic, Dibond board or anything sturdy and customisable that you have to hand. All you need to do is use your foam insert as template and then cut the backing out to match the size and shape, and stick it onto the insert. We use our spray adhesive whenever we do this, but you should be fine with whatever glue you have to hand around the home or workshop.

We’re pretty pleased with how these turned out, and as always we’d love to see what you achieve with your own Stanley FatMax Prostack inserts. To share or see what others have done, check out our Instagram and Facebook Community and get inspired!