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Using Makita tool box inserts to organise your Makpac or toolbox - Shadow Foam

Using Makita tool box inserts to organise your Makpac or toolbox

The ever popular Makita Makpac range and cantilever box are a favourite amongst many of you. With a low price point they’re cheap, cheerful and perfectly functional. But what takes them to the next level in terms of organised tool storage are our Makita tool box inserts. Makita foam inserts allow your tools to be organised and offers additional protection while you’re on the move. Today we’re using our Makita inserts to organise our Makita SDS Drill, Stanley chisels and much more. So have a look at what we did for some top tips. Makita SDS drill stanley chisels.

Why we love Makita

You have probably seen lots of our projects in the past and noticed our love of Makita power tools. A large number of our power tools are Makita since our boss Jonathan is a big fan of them. Our first Makita Power Tool Wall amassed a massive 1.8m views on Youtube. It’s successor, the Power Tool Wall Mark II was a big improvement on the original as we’d learned a lot from the first project. We’d also brought in a newer more durable grade of foam since the original tool wall was made with. Our first Makpac organising project was back in 2019, and has since been followed by many more examples. Like, for example, this getting Makpacs organised guide we made. And not to forget our “The Apprentice” video where the boss and the apprentice went head to head cutting inserts. All of which is testament to the popularity of our Makita foam inserts.

Ready made Makita tool box inserts

We know that the popularity of the Makpac is not least because they often come free with lots of different tool bundles and promotions. It seems people can’t get enough of our Makita tool box inserts to go with them. Our Makita foam inserts slot straight into the boxes without any trouble. So within seconds are rready for you to get your tools organised in them. They come in 7 colours and two different foam depths, depending what it is you’re storing in there. Makita SDS drill stanley chisels.

The cantilever toolbox is also a great modular addition. This just clips and stacks onto the standard Makpac range too. We also make ready made Makita inserts for these as well.

For this project, we’re chosing to go with 50mm foam inserts. We’ve gone with the complimentary colourway Teal for the cantilever box, and the contrast Blue to go in the Makpac.

Planning your Makita foam inserts

We say time and time again that planning is probably the most important part of the process. Before you buy your Makita inserts, you might find our Guide to Shadowfoaming useful. This helps you decide which depth of foam is best suited to your needs if you aren’t sure. But then after purchasing, there are lots more useful hints and tips there too. Many of which you can also find with a quick trawl through some of our YouTube back catalogue too.

As Jonathan reiterates in the video, once you have planned a layout, take a photo of it. Not for posterity, just so you have a visual guide to reference as you work! Though we’d love you to share photos of your finished items with us too!

We laid our our Stanley chisels, Makita SDS drill and all our other bits how we wanted them, then took a picture before we started cutting.
We laid our our Stanley chisels, Makita SDS drill and all our other bits how we wanted them, then took a picture before we started cutting.

What else do you need to make your custom Makita inserts?

Not a lot, once you have your Makita foam inserts. But as a quick reference there are things you might want to take a look at while you’re purchasing your Makita tool box inserts. So we’ve made a quick checklist for you:

  • Shadow Foam cutting kit. You may be lucky and place a qualifying order which gets you one of these for free. But if not, it’s well worth adding if you can. Not only does it contain the recommended scalpel and blades, but importantly safety gloves to keep you protected. Additionally you get our Fantastic Elastic glue so if you make any mistakes they can be easily remedied.
  • If you already have your own cutting gloves then another option is our Basic Cutting Pack. This will make sure you have the best scalpel and blades for the job.
  • For this project we also use our Shadow Foam Stencil Kit. Of course you could use items you find laying around the home or workshop for this. Or perhaps you prefer the flexibility and ease of having a range of sized circles and radiuses to hand whenever you need them. In which case, this is most definitely for you.
  • Many of you will already have a straight edge ruler laying around somewhere. But we also stock these if you need.
  • Our foam smoothing spinners. These are a fairly recent addition to our range and people are loving them. They help you achieve a really professional, smooth finish on your cut outs.

What tools are we cutting into our Makita inserts?

Into the Makpac we plan to house our Makita SDS Drill along with some spare batteries. In the cantilever box we want to give some hand tools a home. Specifically our Stanley Chisels. We think are great quality as they have a through tang and great ergonomic, shatter-proof handles. But still want the added protection that Shadow Foam gives the items. Additionally in there we have some aviation snips, stubby screwdrivers, and a small selection of pry bars and crowbars.

How's this for a range of organised Makita inserts?
How’s this for a range of organised Makita inserts?

Starting with the cantilever box Makita inserts:

If you’ve never used Shadow Foam before, we definitely recommend you watch this video. Also, perhaps a quick visit to our “How to cut” and “How to peel” guides. Also, when it’s time to get started, you should think about starting with an easier shaped item. For our cantilever box, we started with one of the crowbars as it’s a pretty flat item.

Use our recommended techniques for cutting and then peeling all the items into the foam. Then after each one, test fit your tool into the foam to ensure you’re happy with the fit.

We always like to add finger pulls to our foam inserts too, just to make getting the items out a little easier. That’s down to personal choice, so it’s up to you if and how you add them. Using our tools for doing this, though, makes it really easy and straightforward. It’s not something you’d necessarily need to do with power tools. But for smaller hand tools and fiddlier items, it’s really helpful. With the way we set our our Stanley chisels as 2 sets of 3, you can see how we just used our straight edge to create a pull right across the centre of the 3.

Organising your Makpac:

We wanted to store our Makita SDS Drill in our Makpac. So using a 50mm ready made insert in blue we simply followed the process we laid out for the cantilever box previously and created the space in the insert for the drill. Here though, with a larger aperture to cut out, we brought in our new foam smoothing spinners too. These are brilliant for giving you a really smooth base to your cuts.

We then repeated the process for the batteries, and we were done! It really is that simple. So check out the full make here and let us know if you’re inspired to get your own Makpac organised.

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