Saturday, November 16, 2024 -- Fixing the old and damaged Snap-on Tool Chest - started on it...

Someone rattle can painted the whole tool chest with a kind of goldish color paint.
They painted over everything, including the bages and handle.

To remove the Snap-on badge, these two push "nuts" need to be removed.
It turned out easiest to just spin them off like nuts, using a pair of wide tip pliers.

The lock tumbler has a large nut to spin off.
The handle has two flat head screws.
Both were easy to remove.

To bend back the Sheetmetal, I used a piece of scrap steel (with cuts in it) that I had lying around as kind of a dolly while using a ball peen hammer (both sides, depending on the spot) to straighten the metal.
Also used some different punches for hard to reach spots.

Will strip the gold paint off the handle and badge.
They should be either chrome or raw casting finished originally.
Will take it back to the original surface.

This RH rear corner of the lid was pretty bent.
The hinge pin has also gotten pushed back.

Got the metal back pretty close to where it needs to be.
Also bent the hinge piece back in line and pushed the pin back in.

The RH front top of the box, where the lid goes down and engages, is slightly bent.
Straightened this also.

The bottom of the LH side of the box is very bent (wavy).

The left rear corner of the bottom is very bent.
It looks like the box was dropped on this corner at one point.

Straightening of the bent corner went better than I thought it would.
It's pretty much straight, though a bit rusty.

The three drawer front edges are also a bit bent.
Using the hammer & dolly method, got them all straightened.

This is before straightening.
Had to stop working on the box for now.