STANLEY47-480L 100 FatMax Xtreme Chalk Box

I lay out a lot of interior walls. They don't bind up like others I've used over the last 25 years.Hold a nice amount of chalk. I thought they were off the market and bought other brands, Happyto get back to these.

A little bulky for my taste but it would be go if you were doing a lot of layout

I have gone through 3 of these chalk boxes in 2 years. They do not last long enough. I found the problem with them. They have a little metal eyelet in them that guides the string in and out. Well, after use the string starts to rub on the eyelet, and the string starts to fray and gets stuck inside the box. So you have to take it apart and pull the string out to were it is not frayed, cut it, tie the hook back on and everything, a very messy process. And then it will continue to happen because the more worn the eyelet gets, the faster it frays the chalk line. So after about 8-12 months of use, plan on fixing it every week or two. Not worth the time is takes to fix them. Buy another chalk line. 1 start in my book.

Good

I love how durable the chalk line is and how fast Amazon shipped it to me

not a bad box, at first. Oversized but I clip it on my belt out of the way so that didn't bother me. I didn't notice the weight, the line is fine, and the speed gear reel worked great at first. First problem was the loader door jammed and i had to disassemble it to load it. Then the gear stopped working. I disassembled it, cleaned everything, and gave it way more attention than it deserved, but to no avail, ground plastic gears are useless. I'm going double or nothing and buying a Tajima gear drive line and hopefully it will last. I would still rather keep a spare of one of these than rewind a reel for as long as it takes to snap a line, so gear drive for me. If I could redesign this box, I'd use a plastic box, metal gears, a release not on the reel, and a different loader door.

I am a professional remodeling carpenter. I bought two at the same time. I was able to use the first chalk box maybe a total of 25 times (over the course of 2 months) before it went into the trash can. The gear was hard to crank from the get go. Since I never used a Fat Max chalk reel before purchasing this one, I thought it was just the price you paid for a better crank rate. I was wrong. It got a bit easier just before the gear stripped: then became completely useless. I never took it apart, so either it was either a manufacturing defect or poor design. Definitely not an "extreme" duty tool. As inexpensive as this chalk box was, I didn't get my money's worth from it. Hope to have better luck with the 2nd one.

Best chalk line on the market.

Nice product.