Back at Milwaukee Pipeline 2025, they showed off this epic workshop that was built into a Conex box.
Why? How? Who is this even for? Milwaukee explained that a cargo container like this might be brought to remote jobsites to serve as a tool room and portable workshop. This isn’t someone’s garage or basement shop.
You know the AI datacenters that are being built around the country? They’re often in remote areas. This is basically a transportable tool room that can be brought from jobsite to jobsite, even if they’re in the middle of nowhere.
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Milwaukee worked with a construction crew, and this is how they equipped the Conex box, with a workbench, Packout racking, and wall-mounted storage accessories.
Here’s one corner, with Packout tool sets secured to the wall plates, battery chargers, parts bins, tool hangers, ladder hook, and more. It looks like they’ve also have a Milwaukee Packout first aid kit.
The other corner had a couple of bays of the new Packout van racking.
It was a very compact and tidy functional space.
This wasn’t just a demonstration box to show off – Milwaukee said this is how the work crew configured it for their own use.
I like to chat with tradesmen, contractors, and all kinds of professional users. And of course there are the countless conversations and interactions I have with readers.
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I’m familiar with jobsite boxes and transportable workstations. I’ve seen vans, trucks, and trailers. But a portable tool room built into a Conex box? The idea was new to me, let alone lined with Milwaukee Packout racking, cabinets, organizers, and the cleanest workbench I’ve ever seen.
I thought it was pretty cool.
fred
We some cargo containers in the yard of our fabrication building that we used for transient storage. Their interiors looked nothing like this.
On large development or hi-rise jobs our plumbers and other contractors might have a rented/leased shanty – but mainly for clothing change, lunch etc. We’d store our tools in Knaack boxes – sometimes with extra security measures applied. On large jobsites theft was always an issue – and shanties are just too easy to break into.
MM
This kind of thing is common in oil field work, or for construction projects in the middle of nowhere. It’s not just useful for tools but also for maintaining heavy equipment. You need somewhere to store all your maintenance consumables: oil & air filters, grease, hydraulic hoses, bucket teeth, belts, spark plugs, and all that stuff.
Sometimes they get set up for highly specialized purposes. I’ve seen several examples of this on the Diesel Creek youtube channel over the years. One example was a super high-pressure power washing unit built into the conex. Another contained two large rotomolded tanks for…sewage storage. Most of the time they’re some combination of storage and work area.
blocky
I’ve seen builds people did of recording studios into shipping containers. Great concept if it aligns with your logistics – occasional, and potentially international, mobility for longer-term site-specific projects.
Setting up an entire recording studio or shop in a new location can take several long days or even weeks.
If a company is already shipping their site-office by container, sending one of these along probably makes a lot of sense.
I love this sort of thing.
Frank D.
I often think about tricking out an enclosed trailer as a mobile tool room; and love the idea with the mw plates and racking … but the retail cost always gives me serious pause.
Mike
I’ve ready started that project. 7×14 twin axle all-aluminum trailer. It’s GLORIOUS, but still a work in progress..
Clayton
I did this also, then sadly someone towed it away in the dark of the night never to be seen again
Bill
There’s more red in these photos than in Santa’s wardrobe. 🙂
Saulac
My local auctions have shipping containers in different standard sizes fully deck out with windows, doors, roll up doors…from the factories in China. They made one trip here as normal shipping containers then stay here and become some sheds or shops. Best use of shipping containers besides their intended purpose. I’d stayed away from trying to turn containers into housing, especially fancy ones, but I totally use they as sheds or shops.
Henry
Definitely won’t find this on Amazon or Sears.
Jim
I like it!
Milwaukee needs a bench vise (red of course) so one can be added to this shop space. Every shop needs a vise
Wayne R.
I love this kind of thing too. The quantity of the color red would make my head hurt before too long though. And sweating out the chance that creeps will break in wouldn’t help either.
Seems like it should have large bins of hardhats, eye protection & hi-vis stuff too?
S
I’m curious of the conditions that created it. Were the contractors paying for the completed unit at full markup, or given a significant discount/free to shop the Milwaukee catalogue?
I’m also really curious to the trade and construction type this was built for.
Maybe construction like data centers are different. But manufacturing or construction build outs I’ve been able to be part of, have always been a situation where each trade tends to take over a centralized space for their material that becomes their home base on the job.
But in all those cases, I’ve worked with contractors that require each employee to purchase and maintain their own tools.
Even many multi-shift job setups will generally have a ‘tool room’ and dedicated sign out person in charge of issuing and collecting tools. So the work bench doesn’t make sense in that case, as my experience is that tools/materials generally need to be assigned/signed out by a specific person, which means only one person is moving around the room grabbing things.
Frank
I have worked multiple large industrial construction sites, from manufacturing warehouse to power stations (in aus) and on all big jobs the main contractors would each bring in their own container setup as a workshop/tool storage customized per use-case.
Plumbers would have it laid out for easy cutting and welding, other guys would just have bulk tool storage.
Pretty common from what I have seen in aus, not sure about the US tho.
Irving
Looks great – if one can deal with all the red – but let’s see what it looks like on day 8 of 5-7 people working out of it.
Chief55
The U. S. Army has had them for years.