Juan Ibarra (left) of Gold Rush TV fame joins Daren Cowan of CTech Manufacturing for a press conference at the 2020 Work Truck Show.Photo: Keith Norbury
Locks have been added to the custom tool drawers for work trucks from CTech Manufacturing, the company announced at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis this March.
“We’ve had the tool trays on the market now for around nine years and people have been asking us to come up with a way to lock it,” CTech product line manager Daren Cowan said during a press conference at the show.
Drawers less than 24 inches wide will have a single lock while wider drawers will have dual locks, he said.
Based in central Wisconsin, CTech is already known for its trademarked MotionLatch handle, which enables a mechanic to open the drawer anywhere on the handle “in one fluid motion,” Cowan said.
Gold Rush star weighs in
Juan Ibarra, an independent mobile heavy equipment mechanic who also stars on the Discovery Channel’s Gold Rush reality series, attested to that during the press conference.
“That’s what I really liked about this unit,” said Ibarra, whose company, Ibarra Industries, is based in Reno, Nevada. “I’ve had several different units in my trucks over the years and, to me, there’s nothing worse than having a handful of tools, you’re stumbling all over everything trying to open the drawer and you can’t get into it.”
CTech’s MotionLatch handles made the job so much easier, Ibarra added. “You know, when you’re on a hillside and you close the door, it’s not going to come back out.”
Jim Greenheck, a National Hot Rod Association-rated drag racer, founded CTech in 1994, Cowan pointed out. The idea was to produce light, strong, high-quality aluminum cabinets for race trailers, according to the company website.
Headquartered in Weston, Wisc., about 85 miles west of Green Bay, CTech recently completed an 80,000 square foot addition to its manufacturing facility. It also recently opened a research-and-development center, Cowan said. The additions have enabled the company to maintain a 10-day lead time on orders “even through heavy race season,” Cowan said.
“If you’ve never been there it’s quite the impressive operation, especially with that new expansion,” Ibarra said. “And it’s just as gorgeous as their equipment is, the product that they make.”
Easy to get into
Ibarra also attested to CTech’s quick turnaround time, noting that after ordering a set of drawers that didn’t fit, he received replacements of the correct size the next day. “That was my mistake, though,” he said with a laugh. “I measured wrong. I wanted to maximize all my space and made them a little too big and I couldn’t close the door.”
Cowan said CTech’s standard product is a drawer rated for 240 pounds, although its capacity can be increased to up to 500 pounds to accommodate heavier equipment. However, the company is best know for making tool drawers of any size for any application. A big yellow unit on display at the Work Truck Show, which Cowan described as the largest unit CTech can build, measured 60 inches tall, 50 inches wide and 60 inches deep.
“One of our tag lines is our drawers are easy to get into,” Cowan quipped.
Ibarra said that he loves how CTech can customize its products including the color.
“At the end of the day, you spend that kind of money on a truck, you want to have cabinets in there that match the truck as well,” Ibarra said. “And for me, as an end user, as an owner-operator, you take pride in your truck, you take pride in your cabinets, you take pride in your tools. So there’s no better way there to store your investment.”
For more information on CTech, visit www.ctechmanufacturing.com.