I am in the process of rearranging my shop layout....what shop storage method do you like the best in your shop. For example....do you have work benches with storage under it...shelves on the walls, old school lockers, ect...I am thinking of building work benches with storage under...and configure the benches with openings for welders, grinders, bandsaws and other tools with designated storage and use areas. I have been racking my brain trying to develop the best design, then thought "why not ask what others like best in their shops..."
You can't really design your shop around storage, you sort of have to design your storage around your shop. Here are some of the things I do:
2 rollaways for most hand tools except hammers, chisels, punch pins, also I keep a lot of end mills and carbide inserts in there too, also some fasteners
closet with shelves with boxes on shelves for unfinished projects
workbench drawers
4 sets of steel drawers some 3" wide some 6" wide for a whole bunch of stuff
hand-forged hooks up on one wall for welding lead, torch lead, air hose
more hooks on a different wall for extension cords
2 rolling carts one with mill tooling and miscellaneous clamps other with lathe and grinder tooling
an A-frame style rack made from old bed frame iron to hold stock inside, I separate stock into 4 categories angle solid (flat, rectangular) round pipe/tube
a bigger rolling rack outside for steel storage which I keep tarped
a wooden bookshelf between my 2 lathes for lathe tooling, bottom shelf is for welding rod/gloves/hood/slag hammers
2 more small wooden bookshelves for miscellany (mostly mill fixtures)
a larger wooden bookshelf for materials like stockpiled electrical parts,
3M pad boxes, rolls of electrical wire, stuff like that
I keep all my work gloves in one drawer. I keep all my safety glasses in one drawer. I keep all my steel tapes in one drawer. I keep most of my Allen wrenches in one drawer. I have my sockets organized with one of those Kennedy socket organizer trays, which works OK. I have a place for every wrench. I use different drawers in my rollaway one for straight screwdrivers one for Phillips and bit boxes, one for anything that looks like pliers.
I have a hook for my leather apron. I also have a crawl space in which I store large electrical cord or rarely-used big stuff like that.
There is an adjacent machinery room (furnace, hot water heater) in which I have a table where I keep my optical comparator under a protective cover.
True, workbenches attract as lot of clutter. OTOH, many times you take something apart and cannot put it back together without ordering a special part, so the arrayed parts stay there awaiting completion.
My shop is 24x40. The back 10' is enclosed as a storage & office. Desk, steel shelving for parts storage.
Over this is a loft for bulk storage - tires, wood etc. The compressor will go up there as soon as I figure out how to lift it. I won't store it outside for security reasons.
This leaves a 24x30 work area
I do two kinds of work, mostly: Car repair/modifications/race prep, and machine tools restorations and general machining. The right side of the shop is for the former, the left side the latter.
Mounting everything on casters as possible. So far the only exception is the tire machine. And the wood stove.
Tools go into those $88 roll around task center toolboxes. The car tools are different from the machining tools, but there are some duplications
3 or my workbenches are old retail steel counters, with shelves. The rest are just worktops with open area underneath.
Welders, compressor etc roll under the open workbenches.
I have a lot of pegboard, but most of it is coming down. They just collect clutter.
I like those cheap "laundry room" wood cabinets for wall storage. The tops become shelves. The underside is a mount for work lighting
Heavy wooden boxes approx 2'x2' on casters under workbenches for bulk metal storage.
Four drawer file cabinets help me out a lot. The drawers are strong and will move easily with a lot of weight in them, and you can store a lot of loose stuff on top of them too.
If you keep your eyes open you can pick file cabinets up at the "right" prices at auctions.
We also use file cabinets for storing extra canned and boxed food, cleaning supplies and such.
I bought the entire display shelving contents from a radio shack in a mall they were tearing down for $ 20 bucks. It added up to about 100 feet of slot wall panels on very heavy free standing chromed brackets (had to leave another 100 feet behind because there was so much). So..at home and in the shop I have about 50 feet each of 8' slot wall with a shelf at the foot and a large shelf at the 8' level. Works great to hang all the hand tools and such.
The slot wall panels are 24" wide with heavy posts between each set. Posts are punched for shelf brackets. For items that need to sit on a shelf, I have shelving either 24" wide or 48" wide wherever I choose.
The only thing that gives me trouble is items like pliers. Most of the slot wall hooks are simple pins to hang things from. Pliers and such need some sort of better "hanger" which us usually a hole or slot in a board. Anyone have any ideas or good method of hanging this kind of thing? Where it doesn't interfere with the tool, I've attached a large washer to the end of some handles to just hang them from the standard pegs. however, I don't like having pliers and nippers in the rolling tool chest so want to find a better solution.
I have really limited space, so I have an idea that works for me--I have never seen anyone else do it. Stow things in 5-gallon buckets, and support them from the garage (shop) rafters by rope and pulley. There are trays made that nest nicely inside the buckets. There are also pocket aprons that fit the buckets, for holding wrenches, punches, and various other stuff. If you want, you can label the buckets on the bottom with a felt pen.
I even have my scroll saw hanging up there. When I need it, (seldom), I lower it on top of the wash machine.
One of the best ready-built storage system components I found at a garage sale, is a square hospital emergency room type cart, about 4-1/2 ft tall. It's built for ready access to numerous drawers, from either side.
It's not a substitute for a roll away tool cabinet, but it holds more hardware/parts and miscellaneous stuff than I ever imagined.
There are 12 medium sized drawers, and another 12 facing the other direction. The large, deeper full width drawers can be pulled out either side, one near the top, the other below the 24 smaller drawers. There's a third full width, shallower drawer at the top that only pulls out from the third side. All the drawers lock in place by stepping on a rod at the bottom, so the drawers could be locked when it had hospital supplies in it.
This sturdy cart holds a lot of crap for it's size, plus the additional stuff on top. There are synthetic tires on ball bearing wheels, about 5" diameter.. big enough to roll over rough spots easily, or an air hose if needed. The frame is welded steel, and the only not-so-good feature is that the 24 smaller drawers are plastic. When I get around to building or finding a former/deflattener, I'll most likely bend up some metal drawers for it.
A home shop buddy once told me he would build the best shop design.. a round shop, because it doesn't have any corners to start piling stuff into.
I got a few million little boxes from work that are about three by five by ten inches or so and with a white label I have these all over the place. Some hold car parts, some hold electronics stuff, and some hold stuff and tools I use at my workbench. I can actually find stuff now! If it isn't in a box, that's still a challenge, though! I keep most of my chemicals in an old standup freezer. Enclosed, insulated, and a bit safer than out on shelves. I've been planning but not had a chance to redo my small tool storage thinking completely. My tool chest is overflowing and the top is a collector of crap. My idea is to make a wood frame about three feet wide, two feet deep, and six feet high. Inside the frame I attach six or so vertical panels suspended from drawer slides top and bottom. The slides attach to blocks that nest into the frame top and bottom, allowing the assembly to be moved sideways to accommodate different spacing between panels. The panels pull out completely on the 24" drawer slides, creating lots and lots of "wall" space. No pegboards; they always suck and to do it right you have to spend an arm and a leg on decent clips. With pegs, nails, blocks, and other available hardware, all my tools can be mounted on both sides of the panels. The drawer slides are each rated for about 200 pounds or so, making the load manageable. I can gets gobs and gobs of tools in there, and the footprint is a mere six square feet. Working similar issues at work, and my rule is to avoid all horizontal surfaces at all costs. All I need to do to prove my point is point to one! Everything has a place, and if there is no place to put something (usually new items) then you HAVE to make a spot for it because no other place will accept it. And you instantly know if the kids/wife/neighbor has appropriated one of your tools if you shadow the tools out with paint or a marker of some kind. My smaller hammers are shadowed on a bit of space and for some reason I always put them back. Makes no sense to me at all! :) My usable attic space is over the garage and quite full of household stuff, so I'm kinda leery about hanging stuff from the ceiling. I can see some sag already, and don't know how much is normal or how much is unsafe. I really ought to sort and dispose of the stuff I haven't touched in ten or more years! Freecycle and Craigslist helps get rid of a lot of unnecessary stuff.
wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com... | I am in the process of rearranging my shop layout....what shop storage | method do you like the best in your shop. For example....do you have | work benches with storage under it...shelves on the walls, old school | lockers, ect...I am thinking of building work benches with storage | under...and configure the benches with openings for welders, grinders, | bandsaws and other tools with designated storage and use areas. I have | been racking my brain trying to develop the best design, then thought | "why not ask what others like best in their shops..." | | Thanks |
snipped-for-privacy@bpla.com wrote in news:1105464831.970828.146070 @z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
`Some ideas here, from a seasoned veteran..hehe...
Global Industrial and the like are your friend. (Or surplus/plant auction/etc). Think about things such as these for storage. Remember that 80% of what you keep could be classified as *little* or *small*
One of these and a roll of sticky labels is great for bolts, screws, nuts, washers, electrical connectors, batteries, etc, and only occupies
2-1/2 ft of floor space.
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Something in the line of this:
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absolutely great for all kinds of hand tools (air tools, welding tools, etc) and for supplies (welding rods, welding wire, dykum, tapping fluid, etc)
You can buy just the backplate and the bins also, and mount them to the wall.
Use the wall space you have available to the maximum extent. Put pegboard everywhere you can. Mount your bench grinder, buffer, and other small tools on angle brackets from the wall. This allows you floor space under the equipment, wall space over it and keeps it off your workbench.
A double swing-arm and angle tray mounted to the mill can hold your collets/tool holders and clamping sets. Swings out of the way when needed, is at your fingertips when you are working. Same goes for the lathe, double swing-arm and tray with collets, chuck wrench, wrenches for the compound, extra toolholders, etc can be put on the swing-arm tray. These items free up cabinet space, and put what you need, where you need it, when you need it. (And you can make the swing arms and trays as a project.)
Back-to-back or quad-layout equipment frees up floor space also.
My pliers hang on pegboard "hooks" which have two parallel wire rods spaced about 3/4" apart sticking straight out about 5", with a U loop on the outboard end. I can stack up six or seven pairs, largest ones at the back.
Looks like these:
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Just stick one plier handle in between the two rods.
Shouldn't be a rocket science project to roll your own either.
The only think I put on the shelves is some cardboard. 1) It prevents small parts from falling through the wire and 2) It prevents any metal-to-metal contact.
I hadn't thought about sliding anything onto the shelves, but now that you mention it, that might not be a bad idea.
I use a screwdriver rack that goes on the pegboard. That holds one leg of the small pliers. For large pliers I just put two of the single bars (stick out straight about 2 inches) side by side and hang the pliers upside down between them. That also works for my tin snips and scissors.
Staple a heavy rubber band or large o-ring to the wall. O-rings last longer and flop less. Adjust the length with your stapler. O-rings to suit available at your local hardware box store in the hardware bins.
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