I have a question for everyone.
How do you handle your work bench and
storage. My work bench area is about 5
feet wide and 24" deep.
What do you use to store all you small parts.
What do you use to store scratch building supplies
like balsa wood and styren. What about the short
lengths left over after you cut some off?
What do you use to store baper brick, paper stone?
What about all of the one of a kind parts like windows,
doors, railings, things like that?
I made my work bench from components I got at Home Depot: two kitchen
cabinet sections and a Formica countertop piece. It's about 6' long, and 3
feet wide (whatever a countertop is). There are drawers for things on one
side, and a large storage compartment on the other side. Whichever cabinet
components suit your needs best.
For small parts, I have some stackable racks that hold plastic
multi-compartment containers.
Brian
Hi Kelly - I use a combination of recycled furniture and new purchases.
My work table is the old wooden kitchen table 3 by 5 feet my parents bought
in 1951, with a masonite top on it that is replaced as it gets damaged. It's
butted at right angle with an old table with masonite top and foldout legs.
Amazingly, built over 30 years apart, the two are exactly the same height.
And I just replaced my old office chair when the stuffing started to fall
out (it was sawdust stuffing!) with a new wheeled pneumatic chair with arms!
Great for rolling round on the basement floor between my airbrush work
centre and the workbench. The wood table has a drawer where I keep my steel
rulers, gauges, mini screwdrivers, and other small tools. At the left end of
the table, I have a recycled heat vent fan to draw away fumes when I'm
gluing.
I have installed a one foot shelf about 16 inches above the table, in front
of me, upon which I have several storage chests with 24 plastic trays each.
In the trays are detail parts, chalks, weathering brushes, electrical
toggles and supplies, qtips, I have my mini clamps on or clampled to the
edge of this shelf, in varying forms of attachment. My jigs are hanging on
nails above this shelf. I have boxes with adhesives, etc. on this shelf as
well. There is an old adjustable lamp with a 2-2ft flourescent tubes that I
have over the table to work with.
Everything else is stored on several recycled bookcases which have about 5
shelves each - kits, boxes of sprues, boxes of paints, spray paint, spare
power supplies, wiring, etc. . My screws and such are stored in little
watchmaker cases (purchased from Lee Valley Tools) on one of these shelves.
My sheets of styrene and such are stored in a paper bag under one of the
larger building kits. Spare balsa, plastic detail, heat shrink tubing, etc
are stored loosely together with the kits. Some of the balsa comes in its
own plastic bags, which is great cause it also has the measurements on the
label.
- Joe
I use a steel workbench from Sears. It has one large compartment, three
shallow drawers and one deep one. Small parts go into parts cabinets with many
small drawers about 1 by 3 inches. I too save leftovers from projects but am
not too organized about it. Most end up in the large drawer in the workbench.
I got lucky one day at the dump. Somebody had dropped off some sort of
over-the-desk rack made up of steel shelves with insert that served as
bookends. On the right were two additional small shelves. I use on compartment
for styrene scraps/pieces, one for brass, the other for drawings and books/mags
I want to keep handy. On the top shelf I keep soldering supplies in one
section, small tools such as my NWSL Chopper, bending brake, etc. The others
hold projects in progress. Under it, on the back of the bench, I keep my paints
on a small plastic lazy susan. Files are stored in a cleaned out food can.
For detail parts I have one of those 24-drawer chests (about a foot square)
that you can get through mail order filled with nuts and bolts. A drawer for
passenger car details, a drawer for diesel details, a drawer for window
castings, etc.
Somehow the bench still gets messy. I haven't figured out how.
Jay
CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"
My workbench is a cheap computer table I got at Walmart - I think about $30.
I put a piece of pegboard on the back for tools. I actually use the pull out
keyboard shelf for my work area. It has a shelf at the top for my paints. It
rolls out of the way when not on use. For storage I got three rolling
cabinets at Staples. They have 4 drawers an are also on rollers.
Kelly,
I use an 'L' shaped office desk for building models on. The side board
was designed for a computer, but it comes in handy for all my
electrical gadgets like resistance soldering station, Dremel etc.
For storage of tools and scratch building supplies, I use the bottom
roll cabinet made for mechanics. They have a bunch of drawers and a
nice top that can be used to hold models being worked on.
For paint, I got a micro wave turn table and layered it with 2" blue
foam insulation board cut into 4 different sized circles with a hot
wire tool and stacked up like a wedding cake. I use it to store all my
paint and glue on.
Doug
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