Re: Shop Storage - How Do You Do It?

[Steve Hall]

> I am interested in seeing how others do and what they use for > storage within their shops.

Vertical storage for lumber was a big solution for me. Not only can I stack more, but I don't have to worry about the loads on the wall so much. (There is still a lateral force on the wall, but most of the mass is resting on the floor.) And if you stack it right, you don't have to worry about the wood bending. I use a 2x4s lagged into studs with 1-1/4" dia. dowels friction fit into holes drilled at about

5-1/4" o.c. (to miss the lags into studs at 16"o.c.). These aren't glued so I can move them around as needed.

Also, take a walk through your local home improvement for ideas.

[Tom Gardner]

Ok, HERE'S how it's done! Study the techniques.

[Leon]

I posted a couple of pictures of my solution in a.b.p.w.

[Leon]

LOL....Niiiiiiice

[Morris Dovey]

Too_Many_Tools wrote: | I am interested in seeing how others do and what they use for | storage within their shops. | | Anything from fasteners to material stock to tooling to ???....how | do you store it and what is it stored in or on? | | Anything from the lowly coffee can to a Lista cabinet...let's hear | about it. | | Descriptions and pictures would be great.

Photos posted to abpw.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[MG]

Metal stock: 3" PVC 18-24" sections pop riveted in a honeycomb, J hooks to a plywood base. Also garden tool rack a board with peg. Homemade if you are cheap like me.

Stackable plastic bins, on the metal hanger on the wall in a hanging bookshelf like.

Generic purpose shelving with various height + cardboard boxes with labels. I make labels on EXCEL and print as large as I can for the old eyes. Labels are important, I constantly optimize the boxes to fit more junk and remembering where that old heatsink that can supply the piece of copper I need now is hiding.

Use to use tin cans, but they rust and are all different, now I have a oversupply of plastic boxes 4"dia x 8 with screw cap all lined up.

Homemade wood crates, to clean up all the scrap lumber. Milk crates on high shelves.

Every useable wall surface has some kind of board with nails screws, pegs or hooks.

Blocks of wood drilled for socket wrenches, taps, odd bits out of indexes, punches, reamers etc, anything with a shank or that look like a punch.

Homemade drawers with ball bearing slides.

The list goes on and the reorganizing is a continuous effort. I am a little anal about the shop.

Mauro

[Rob Morden]

Leon,

That looks really nice. What did you use for drawer bottoms. My concern is always having them fall out - the weight gets out of hand in a hurry in my shop.

What I have is one of those red roller cabinets from Harbour Freight. I think it is pretty good bang for the buck.

rem

ps for others a.b.p.w is alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking.

[Phisherman]

I use various storage ideas as most shop owners do. I like the clear plastic containers from food items (spices, Parmesan cheese, etc) and got rid of all my glass containers. I have a "clamping station" that I made from pegboard and a lumber storage rack, both made from Shopnotes plans. My drills are in a custom-built cabinet I made from pallet wood with turned dogwood knobs (from a tree that died on my property). I have old kitchen cabinets where I store my paint, stains, etc. I have made some custom hooks for roller stand, feather boards, push sticks, etc. I have a ceiling "ladder rack" with aluminum hooks for all my furniture patterns (lots of these). I still need something to keep my hand power tools--thinking about wire baskets.

[Steve B]

Tons of ideas about storage.

BUT, I looked at empty space that was not being used, and asked myself why.

Almost all the available space was up. Along roofs. On trusses. Etc.

Now, you can't get goofy and store engine blocks and heavy things up there, but you can sure use a lot of that space.

I used to get "grid wall" from conventions. So much of it that I quit bringing it home. You can only use so much for trellises and such. It is about three by eight feet. Pretty hefty wire pressed into squares like concrete reinforcing wire. Some white, some black, some even chromed. It makes a good hanging shelf from hooks and chain lagged into the rafters. You can see through it to know what's there, and the dust doesn't accumulate like a regular shelf.

Again, you have to keep it light, but I found a lot of empty space by looking up.

(no nasty jokes about vacant craniums, please)

HTH

Steve

[jk]

All I would get from that, is how to leave things piled in the aisles, so that you can barely move.

I already have that :)

jk

[Leon]

I would be glad to e-mail directly to you but I don't know of where else to "easily" post the pictures.

[Leon]

Thank you. I used 1/4" plywood for the bottoms. I built similar drawers for our kitchen 18 years ago and my wife was concerned that bottoms would fall out also until she saw me turn the drawer upside down and stand on it. That said, they will sag over time if loaded with lots of weight so on the deep drawers I glued 2, 3/4"wide by 1/2" thick Ipe strips that run front to back evenly spaced side to side to the drawer bottoms.

I was looking a adding another steel top and bottom chest from Home Depot. That would have cost $1,000. I think I got out for about $200.

[Wayne Cook]

I didn't know you'd been in my shop. :-)

[Mark & Juanita]

Take a look at You can see how I store clamps and the drawers in the workbench that really provide significant storage. The shelf in the back with the yellow bins holds screws, fasteners, and other hardware, all segregated, separated, and pretty much organized. is a bit better view. Wood storage is a wood rack:

The cabinet in the back of this picture is one that ShopNotes had a number of years ago It holds planes, chisels, and other tools.

The MDF cabinet came from Lowe's a number of years ago and I use it for storing finishes and some table saw accessories.

Finally, the cabinets on the wall (painted white for light) were left by the former owner.

Hope some of that gives you some ideas.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Lew Hodgett]

RE: Subject

Strictly from memory.

Built a run out 4x8 table with replaceable 4x8x1/4 hard board top.

Since I had access from both sides had 48 drawers of assorted sizes, 24 on each 4x8 vertical face.

Got a deal on 1/2 ply drop offs.

Seems the local Ford plant needed 4x9x1/2 ply so the lumber yard cut them from 4x10 sheets, then sold me the 1x4x1/2 drop offs.

Built a 4x8 base frame from 2x4x8 PTL covered with 1/2.

Since I had lots of it, all drawer parts were 1/2 ply.

Used 1x2 furring strips along with 1" dowels, and 1/4-20 bolts to form drawer handles.

Everything was painted, inside and out.

From memory, took at least 5-6 gal of paint.

Used primer followed by enamel.

Never had a chance to put it in service, but it was a heavy beast.

As is typical of most of my construction, built like a brick outhouse.

Guy that bought it, cut it into to get two cabinets, each with 24 drawers almost 24 deep.

Hope he enjoyed it.

Lew

[nospambob]

[REMOVE]

[JP Sipponen]

[bart]

I strongly belive in the ways of the squirrel. Bit & pieces hidden away everywhere! ;-)

But seriously, any "long" materials stored upright. Smaller stuff (drill rod, etc. in tubes/on shelves). Metal, wood & plastic start out with their own little zones on shelves

- eventually melding together in one pig pile. I've actually gotten around to sorting out lots of small parts in those drawer/bin things..with labels! Extension ladder is hung form the garage ceiling with J-hooks. It all still looks like chaos-HQ though.

[charlieb]

I picked up a buddy's Like With Like approach and, when possible, store things near, under or in where they're used.

Bench has drawers in the base - accessible from both sides of the bench and a shelf immediately under the bench top. Layout tools, measuring tools and the like used at the bench are in the bench drawers. On the wall behind the bench is a wall cabinet with other tools used at the bench in the carcase and doors - one step away from the bench. The drill press has a set of drawers under it for bits, hold downs and the never used "mortising attachment. The mortising machine sits on a drawer unit which holds chisels and bits etc. The router table has drawers for all the crap that you accumulate/acquire for it - wrenches, throat plates, manuals, router bit sets and so on, a wall cabinet for the rest of the router bits.

Poke around here and you'll see the "machine" side of the shop and where things are stored

- in their context.

that the "lathe areas" in the right shop diagram isn't shown - yet. NO machine in my shop has near as many "accessories"as a lathe. Here's my current set up - with most, but not all of them. For such a small machine it sure needs a lot of storage space.

Left Side of The Shop has different storage needs. Poke around this one to see some of those solutions. Note that I've since added a fireproof metal cabinet for flammable finishing materials.

probably won't ever get to House Furniture, but have made a lot of Shop Furniture as practice should I ever need to.

charlie b