What is Good Storage?

Regardless of the size of your shop, storing tools and materials is a challenge. Done poorly, you will be plagued each time you access something. Done right, you will not even notice. That is the pinnacle of good design. Dave Kellogg and I use common software concepts to judge various storage schemes. Examples from us and John Herrmann are provided.

If you are interested, please see

http://rick.sparber.org/WIGSK.pdf

Your comments are welcome. All of us are smarter than any one of us.

Thanks,

Rick

Posts like this are an indication of where we are headed as a community. Beyond just construction of tools, and toward a more meta mindset of making. Similarly, we may see the rise of knowledge management and information retrieval techniques for handling the chunks of info that we now intake daily (How many unorganized bookmarks do you keep in your browser?). I believe we will also advance crowd brainstorming strategies (When should you post your build? Idea? Napkin drawing? Prototype? Finished tool?).

Empty storage space is a theme we hear repeatedly. But maintaining empty space is like keeping a white shirt perfectly clean while doing a dirty job.

I can also add: implement and follow a maintenance schedule, just like for a vehicle. Behaviors like stacking, piling, junk-drawering, chucking stuff wherever - they all become acceptable and low-stress if you know that they are backed by a seasonal cleanup and review.

I've bought and made several turntables, one even has various lengths of PVC tubing mounted vertically to accept small slender things and lengths of wire, wood, and one of my favorite materials, the SS splines that stiffen windshield wipers. But, until your post, it never occurred to me to put a pair (or even a triad) of back-to-back small drawer cabinets on a turntable. I'm going to use that idea.

Every shop is different so there can never be a canonical storage setup. So, offering small space-saver suggestions as you do in your post, ideas that can be adapted to the local situation, is probably the closest we'll get to "solving" the storage problem.

Marv and Jon,

Sometimes it is good to step back and think about what isn't working in a shop. I can tolerate a lot of bad storage techniques when I'm focused on getting a job done. The more examples from others I see, the more likely I will find one to solve my particular problem.

My shop takes up 150 square feet so my challenges are very different from John Herrmann's shop which is HUGE. Yet the solutions may be the same.

I really liked the insights Dave Kellogg brought to this article that were based on standard software concepts. This kind of "cross pollination" is very powerful.

I do hope that others will come forward with their tool and material storage solutions. All of us are smarter than any one of us.

Rick

One of the many fascinating features of the Mythbusters show was the two story wall in their cavernous shop covered with shelves filled with large wash basket sized plastic containers filled with all the odds and sods that special effects people might need. I used to really enjoy catching glimpses of some of the labels on the containers. Labels like "heads", "weapons", "fuses", etc. brought a whole new dimension into the idea of storage requirements. Many times Adam could be seen balancing on the forks of the monster fork lift to access a container a story or more above his head.

Then there are those storage units oft seen in museum archives. Ranks of double sided bookcases similar to those in a library, but mounted on rails so they can slide tightly together. Large handwheels on the end of the shelving unit can be turned to move it along the rail thus opening a man passage between two of the units. The packing density approaches 100%.

I wonder what the Mythbuster's shop would look like after a major earthquake ;-)

I've used those rolling storage cabinets. The ones I used had a very nice action so it was easy to open up an aisle as needed. As you said, very efficient.

My daughter works in professional theater and it is fascinating to see the kinds of stuff they must store. Lots of wigs, hats, masks, and clothing. It must be easy to access yet well protected. They have figured that all out.

Rick

Continuing the Mythbuster's references , here's Adam Savage's treatise on hand tool storage and organization Adam Savage's Custom Tool Storage Stands - Tested

Even if you don't like this style of tool rack, it's a good discussion of the principles.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mklotz

One of the many fascinating features of the Mythbusters show was the two story wall in their cavernous shop covered with shelves filled with large wash basket sized plastic containers filled with all the odds and sods that special effects people might need. I used to really enjoy catching glimpses of some of the labels on the containers. Labels like "heads", "weapons", "fuses", etc. brought a whole new dimension into the idea of storage requirements. Many times Adam could be seen balancing on the forks of the monster fork lift to access a container a story or more above his head.

Then there are those storage units oft seen in museum archives. Ranks of double sided bookcases similar to those in a library, but mounted on rails so they can slide tightly together. Large handwheels on the end of the shelving unit can be turned to move it along the rail thus opening a man passage between two of the units. The packing density approaches 100%.

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In Australia we call those units "compactus" and you often find them cheap in secondhand sales sites (Gumtree). I have a 8x1 bay unit in my shed for storing tools, and the remaining bays from the purchase were converted to free standing bookcases for the office. My outlay price was less than the purchase of a single wheeled toolbox, and considerably more spacious. In my case, the individual shelves are 300mm (12") deep, so perfect for single layer storage.

Des

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rgsparber

I wonder what the Mythbuster's shop would look like after a major earthquake ;-)

I've used those rolling storage cabinets. The ones I used had a very nice action so it was easy to open up an aisle as needed. As you said, very efficient.

My daughter works in professional theater and it is fascinating to see the kinds of stuff they must store. Lots of wigs, hats, masks, and clothing. It must be easy to access yet well protected. They have figured that all out.

Rick

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I have done some work for a company does events. My job was to help with the construction of sets. I can image what your daughter deals with. The "stuff" those people have is out of this world. I had a great time working with some artistic folks. I suggested to the young lady I worked with that they bar code things and generate pull sheets for people like me that had no idea what they were saying, but easily understood "frame up a wall to fill in this space." I am thinking about color coding cabinets and bar coding things in the garage

OUCH @ Mythbusters Shop after an Earth quake!!!!!! LOL

I myself am ALWAYS looking for "Shop Storage Ideas" for my own little shop............ So POST up some pics guys!!!!!! (I need some ideas for small stuff even tools!)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rgsparber

I wonder what the Mythbuster's shop would look like after a major earthquake ;-)

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Yes, and their shop is located near San Francisco. Remember the damage the Loma Prieta temblor caused?

Living in a quake zone myself, I take a fatalistic view. No point in worrying about the shop in a big one; there will be far more important damage to worry about. Small quakes are a different thing. They can do a lot of damage by knocking things off shelves, out of overhead storage, etc. There are precautions one can take to minimize this sort of damage and that effort is labor cost effective. Tilting shelves back toward the wall a few degrees can save a lot of grief. Put the heavy stuff and liquid containers near the floor, etc..

We got thoroughly shaken during the Northridge tremor. The water heater (mounted in a shed outside the house) tore its earthquake restraint loose from the house and sheared the cold water inlet but the shop suffered no damage rather some unintended rearrangements that were soon put right.

A storage system that I have long range plans for (longer that I would like) is sliding barn door pegboard, shallow shelves, or what have you, panels that can be slid to cover Windows in my shop. The building started out Life as a 1 room school house. After many decades of neglect abuse and butchery I started to reclame it about 15 yrs ago. Returned Windows to one hight and added back windows that had been taken out. At night it would be a fish bowl, all on display, not my style. The rolling tool storage will act as privacy, security shutters that can be slid back to let in light and views when wanted. As I get along I will try to post more but am all ways crippled by metered data.
Eric

There are so many competing, often contradictory, aspects to shop storage design. Visibility vs. compactness vs. accessibility vs. available space vs. frequency of use vs. cost vs. time to implement vs. environment vs. type of work done vs extendability vs...

This means any design becomes a complicated mechanical engineering tradeoff heavily influenced by the personality traits of the user. Any form of canonical design is impossible; each person has to lay out his own plan.

Plan for evolution; the real purpose of your initial design is to reveal its flaws and highlight the features important to you. Depressingly, the previous sentence applies to all the succeeding plans that evolve from the first. :-( The best one can hope for is minor victories.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hemi

OUCH @ Mythbusters Shop after an Earth quake!!!!!! LOL

I myself am ALWAYS looking for "Shop Storage Ideas" for my own little shop............ So POST up some pics guys!!!!!! (I need some ideas for small stuff even tools!)

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Good Point Hemi! I'm appreciative of the direction this thread has taken from Ricks point of view as a unique, evolving process.

I helped my dad move and build shops 4-5 times over the years as we started in the tiniest of spaces in Germany in the late 50's doing U-control model airplanes in a space barely big enough for both of us at a small bench. The first storage I remember was baby food jars for small modeling parts. It was a 3 tier rack mounted on the wall with about 24 (8x3) large and small baby food jars hanging from the lids screwed onto the wood above each row. Easy to see what was in them and just unscrew them from the lid get what you need and put it back...easy peasey. Don't have any pics of those but dad build many of them over the years...and me too. Great to organize screws in particular, wood, machine and nuts for them, etc. Glass was the only issue and broke a few over the years but Clear see through was just the ticket, imho.

Like always happen in shops, the collection of smalls and medium size "Stuff" grows and most of us just can't toss it as sure as heck you'll need it next week or month. During one of dads moves in the later years my brother and I found a paint can full of bent rusty nails and laughed are butt's off and all he could say was; "Ya never know I might need one of those to finish a project"...and he was probably right but we tossed it anyway, because it took 1 day to move the household stuff and 3 days to move the shop, after it was packed!

The last move I got to help him build the new shop and we did it up good with "organization" and a bench you could land a plane on with peg board behind and lots of electrical sockets flush with the front face and 2 shelves above for easy reach. Over the years he/we (my brother and I) have treasured coffee cans for keeping stuff in. Dad had quite a collection but they had been on shelves with masking tape labels facing out and 3 deep in most places. In the new/last place Dad had the idea of a coffee can rack pretty much floor to ceiling that the cans could face lid out so you could pop the lid off and get something or pull the can to get something at the bottom of it. I sketched some plans out and put some numbers on it and this is what we came up with.

Attachment 24509 Attachment 24510

As you can see it will hold the Magical 3lb cans as well as 2 & 1lb cans. All were labeled and grouped by categories like Fittings, Electrical, Hardware, etc. If you notice there is only 1 can turned backwards as it was empty...soon to be filled when something needed was saved. Oh, and I'm not positive but I think it is pretty earthquake resistant as it's anchored Quite Well to the wall and the cans tip rear down about 15°.

Hope this inspires others.

PJ

I wonder if perhaps we can't enunciate some sort of shop organization method so that people can more rapidly develop a well-functioning organization scheme.

Initial stuff like:

-What will go in the corners?
-How will you handle ceiling storage?

And then rapid iteration tricks like:

-As you're working, ask yourself: "Are all of my tools within hand's reach?"
-How many footsteps did you take inside your shop to complete this task?

Etc.

Some storage hints from my shop...

I don't use my metric box wrenches very often so I got one of those free HF magnetic strips...

https://www.harborfreight.com/18-in-...der-61199.html

and, using two HF cup magnets, stuck it to the side of one of my rolling tool cabinets. The wrenches are instantly available but no longer taking up space on the pegboard over my bench.

The rolling cabinet mentioned above is one of those ridiculously low height models sold by Sears, probably for midgets. It rolls under my workbench and provides five drawers without the need for me to do any carpentry. It's proof that bad designs can be made to fill awkward spaces.


Speaking of sticking things to the sides of rolling tool cabinets...

Most socket racks are devilishly hard to remove sockets from. Get some of these...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...0?ie=UTF8&th=1

They hold the sockets magnetically so no futzing with little clips. The bases are also magnetic so they can be stuck to the side of cabinets. The socket retention is good enough that they can be inverted without any sockets falling out. Stick them to the fender when you're under the hood.


1/4" Hex bits can be similarly organized magnetically using these...

https://www.amazon.com/ARES-70080-Or...G62A5M4GZKH1H7


Hanging stuff from the rafters is a good idea and it gets a lot easier with one of these...

http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/t...0735#post92074

Rather than pounding nails into the rafter, keep things easily reconfigurable by screwing a length of light chain to the rafter - many attachment points quickly.


If you have a one-piece, tip-up garage door, as is common here in LaLaLand, don't overlook storing things on the inside surface. This requires positive holding clips and should be limited to lightweight stuff but it is a usually overlooked space.


I'll add some more tips as they occur to me.

Marv,
Good ole Horrible Fright, is actually good for some thing. storage if nothing else...... Tools, (bits especially), are junk from HF but their storage items aren't to bad!!!!

I got to say tho, I LIKE the idea from others to see if any one did things that I could do, in a smaller way to get the same result from. and modified to fit my own needs that I didn't think of myself so, I'll be watching this topic for ideas!!!!!

I have far too many roll a round tool boxes littered with mismatched items and 1 rather large Snap-on cabinet 6 1/2 ft tall 5 ft wide and 28 inches deep also littered. During this past flywheel housing repair I decided that the Snap-on is going to be the wrench and socket box, 1 of the craftsmen boxes like Marv's is going to be for screwdrivers and anything related to those another is going to be for pliers of every type while another will be for punches and chisels another box will be for taps dies and associated articles for them another for air tools and the remaining 5 or 6 roll a rounds would be for the specialty kit tools.
Then I got to thinking that this probably will not work out well either until I completely re arrange my hardware storage area so I can put all of the boxes along 1 30 ft wall in the tool trailer So I will probably just leave it as is for now because I can find things from learned habits and placement.
If I could just talk my wife into arranging things for me without my knowing about it then re learn the placements I think I would be better off.

LOL Frank @ the "Wife" comment.............. Let me KNOW HOW you manage that one!!!!!:rofl:

Sometimes the hardest thing is to decide what is worth organizing and what should go in a shed or other location, sometimes the "round file" aka tossed.
Eric

Thanks Rick! We've added your Storage Ideas to our Storage and Organization category, as well as to your builder page: Rick's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-storage-ideas"><img src="http://www.homemadetools.net/uploads/215465/homemade-storage-ideas.jpeg"/></a></div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-storage-ideas">Storage Ideas</a> <span> by <a href="/builder/Rick+Sparber">Rick Sparber</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/storage">storage</a></div> </div> </div> </div>

https://goo.gl/images/QeVd1o
Saw this in Google images and thought I'd bassist along.
Eric

Quote:

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Originally Posted by suther51

https://goo.gl/images/QeVd1o
Saw this in Google images and thought I'd bassist along.

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It looks clever but the tool density is awful compared to the standard machinist's multi-drawer rolling cabinet. Also, having the racks roll to the side to provide an aisle (as is done in many archives) would remove the need for roll-out clearance in front of the array.

Bassist? Auto-correctors can certainly make some humorous substitutions.

You know I didn't even catch the word bassist the way my dyslexia sees things some times my mind read it as pass it along

I'm with Frank S on this, I do try to proof read but things do get thru.
Eric