Shop organisation


AndrewPritchard

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So I'm moving my shop into a buddy's garage. It's way larger, concrete floor which is a great improvement, way higher ceilings, and considerably better light.

Only problem is that there's a lot of his stuff in the garage. A lot of it's currently on the floor. I'm building some shelves at the moment to move all the crap off the floor. However, it's leaving me with almost no wall space to hang tools etc. 

So Woodtalk Hive mind - what suggestions do you have for convenient tool storage? I'm wondering if a mobile tool wall will work. Something like this:

TOOLS.jpg

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13 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

Mobile tool wall could work, but a tool cabinet on wheels might be more efficient. Certainly more portable, should your buddy want his space back.

What tools do you need to store this way?

All of my hand tools, powered and otherwise - circular saws, routers, handplanes, the lot. I'd prefer it were mobile as I need to be able to move it all out of the way of the shelving.

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In that case, I would definitely lean toward a cabinet. You can have core like a bookshelf, but with deep boxed doors front and back. Gives you a lot of exposed area for hanging storage, shelves, or small drawers, but has a minimal footprint when closed. Think 2 H O Studley tool cabinets, back to back, and on wheels.

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1 hour ago, wtnhighlander said:

In that case, I would definitely lean toward a cabinet. You can have core like a bookshelf, but with deep boxed doors front and back. Gives you a lot of exposed area for hanging storage, shelves, or small drawers, but has a minimal footprint when closed. Think 2 H O Studley tool cabinets, back to back, and on wheels.

Another plus to this design is if you were to decide you want things to be more secure when you are not there you can add some locks.  If everything is open shelves you can't.  Not that things will be taken but just some piece of mind that they are not mis-used or mis-placed in your absence.

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Something I'm using right now are 3  7' high, 3' wide, 2' deep, 2 sided shelving units on wheels.  As I'm in a similar situation (it's not my space, walls are off limits), most of my tools fit on these shelves.  When I eventually move again, I can just screw some hardboard to the fronts to seal them up and load them onto a truck.  The outsides of the shelves make a good place to hang stuff.  The handles are steel pipes which make surprisingly good clamp racks. 

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Wall or mobile access is the same as the cart he showed in his original post...

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike organized drawers. We had a company come in and found that is has a lot to do with work flow. If a tool is directly in sight it is much more productive than opening and closing a drawer to retrieve such tool.

I found this to be a problem in my own shop. Why I'm redoing it....

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There needs to be storage for little used tools, and access for often used tools. There is a separate category for tools that will be needed often for a short while, and then can be stored. The efficiency Nazi often forgets that you will not need every chisel to be hung in view. You might want some in view access, but most chisels in a drawer is not hurting any efficiency.  The either or without any blend is kind of pointless. 

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