Shop organization

[ChrisG-Canada]

[ChrisG-Canada]

Here's my organized drawers below the MFT...

[Coop]

On February 24, 2016 at 4:00 PM, Pwalter5110 said:

You guys gave me some great ideas! Thanks, and if anyone wants to post more, please do!

I hope you're happy. I've been shamed into going to confession and I'm not even Catholic? I'll never live long enough to come even close to these guys. I'm soooo envious!

[wdwerker]

Those Johnson sliding door tracks he used are great. I have used those for ceiling hung sliding bookcases to conceal a Murphy bed. You could stand in a bookcase and slide back and forth.

[Robby W]

I took some pictures to add to this thread, but they aren't as pretty as some of the others. My shop is in serious need of decluttering, but that will have to wait for the big reorganization I have planned. I thought I would give you some pluses and minuses of the storage and organizers I have. Maybe someone can learn from my successes and failures. First up is my power tool hotel. This is the top half of a cabinet that I made. Right now, it is hard to get to because I bought an 8 inch jointer a few years ago and it tends to live in front of the cabinet, however, I like the slot type setup:

My apologies for the light glare. If I were doing this over, I would cut the grooves for the dividers every inch or so to give me more flexibility.

Second, is my clamp racks. I need to rebuild these as I have too many clamps for the wall space in my shop. This is the rack for my Quick-Grip and small F-clamps:

I am pretty sure I can reduce the size of this by a bunch. I like the method similar to Chris G's method of stacking them out from the wall and will build something like that in the near future. One issue is that I used wooden bars and they have sagged from the load over time. The clamps tend to get tangled too. Here is the rack for my pipe and larger F-clamps:

I have almost 50 F-clamps and I think they would benefit from the stacking-style of rack. I am a bit worried about the weight though. Same for the pipe clamps. I have heads for another dozen pipe clamps, so whatever I build will have to be expandable. This rack works, but the clamps tend to get tangled and sometimes you get more than one clamp when you pull them down. Using pipe instead of wood makes this rack really strong.

Next is one of my favorite cabinets, my utility cab. It sits between the air compressor and table saw on the left and my workbench on the right. It holds routers, router bits and accessories, drawing materials, measuring equipment, and sanding materials.

I have to be careful not to let the top of it get full of junk. It tends to be a place I stage parts. You can see a mixture of both here. I have my homemade disk sander bolted to the top of it and it is probably one of the most used tools in my shop.

Here is my favorite drawer label:

It holds jig parts, machine parts, contour sanding blocks, specialty clamps and just about anything else I don't know what else to do with. I might have to have a Junk 2 drawer soon.

Years ago, I came up with the bright idea of using a rotary table to hold my collection of grinders into a particular space in my shop:

Although it works fairly well, the cords tend to become tangled. I also find that I only use one grinder for sharpening and one for buffing edges The rest has become a junk collecting space. Vibration from the grinders tends to knock things off the table too. I call this attempt a failure and I am currently building a new sharpening cabinet that will incorporate three grinders, (sharpening, buffing and rough grinding), a pull out table for sharpening stones and diamond plates, and some drawers to organize things for sharpening jigs and my bandsaw. Another cabinet will be built to hold my drill press stuff and solvent cans on the sides, part of which are in the cabinet below the rotating table.

I have to start another post to get the rest of the pictures in.

 

[Robby W]

On with the utility cabinet drawers. This is the router bit drawer. It has blocks of 3/4 inch plywood drilled to hold the bits. I like this because I can change it any time I feel like it and don't have to rebuild anything:

My router drawer has two bottoms in it. One has cutouts to allow the routers to sit flat if I put them away with a bit in it. There are little guides to helps the router sit in its designated place. I need to add the guides for the Bosch Colt router:

My router table is built into the left wing of my tablesaw. I built some cubbies in the back of it so I could put stuff for the tablesaw there. It works very well. Sorry for the blurry picture:

The holder for my Accumiter gauge works really well too.

The router table insides have a place for my spare router table router and saw blades for my tablesaw. This router table has worked really well for me and I love the Milwaukee 2625-20 router I bought for it. Holders on the doors hold the tools to adjust the router and you can see a small dust gate on the left inside that goes to the fence pickup when needed. You can also see the end of my duct run for my dust collector. I ran the ducts, which are 4" ABS drain and waste pipes, on the floor. It worked better than overhead and everything hides behind my gear. That gate on the end allows me to hook up my planer and jointer when I have to move it out for long stock.

Here is my cordless tools hanger. I knocked it together out of plywood scraps. I would make it a bit deeper if I did it over. I had to label the various tools so I know which one I am getting.

Finally, my two tool cabinets. I knocked together a couple of cabinets to hold many of my hand tools. I have drawers under my workbench to hold chisels, hammers, measuring gadgets, rags and a few other things, so I didn't put them in my tool cabinets. But planes, gauges, saws and such are in the cabinets. The left cabinet holds my saws and gauges:

You can see that this cabinet is under utilized. I am fairly short (5' 8" inches in the morning, less as the day wears on) and have short arms, so reaching things in these cabinets isn't real comfortable, but they work. I need to build a new saw till for the Veritas saws laying on the bottom shelf. I got the toggle method of holding saws on the door from my grandfather and it works well.

The right cabinet holds my collection of planes:

When my dad died, I inherited some of his planes. The 5, 6 and 7 planes were from him. I still need to clean them up and recondition them. The mouse that visited the drawer I used to keep some of these in didn't help things either. This plane till works pretty well. The router plane likes to fall out and many of them could use a little more angle on the till, which is limited by the #7 on the right. I also have a #8 that won't fit. I need to rethink this someday, but from right now, a few rare earth magnets holds the heavier planes in place. One warning: I live in California, so if you are in my shop and it starts shaking, get away from this cabinet.......

I have a design for a better tool cabinet in my head. When I get some of the other project finished, maybe I'll get it done.

Hope some it this gives you ideas that help.

[Autorotate]

Here is what I made for all my hardware and stuff.

 

Here is what I did for my router bits

[Soul Woods]

3 hours ago, Autorotate said:

Here is what I made for all my hardware and stuff.

 

Here is what I did for my router bits

Nice work! Really like what you did with the Router Table. 

I've been on a big organization kick (and lighting) this year and recently moved a bunch of the Systainers into custom built wall units and been deliberating the ROI of building carts for some of the remaining units (about 29 total) or going with something of a different direction. Did you make your rolling carts yourself or were they manufactured? I can't tell from the pics if your shelves are part of the metal exterior structure or not. (in the background)

[jHop]

On ‎2‎/‎22‎/‎2016 at 10:29 PM, Nestor said:

Using modified plans from Home Handyman, I built roll-out shelves that hang from paired-up Johnson pocket door tracks and rollers. Each track and roller is rated for 200 lbs. Paired up, it gives me 400lbs.

 

I've worked at retailers that use something like this in the back room.  (Nowhere near as nice, though.  Nicely done.)  And some doctors' offices do this, too.  Some are on tracks from the bottom, which is simpler to build (wheels and a guide rail attached to a bookshelf), but the weight becomes an issue and you can only go so high before it jams or tips.

 

Do you have any wheels on the bottom of the cabinets as well, or is it all supported at the top?

[drzaius]

1 hour ago, jHop said:

I've worked at retailers that use something like this in the back room.  (Nowhere near as nice, though.  Nicely done.)  And some doctors' offices do this, too.  Some are on tracks from the bottom, which is simpler to build (wheels and a guide rail attached to a bookshelf), but the weight becomes an issue and you can only go so high before it jams or tips.

 

Do you have any wheels on the bottom of the cabinets as well, or is it all supported at the top?

The medical/dental clinics that I've seen use filing shelves that, rather than pull out, slide from side to side on tracks. they have a big wheel on the end of each shelf that moves them along the track.

A whole room will be filled with these shelves, right tight to each other, with just enough room on the ends for a corridor & about 3' to allow the shelves to slide from side to side.

I hate to think of what they would cost though.

[Autorotate]

Hey Soul Wood,

I made the cabinet for my festool stuff out of baltic birch plywood and painted it black. I put 6 casters under it so if I need to move it I can easily do so. I was going to make the drawers like I did for the hardware cabinet in the pictures above but festool came out with there drawers so I decided to go with them instead.

[Nestor]

Using modified plans from Home Handyman, I built roll-out shelves that hang from paired-up Johnson pocket door tracks and rollers. Each track and roller is rated for 200 lbs. Paired up, it gives me 400lbs.

 

I've worked at retailers that use something like this in the back room.  (Nowhere near as nice, though.  Nicely done.)  And some doctors' offices do this, too.  Some are on tracks from the bottom, which is simpler to build (wheels and a guide rail attached to a bookshelf), but the weight becomes an issue and you can only go so high before it jams or tips.

 

Do you have any wheels on the bottom of the cabinets as well, or is it all supported at the top?

The rolling shelves to which you refer are affectionately called "man killers" at my workplace.

My shelves are completely suspended by the tracks.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cliff]

You guys are killing it. If this was a store, I'd be looting it hardcore. Got a lot of ideas from this, though it may be years before I could get it done. I just got a big Craftsman tool chest and screwed some scrap stuff into plywood on the wall so I could hang a few things, but I have a long way to go. 

[Pwalter5110]

1 hour ago, Cliff said:

You guys are killing it. If this was a store, I'd be looting it hardcore. Got a lot of ideas from this, though it may be years before I could get it done. I just got a big Craftsman tool chest and screwed some scrap stuff into plywood on the wall so I could hang a few things, but I have a long way to go. 

I agree completely! I can barely walk in my shop right now. I am in the middle of building a workbench, and all the wood is stickered on the floor. Once the workbench is done though, it will be time for me to get organized. I really like the kaizan (sp?) foam that a lot of guys have used to keep things in their place. I am definitely getting that for drawers.

 

I see a lot of the everyday posters with amazing shops. I hope they post ways that they keep their shops organized.

[Cliff]

Would be a crime if I didn't share the one shining beacon of brightness in my otherwise cruel darkness infested shop organization. A few weeks ago I ordered these little containers from Lee Valley. Very economical. Turns out I ordered about half of what I need for my current screw/bolt selection. So I will probably order 3x as many for future expansion. Will need to dedicate at least one or two more drawers to this unless I build something.

 

[pkinneb]

On 3/1/2016 at 11:59 PM, Soul Woods said:

 

Holy batman Soul Woods my hardware store doesn't have that big of a hardware section LOL

 

[pkinneb]

here are a few of my storage solutions:

Drill station

Sanding:

Hardware:

Drills/charging

Table Saw:

Router Bits:

[Cliff]

1 hour ago, pkinneb said:

here are a few of my storage solutions:

Drill station

Sanding:

Hardware:

Drills/charging

Table Saw:

Router Bits:

I love the drill press thing. Actually all of it rocks. You got a different preppin' weapon per grit? I just got my first preppin' weapon today in the mail. 

[pkinneb]

Thanks Cliff the drill station was a plan out of ShopNotes. Works really well and i use the shelfs on the sides for my glue and glue accessories. My assembly bench is in the same area of the shop so it works out well. No more walking to the other side of the shop to get a drill bit

BTW yes on the preppin weapons 100, 150, 180, and 220 grits

[Coop]

Pkinneb, all of your units are cool. I really like the dp station. It doesn't appear to be on casters? If not, have you ever had to move it to let your dp table down? Approx how tall is it?

[pkinneb]

1 minute ago, K Cooper said:

Pinned, all of your units are cool. I really like the dp station. It doesn't appear to be on casters? If not, have you ever had to move it to let your dp table down? Approx how tall is it?

K Cooper it is on casters both the cabinet and actually the drill press has its own stand. I will take a pic of it split later so you can see that. I will also measure the height and see if I can find the plan so I can share the shopnotes mag number.

[-MattK-]

@pkinneb please share more - it's so soothing to see all that organization!

[pkinneb]

1 hour ago, pkinneb said:

K Cooper it is on casters both the cabinet and actually the drill press has its own stand. I will take a pic of it split later so you can see that. I will also measure the height and see if I can find the plan so I can share the shopnotes mag number.

Here are a couple pics showing the wheels set up if you look close you can see the pins that hold the enclosed wheels on the cabinet. Turns out this was a Woodsmith plan called the 3 in one drill press upgrade if you google it will come up. The only change for me is I made the drawer fronts to match the rest of the cabinets in my shop. It is 28" tall.

[Coop]

Thanks sir. The pics didn't show on the iPad, perhaps I can see them tomorrow on the computer at work. 

[Pwalter5110]

@pkinneb, that drill press station is nice! I think I may eventually steal that idea! My drills, and drill bits kind of just float around the shop! Another item added to the must do list.