Organising tool drawers

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Hello all,

I'm about to tackle the task of organising the contents of 60+ drawers, but in the meantime, I would appreciate any suggestions with regards to cataloging said contents, paricularly with the view to being able to quickly find a particular item.

As usual I'm thinking up all kinds of solutions, with varying degrees of complexity, but hope someone has already done this.

I need to do this before I tackle anything else, as I have to search each one in turn when I need something – not particularly conducive to what should be a pleasant sojourn in the workshop.

Unable to insert photo using my iPad, but new one uploaded.

Geoff – Cold miserable Norfolk

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Cataloging contents

[Chris HeapyParticipant @chrisheapy71135]

You itemise every individual part and we'll tell you which draw to put them in.

Personally I just rely on memory, and being sure to put stuff away every day rather than leave it lying around.

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Hi Geoff

You are quite right – organisation is the key to tidyness – but tidyness can mean that then you can't find anything! My principal storage is in Bisley cabinets, a set of metal drawers and a number of Racco cabinets for smaller items. In all cases the drawers are removable from the cabinets and can be carried to the work if required. I have one of those small label printing machines that print onto plastic, self adhesive, tape – but paper hand written paper labels would do just as well.

I have numbered the vertical rows A to G and the drawers in each row 1 to 6

On my trusty PC I made up a chart of 6 squares x 7 squares and typed in each the contents – for example B2 is HSS tool bits. Of course your computer is ideal for searching lists so I also made up a spread sheet showing location and item. This can be ordered by drawer number or, alphabetically, by item name. If you are going to do this you need to be careful with how you designate items. For instance call your hammers " hammer ball pein and hammer cross pein" if you search for hammer then you should find them whereas if you call them ball pein hammer etc a search may take you to your ball turning attachment or such like.

The larger items – eg hammers each have a drawer in the Bisley cabinets – for more delicate items I put cork floor tiles into the drawer for protection.

The Racco cabinets I use for storage of small items eg. taps and dies – one size in each drawer and grouped by thread type – BA, BSF etc. Another set of drawers hold fasteners similarly grouped. Each drawer is individually labeled

You will find quite quickly that you get th "know" where the items you use often are located and only need to refer to your "index" occasionally.

The thing that impresses non – engineering visitors to my workshop is the Racco cabinet of fixings. ( If I need some M4 nuts or bolts I just pull out the drawer) How can you be bothered to sort them out like that they ask. I explain that whilst this took a while to set up the alternative is to sort through a huge box EVERY time I want a nut or bolt – believe me I used to do that and the drawers are better! What's more you can see when you are getting low on a size and order some more.

Oh by the way my bench is STILL pretty untidy at the moment!

Good luck!

Norman

 

Edited By NJH on 29/05/2013 19:56:55

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Posted by Chris Heapy on 29/05/2013 19:04:30:

You itemise every individual part and we'll tell you which draw to put them in.

Smart ar*e

| Personally I just rely on memory, and being sure to put stuff away every day rather than leave it lying

| around.

My problem is memory, or lack of at present, due to treatment, and not accessing all the drawers often enough either.

Frustrating to say the least right now, as I know I have the implement, but blowed if I can remember which drawer it's in.

I have started to put similar items into the same drawer/s, so a start has been made, but I do need to figure out a system that's easy to search.

I've thought of using a database, but not sure, or a printed list, cross referenced etc etc, and becoming more and more involved.

Time to cogitate some more, whilst dealing with the drawer contents.

Will of course keep the forum advised.

Geoff – Cogitating

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Thanks Norman.

Good ideas.

The military way of describing stuff is the best.

"tin mug, for the use of" etc

Geoff – ideas floating around now

[StovepipeParticipant @stovepipe]

Main thing is to decide how you are going to organise those small drawers, then get labelling. I use a roll of small adhesive labels stuck to the front of each drawer. Works very well, or will do when I sort them into some sort of order !Dennis

[AndyfParticipant @andyf]

A bit off the cataloguing topic, but for organising delicate items within drawers:

**LINK**

Andy

[Chris HeapyParticipant @chrisheapy71135]

Ah, the trouble with labeled draws is when stuff isn't in the right draw! Then you have to trawl through ALL the draws anyway. Take my taps & dies for example, I have both metric and imperial draws labelled according to size (one draw per size), but then I also have collections of different threads like UNF, UNC, Whitworth, BSF, etc., etc. So if I put all the same sizes together (e.g., 1/4&quot I have loads of taps and dies to sort through in one drawer to find the one I want. If I put all the thread type together (like the UNF drawer) I still have loads to sort through. It's a problem.

Anyway, and clearly, you have too much stuff if it becomes a problem

Chris

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

A few weeks spent organising your workshop can save you valuable minutes when you are doing some useful work.

Neil

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Geoff

Something to consider if you have not got enough drawers…..

If you have to put two or more types of things in one drawer or compartment make sure they are totally different! As an example, it make no sense putting say 12 long and 16 long M3 screws together because they look too similar. M5 capheads and posidrive are distinctive so would be acceptable (to me anyway)

I have a few of the Racco type drawer units and would much rather put two items mixed in each drawer rather than use the fiddly divider things that, A, make small/deep cavities that are hard to get fingers into, and B, are forever riding up and letting parts slide under!

Ian P

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Colour coding can making things easier, like it does with tools

[merlinParticipant @merlin98989]

A few hours or even days spent organising your workshop storage systems is very well worth the time taken. Of course, you have to abide by your own housekeeping rules and if this goes against your nature or abilties, then you just have to try to enjoy subsequent time-wasting.

I think it helps to think more clearly about the logics if you

I would never put things e.g. taps of different systems together. I can go for weeks not needing SAE/Whit/BSF taps, so why have to sort through them? All my 'popular' taps and drills; tapping, taper, second, plug and clearance are fitted into marked holes drilled in an overhead wooden beam, so are immedately accessible but out of the way.

Wherever possible it is helpful to have such things as O-rings, washers, nuts and bolts in shallow trays or boxes, stacking if necessary, so that they can be picked over without having to tip them out onto a cleared area of bench.

Home-made wooden dividers in drawers are handy for stopping calipers and mics, depth gauges etc from entangling.

I keep the dozen or so different grades of emery paper in individual A4 envelopes to stop them contaminating each other but I would prefer very shallow drawers.

Heavy items stored on shelves under the bench are useful for holding it down.

Something as important as this needs to be thought about and sketched before even going into the workshop, because once you are there you might be tempted to take the easy wat and cut corners, resulting in illogical arrangement.

[merlinParticipant @merlin98989]

Sorry about the errors in the above posting; it took me so long to compose it that I expected it to somehow disappear when I pressed the 'go' button. I panicked!

There is a good range of plastic boxes for sale at the Newark Autojumble.

[Geoff TheasbyParticipant @geofftheasby]

Try organising electronic resistors into racks… the b*****s look identical most of the time, even if you know your colour codes, not to mention the other items like chokes, which look like resistors, and surface mount components which aren't marked at all!

Regards

Geoff

[Bruce HammersonParticipant @brucehammerson88781]

I agree with stub mandrel. By investing few weeks on organizing your construction workshop you can enjoy the nactar of smooth work later.

This site can be the best contribution to this construction related thread – Hydraulic Installation Kits

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I find that recognising the association between items is the key. Think like classification systems for life on earth mapped to stuff in workshop where groups and subgroups have relational links. Order Family, Genus, Species ,sub species. So threading stuff would be Order, taps or dies would be Family, BSF or BA or metric etc would be Genus, 1/4" or M3 would be Species, Taper or Bottom sub species. The human mind copes well will linked lists so even if you cannot remember which compartment something is in threading tackle always gets you to the right zone of the workshop where you pick up more cues to further refine your search. We have organised our stores like this at work (around 4,000 electronic componants) and we very rarely have to use the index.

I think supermarkets could be organised like this with milk bread bacon tea together cos thats all breakfast stuff !!

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Thanks for all the excellent ideas, much appreciated.

I do like the foam idea, but with so many drawers, it could soon become somewhat expensive. Nevertheless, I will try one just to see how it performs and how many drawers one can will do.

Using the foam method, was thinking of the following procedure:

1)laying some cling wrap on the drawer bottom

2)place the tools into position

3)more cling wrap over them

4)then more foam

5)then the weight

Depending on how the foam performs, I may also try the paper mâché method (haven't played with this for 50 odd years!)

I shall be playing around with DB as well as spreadsheet to make a list, although I did make a manual one when I did the last bit of organising. I still found it quicker to do a physical search of the drawers as I always seemed to miss the item when searching the lists.

Military description should of course have read:

"Mug, tin for the use of" Memory does sort of work sometime.

Geoff – Caffeine jolt before workshop

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Not trying to tell anyone how to organise – that's personal choice but just a heads up to the 4 x 4, 5 x 5, and 6 x 6 sets of storage drawers at Machine Mart.

Two sets of 6 x 6 pictures here but top set is reversed in the picture.

Got to say these are not tinny at all seeing as they are mode of of tin

I reckon 18 G. In the 6 x 6 layout half are full drawers and half have fixed dividers in giving 3 compartments In some of these i have cut carboard boxes that fold up and turn each compartment into 3 again.

Things like a box of 3mm nuts would be lost in just one compartment, so it makes far more use of the space.

A lot of what is slowly getting tranfered to these drawers used to be in some gray Ikea steel drawers that just collaspe as soon as you go over one hundredweight per drawer.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

"Die Ode"

If 'er indoors keeps banging on about your messy drawers

…………..amplifier.

Triac knowledging your advanced age and analyse the cause

Have you drained your current with tranny sisters Elsie 'D' and Ellie 'D' ?

Has that smoking 'pot killed off your cells – you know – electrically

Your lightning rod is now a semi conductor – IC

Its a basic little flip-flop only good for P-N-P

So like an old'un fill your draws

And while you're copping of your chips

Make ready for your final earth

You've b*******d all your circuits!

Rik

[merlinParticipant @merlin98989]

If we are being particular, surely just saying 'for the use of' is meaningless. It would be 'Mugs, Tin, Other Ranks, for the use of'.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Funnily enough this 'fuddy duddy' nomenclature is very apt for today as it is computer friendly and allows easy sorting especially when applied to file names.

By the way you are entering all your tools into a computer database aren't you.

[StovepipeParticipant @stovepipe]

Rik – Nice One !!! – Dennis

[merlinParticipant @merlin98989]

People might be joking about keeping a list of all tools on the pc but one would be useful in the event of an insurance claim and in assessing the total value of them.

I find it useful to have a printed-out list of my stock of silver steel (partly to avoid running out of a size) and reamers and eventually I am going to have to settle down with imperial and metric mics and go through all my small to tiny drills. Just how I will store them then, I don't know.

This store-keeping job would be more satisfying if one had unlimited finances for fitted racks and drawers.

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Posted by merlin on 31/05/2013 12:54:41:

If we are being particular, surely just saying 'for the use of' is meaningless. It would be 'Mugs, Tin, Other Ranks, for the use of'.

Ah yes, missed that, but depends of course to which/what military organisation and country you refer to.

Merlin & Bazyle,

I do indeed intend to have a record on computer, DVD/CD, iPhone as well as iPad.

The one on the iPhone will of course accompany me when out and about, making it easy to check what I have or don't, thus preventing me from duplicating tools, which incidentally, I have been known to  do, much to my annoyance.

I do have a DB of the books I have, and that has stopped me from duplicating some.

I've ordered a can of foam, too expensive to buy locally, so will be trying that soon.

Waiting for a handle to be delivered to finish off fitting the QC to the BH600G.

Watch this, and my other, posts for updates soon.

Geoff – It's sunny again!

Edited By OuBallie on 31/05/2013 18:31:34

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