Hardware.. Organize, Store, Junk, Disorderly Mess?

[Strouty]

I am spring cleaning the shop. I know spring is gone, but I figured if I started now I would be done by the next spring. I am getting stuck with all the hardware and misc small items I have. I am just getting to the point where I can't find it if I need it, so should it just get tossed or just keep it out back in a bucket. I have thousands of pounds of hardware, most of it is 3/8" stainless that I used in my old life. Now I am trying to make the shop work for me, not the other way around. I have storage containers, just poorly implemented. How much hardware do you guys keep on hand? What are some of your favorite ways to store hardware?

 

[jeffmoss26]

I use a lot of drawers and plastic boxes with compartments. I label everything, even though it's just me in my basement workshop. Keeps me sane if nothing else.

 

[Strouty]

I am missing patches of hair on my head from looking for some screws I bought last week. They got moved and stacked in with other stuff. I am going to try and start sorting things by basic style of hardware, then by generic size. I figure if I am looking for a 5/16" bolt, I can paw through 1/4" and 7/16" as well. I was reading some older posts and they were discussing storing totally different sizes together, like 3/8" and 5/8" so you had less bin space taken up, but you could easily tell the difference between the two sizes. This word work for new or previously sorted hardware, but most of mine is mixed.

 

[JeremyManning]

I bought some small plastic hardware drawers then I built a shelf to put them on and organize by size

 

[TireTracks]

I use empty pill bottles that my grandpa left that he used to store stuff, and plastic divider cases.

 

[1991Syclone]

I bought 4 of these storage bins to keep all of my nuts/bolts/screws organized and they sit on top of my workbench on one end.

 

[bullfrog123]

Northern Tool.........
Depends tho on how much floor space you have tho if these work for you or not.

 

[Brad54]

I bought 4 of these storage bins to keep all of my nuts/bolts/screws organized and they sit on top of my workbench on one end.

I have, I think, 32 or 38 of those in a cabinet on it's own stand, in my shop. It's not big enough, but it's gotten me by for 15 years or so.

I like doors on ALL my storage bins, to keep shop dust and grime out.

I also have a 48-cubby nut-and-bolt bin I picked up for next to nothing. It was rusty and cruddy, so I spent a little and had it soda blasted and then I painted it Rustoleum red.
I don't have it loaded yet, and won't until I fabricate a pair of doors for it, and hang them with piano hinges. Spiders make webs in the cubbies, they always load up with dust, etc. etc. and then when you go to grab something out of them, you always get filthy. Doors end that.

Actually, upon further contemplation, if you got a full helping of those HF bins, you could put them on a regular shop storage shelving unit, and make some simple doors on it.
-Brad

 

[ndoran]

small fastners are kept in the dollar store divided trays. Larger i.e. 1/4in and up is kept in plastic storage bins on wall shelves

 

[2oolhound]

An old timer I befriended has moved to a small condo and given me his hardware storage tower. I've added a drawer between each of the existing ones so now I have double (14 drawers). It's cheap and easy to build as the cabinet is 20"Dx24"Wx7'H and has shelves glued and nailed every 4 1/2". On each shelf is a removable tray that you slide in and out so no drawer sliders were used. For only a 20" X 24" footprint it holds and organized a ton of hardware. Nothing is too deep in the shallow drawers.

He gave me all the hardware he had saved over the years and i've added mine (so it's all organized now too)

I added some HD drawers on the bottom for steel stock and odd pieces. Eventually I'll probably weed out the household stuff to accommodate nuts, bolts and washers etc.

I have a very small garage, 8' x 20' and I've absorbed a 8' x 16' adjoining section for parts washer and welding but you have to make every nook and cranny count. These old electronics racks have been converted to shelves and parts drawers.

Nuts, bolts and washers are sorted by thread size only so I have to dig for particular lengths. I don't have too many so it works for now.

As my stash grows I'll have to add more, I'm considering another tower like the one I just inherited but dedicated to nuts, bolts and washers only.

 

[jjjrmx5]

Northern Tool.........
Depends tho on how much floor space you have tho if these work for you or not.
http://garagejournal.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=128448&d=1313008302

^^^^^^
That's what I would suggest as well if you need to access them daily.

I keep probably 15 to 20 2-sided divided medium sized plastic storage boxes for prolly the several hundred pounds of fasteners I keep at my home shop. I use a label maker and am pretty **** about storage as I like to know when I;m running low on certain sizes.

For light mfg and assembly work, I've used the bins like above but in a more industrial construction.

It really comes down to cost and how much you need to store and in what sized space.

I , like many on here, hate to buy parts or fasteners and then not be able to find them when the job need to be done. Hate it.

 

[zip95864]

2oolhound you're my new hero, sorry Jack

 

[Singlecut]

I use the junk drawer and these tote things:

I got that tote thing from Sears but I'll tell ya outright I overpayed. Those things can be had dime a dozen at places such as HF and Walmart.
In fact, If I could do things over again I would get those small plastic boxes with dividers for fishing supplies at Walmart. And those really nice bolt and bin cabs. I see them ALL the time on CL but I just don't have the space

 

[mdbeck1]

I am spring cleaning the shop. I know spring is gone, but I figured if I started now I would be done by the next spring. I am getting stuck with all the hardware and misc small items I have. I am just getting to the point where I can't find it if I need it, so should it just get tossed or just keep it out back in a bucket. I have thousands of pounds of hardware, most of it is 3/8" stainless that I used in my old life. Now I am trying to make the shop work for me, not the other way around. I have storage containers, just poorly implemented. How much hardware do you guys keep on hand? What are some of your favorite ways to store hardware?

I used to get 5 gallon buckets of mixed hardware/nut/bolts/screws/nails from the hardware store I worked at. I would always start by getting five or six coffee cans (or 5 gallon buckets) and sort by major categories first:
- Nuts/bolts/washers
- Wood Screws
- Other screws
- Hardware
- Nails
- Misc

Once that pass was done I would go through the different buckets AGAIN. Luckily for me I have a couple of bins for storing this type of stuff.

One of the storage bins:

Then subdivide the drawers:

I've done some rearranging lately (and a lot of clean up) but the big cabinet is still full of hardware, fasteners, nails, ....

Just make sure to label it all.

 

[2oolhound]

Nice green bin here mdbeck1, now I'm green with envy.

 

[Alchymist]

There never has been, there isn't, and there never will be enough storage. Here's "some" of the hardware, semi organized. By that I mean it's fairly easy to go thru looking for something. The drawback is how far through before you find it. The one shelving unit is 3 deep in peanut butter jars and coffee cans.

The grey cabinet is nothing but repair parts for Tektronix equipment, and the Craftsman roll around is all electronic parts. The black tool box doesn't count - it's full of drill bits. There is another trailer load of "stuff" out back awaiting sorting and finding a home. Got the lumber picked out for another set of storage cabinets, just need to get them built.

 

[Bikes&Bowties]

Top to bottom row

Nuts
Lock washers
Flat washers
Short bolts (up to 3 inches)
Medium bolts (up to 6 inches)
Longer bolts
Longest bolts

Misc and metrics

 

[countryroad82]

My hardware I bought new I have in plastic cases, as ones from cars that I have stripped and used a thread pitch gauge to verify what they actually are (metric can drive you nuts sometimes) and if all else fails sitting in the back of the shop are my magic bolt buckets; whatever fastener I need are magically in the very bottom of them, after I have gone through all of them it is normally the last one....... I really need to organize that ****.

 

[jeffmoss26]

2oolhound and mdbeck, I am jealous!

 

[NUTTSGT]

If you look in my refurb thread, you can see what I used for nut/bolt storage. My original intention was to use a few roll away bottom boxes. I bought a couple from Sears, the cheaper home owner series and they were way too cheap.

 

[jniolon]

I'm like a lot of others... limited space 24x24 shop... no wall space left... went vertical and am pushing up the ceiling now... I use every inch... here's my hardware storage


#1 is small screws/sheet metal screws/electrical parts/parts for tools/misc household ****.
#2 is nails/brads/staples only
#3 shows the labels on my stacked cabinets (#6)
#4 is misc (larger than draw size) bins for automotive/plumbing/wiring/etc
#5 is all brass and stainless screws/bolts/nuts/fittings
#6 is everything else.. nearly every drawer full wish I had 2 more sets and wall for them
#7 shows innerds of #6
john

 

[jeffmoss26]

Wow! I like those cabinets in 6 and 7

 

[mdbeck1]

2oolhound and mdbeck, I am jealous!

If you liked the "big green cabinet" you'll probably like this too. This one is in my wood shop. It rolls out to give me another work surface. Based on a design I found in Shopnotes(?).

Inside the drawers look like this..

This is what I used to use:

 

[jniolon]

Wow! I like those cabinets in 6 and 7

yea Jeff... imagine... those were going in the dumpster at work... took all I could haul... missed the next day for more... the emptied the dumpster

I wish I had two more walls of them. I've got way more stuff than I'll ever use... my heirs are gonna have a ball getting rid of all this ****. Who besides me wants a double handfull of little springs ??


MDBECK ????? just how much antifreeze do you use ?????

j

 

[2oolhound]

Wow! I like those cabinets in 6 and 7

+1

and free! what a score!

 

[mdbeck1]

...
MDBECK ????? just how much antifreeze do you use ?????

j

I get thirsty....

Seriously.. I think that you're seeing my 1 quart oil cans that I cut off. I usually cut the sides out of the antifreeze cans and use them to dump nuts and bolts in to find what I need.

 

[jniolon]

I get thirsty....

Seriously.. I think that you're seeing my 1 quart oil cans that I cut off. I usually cut the sides out of the antifreeze cans and use them to dump nuts and bolts in to find what I need.

gee. you're right Pennzoil !

 

[lilredex]

If you have never looked a Roy's book, he is the master of organizing things including hardware. (ISBN 10-0806958006)



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[Hammer1963]

This pain must be GJ wide. Must be a gene we carry. I'm always searching for new methods of storage that doesn't cost me more than the hardware or parts that I'm putting in them

 

[onewaydave]

I am missing patches of hair on my head from looking for some screws I bought last week. They got moved and stacked in with other stuff. ...

Yeah I suffer from some version of this. I even make an effort to store it properly in the place it would be stored if I didn't have a dedicated use for it. I've also tried putting it in a pile where the project is to be done with the other project pates. Some say (mostly relatives) that I'm ADD and just lay it down any-old-where. What do they know, organized chumps.

I have a mixmatched bunch of drawers with any old container cut down to fit the drawer. My issues with this approach is round containers waste space and too big of a container might at any monent become too small of a container and require a lot of rearrainging.

But I am lucky, I have a shop, I have tools and I have projects for a lifetime.

Dave.

 

[2oolhound]

What I've learned to do when I can't find something that I just had in my hands is think, OK, if I was holding it right now and wanted to put it away, where should I put it where it would belong. Quite often I surprise myself and find it right where it should be kept.

 

[jeepgod]

my old work used to drink a lot of coffee.. by the gallon jug size... so i took the empties home and used them for my bolts/screws and use the plastic bin box things for my nuts/washers.. seperated by size... works great.

my grandfather used glass jars with screw on lids.. he would secure the lid under his shelving... and screw the jars in.. you could see what was in them.. and they were up and out of the way..

 

[humber2]

I store a lot of stuff, the intention is to be quickly able to determine that I don't have something I'm seeking.

But I've come to the conclusion long ago that most things are made in only 3 sizes....

Too big.

Too small.

and the size you seek.

 

[PCO6]

Here's how I store my hardware.

I picked up these cabinets from a liquidation centre. It's amazing how much they can store. This is the only picture I have. They have since been cleaned up and are now "in" the garage.

The clear plastic bins are cut down juice bottles from the grocery store.

I'm told rattle cans are best stored laying down. Seems to work OK for me.

These store small items. Three cabinets are mounted to the wall and the front 2 slide from side to side. I still need to paint the cabinets so they match.

Most of my stock hardware (bolts, nuts, washers, etc.) is stored in the red plastic bins over my bench.

 

[Strouty]

I am going to be using some of your ideas, I actually have spent more on storage than the hardware it stores! I just got hit with so much in a very short span, that it never has been organized. I will post some pics as I go, but keep your pics and ideas coming!

 

[dodge610]

Here's how I store my hardware.

I picked up these cabinets from a liquidation centre. It's amazing how much they can store. This is the only picture I have. They have since been cleaned up and are now "in" the garage.

The clear plastic bins are cut down juice bottles from the grocery store.

I'm told rattle cans are best stored laying down. Seems to work OK for me.

These store small items. Three cabinets are mounted to the wall and the front 2 slide from side to side. I still need to paint the cabinets so they match.

Most of my stock hardware (bolts, nuts, washers, etc.) is stored in the red plastic bins over my bench.

Where did you get the slide apparatus from that is a great idea. I will try that in the main workshop that will save a lot of room I am trying to organize so I can find stuff quicker and easier.

 

[Steevo]

Where did you get the slide apparatus from that is a great idea. I will try that in the main workshop that will save a lot of room I am trying to organize so I can find stuff quicker and easier.

Looks like closet door track and hangers.

 

[PCO6]

Where did you get the slide apparatus from that is a great idea. I will try that in the main workshop that will save a lot of room I am trying to organize so I can find stuff quicker and easier.

I bolted two 36" (+/-) pieces of power strut back to back to make a rail then bolted the rail to the uderside of the cabinet above it. I then screwed 1"x4" pieces of oak to the top of the 2 sliding cabinets. I bought rollers for a shower door at Home Depot and screwed them to the oak. The rollers can handle a lot more than the weight of the cabinets when they are loaded. They slide very smoothly with very little effort and you're right, they saved a lot of room.

Here's a picture of how it looks with both of the sliding cabinets pushed to the outside limits. I have since installed a 36" wide file cabinet below what you see in the picture. I store tools in it and it provides a small work surface on top for sorting out hardware.

 

[dodge610]

I bolted two 36" (+/-) pieces of power strut back to back to make a rail then bolted the rail to the uderside of the cabinet above it. I then screwed 1"x4" pieces of oak to the top of the 2 sliding cabinets. I bought rollers for a shower door at Home Depot and screwed them to the oak. The rollers can handle a lot more than the weight of the cabinets when they are loaded. They slide very smoothly with very little effort and you're right, they saved a lot of room.

Here's a picture of how it looks with both of the sliding cabinets pushed to the outside limits. I have since installed a 36" wide file cabinet below what you see in the picture. I store tools in it and it provides a small work surface on top for sorting out hardware.

Ok thanks I will have to get that done since I am in the organization mode. trying to get rid of the junk organize the stuff worth keepin and make it easier to work. Yes I am sort of a pack rat.

 

[2oolhound]

Nice storage set up there PC06. The sliding cabinets are great. I have some similar file cabinets (full of video tape but no longer getting used regularly) I have no room in the garage for them though but they are nice and solid.