My personal opinion is that tool organizers are a waste of time. Don't get pissed....I've tried that stuff. The truth is that unless you are an aviation mechanic and need to account for every tool, or have a Nascar sponsor, its a waste of time. First, the organizers never hold every tool you have or they have places for tools you don't have. You always have those sockets that don't fit because they hit the next large socket, or the sizes on the labels don't match the sizes in your set. Take the money you spend on the organizers and buy other stuff. I have several tool boxes in my shop located in different places. I have many different brands of wrenches and sockets. I bought 4 top boxes and sat them on a workbench. One box has drawers for standard wrenches and one box has drawers for metric wrenches. Same thing for the sockets. I have a drawer for each size wrench. Iput all my 9/16s in one drawer and another drawer for 5/8s. As the wrenches get larger, I use the larger drawers and have them cover several sizes.
With the sockets, I put some of those little socket holders in the drawer and rivet them in. I have 1/4" sets and 3/8" sets 1/2" sets and 3/4". Also drawers for impact sockets.
Yep, it ain't as pretty as a perfectly organized box, but I've got a lot more wrenches and sockets and there is no way to make them look "purty". One of the handiest things I have Is a pegboard next to the lift. Its mounted on the back of an old Craftsman roll around workbench. Put some metal bracing behind it and tapped holes to accept 5/16 bolts that I had cut the heads off. Made em about 4" long to hold lots of wrenches. The thing that makes it handy is that the wrenches are mounted according to ascending size. Doesn't matter whether its a standard or a metric wrench, only if its the next larger size. Then I printed the decimal size for quick reference. So now when I have the wrong wrench (std vs metric) I take two steps and hang the wrench on the pegboard and grap the next size. No more guessing and grapping a handful of wrenches. The wrenches are all types too. Box open,combination, ratchet, I have a choice and its very quick. I don't care about brand names, only about grabbing the best wrench for the job and doing it quickly. Lots can be said for "organized chaos".
Then I put sockets on the table surface. A quick look at the next larger wrench tells me what socket I need to grab. A drawer holds ratchets divided by size. Another drawer holds all the extensions organized by size. Small angle iron wings on each side are drilled to hold screwdrivers, and a couple studs to hold some cheater bars. Couple short pieces of pipe to hold some flashlights. Yep, it works well if you use your tools instead of admiring them.
To me, functionality is more beautiful than just getting frustrated trying make all my tools match the available slots. I'd rather have more tools than slots.
(Video @3:50)
