Looking for a solution for parts storage.

[garya505]

I'm looking for a solution for parts storage in my garage. I have a few of those Stanley organizers with the removable bins and clear cover. They're OK, but I'd like to improve on that. I'm always unstacking and stacking the organizers, looking for what I need. I've seen some guys have built racks for the Stanley organizers and that looks like a good solution for guys who need to take organizers out to job sites, but my parts stay in the garage. This means I don't really need the covered portable organizers. One of the commercial Lista/Vidmar/Lyon parts cabinets would work, but they're pricey. The best idea I have come up with so far is a regular rolling tool box combo with 2" and 3" drawers and the plastic parts bins from Schaller. http://www.schallercorporation.com/

Has anyone done it this way?

Does anyone have a better idea?

 

[ptgb]

I picked up three blueprint cabinets pretty cheap on Craigslist.

Painted them up and stacked them on a 4x6 wooden base (also painted).

Bought a ****-load of Schaller bins (all kinds of sizes) and went to town. I have TONS of small parts storage at my fingertips. Have probably $500 in the whole thing.

 

[NUTTSGT]

I bought a couple sets of bins from HF for nut & bolt storage.



Basically, made some shelves with didviders for the bins

 

[chrismenke]

I love the old Microfiche cabinets and Akro Mils bins.

 

[garya505]

Nice shop, ptgb!

I just want to know how you got that motorcycle trailer up on that platform.

 

[ptgb]

Nice shop, ptgb!

I just want to know how you got that motorcycle trailer up on that platform.

Sheer strength.


The platform is now gone and the trailers are back in the shed. Took up too much floor space.

 

[garya505]

ptgb, How deep are the drawers on the blueprint cabinet, and how deep are the Schaller bins you used?

I'm thinking of getting one of these cabinets and using the 2" deep Schaller bins. The cabinet has 5 - 16"x23" drawers, 2.5" deep.

 

[southalabama]

Ptgb. Good job on cabinets. Where you get those shelving units?

 

[ptgb]

ptgb, How deep are the drawers on the blueprint cabinet, and how deep are the Schaller bins you used?

I'm thinking of getting one of these cabinets and using the 2" deep Schaller bins. The cabinet has 5 - 16"x23" drawers, 2.5" deep.

The bins are the 1" deep ones by Schaller. The drawers were not of a width to have an even set fill up the drawers so I glued the left column and the rear row so the bins wouldn't slide around in the drawers.

As to the cabinet you are looking at, I bought their large cabinets for bu-cu storage.

They are high quality for the price... 150lbs per shelf! So, I can only imagine that smaller cabinet is of the same quality,

Ptgb. Good job on cabinets. Where you get those shelving units?

Found them at an architectural salvage place in Cleveland Ohio. Blueprint cabinets are all over craigslist, they are pretty easy to find.

You can find them pretty cheap if you are willing to work on them a bit (paint, remove labels, etc.)

 

[Qrazy]

I got a couple of these during a Zoro sale for about $80 each.

 

[PFSard]

I got a couple of these during a Zoro sale for about $80 each.

Do you have a link for these? Or what are these called?

TIA
Paul

 

[melliott28]

I made my own out of cheap intermediate tool chests and HF plastic bins:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249122

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

I got these free off Craigslist la while ago.


I've loaded them up with an assortment of Plano boxes and the little bins Harbor Freight sells. Bigger stuff in drawers, gloves, bungies, full boxes of a few different kinds of fasteners, PVC fittings, etc.

 

[92GreenYJ]

I got one of these from harbor freight. I use it for my bigger hardware. Nuts, bolts, washers, screws, etc.

Smaller stuff like electrical connectors I have in the clear drawer units like these on my electrical bench

 

[Qrazy]

Do you have a link for these? Or what are these called?

TIA
Paul

Here is the link. I got them cheaper by using one of the % off sales.

http://www.zoro.com/i/G2591985/?category=5614

 

[brycez28]

I don't have a lot of floor space for the nicer drawer units, so I built this. 1/2" plywood for the back, 1"x6" for the shelves. I don't have a picture, but I used mailing address labels that I made up on my computer to label what is in each bin. I got the bins from Menards when they were on saile a few weeks ago for 25 cents each.

 

[Hpozzuoli]

I bought a couple sets of bins from HF for nut & bolt storage.



Basically, made some shelves with didviders for the bins

Best idea I have seen on this topic. If I ever have time to steal it, I will give you the credit. Awsome!

 

[Thumper68]

I keep an eye out for old card files, right now I have 2 one with 12 drawers and one with 6 picked up the cheap bins from Menards on sale.

Each drawer holds 15 bins in the 6 drawer unit.
No pic of the 12 drawer unit but for dividers in that one I have doorman cardboard bolt boxes.

 

[psychorugby]

I wish I could find those card files, not just for the garage, but for my baseball cards. Everyone wants my first born for them though.

 

[justin1795]

all good ideals

 

[BAM its mitch]

I bought a bunch of these http://www.harborfreight.com/19-bin-portable-parts-storage-case-93928.html
and a couple of the smaller size and larger size. Then I made a cabinet with slots for them out of 3/4" plywood and hung it on the wall using a french cleat. The small and medium size are the same thickness, and the medium is twice the width of the small size. The large size is twice the thickness of the small and medium size. This made sizing the slots easy.

Now I can pull each one individually, see all the contents through the top and I can pull the individual trays out as I need them.

I don't have a picture handy, but I could post one later.

 

[Richard Cranium]

I have this one for sale. I will post what I use in the next post
this is 42 wide by 30 tall and almost a foot deep, with 72 drawers, Used to display brass fittings in a parts house.

 

[Richard Cranium]

this is what I have went to.

 

[Conway]

Best idea I have seen on this topic. If I ever have time to steal it, I will give you the credit. Awsome!

This is perfect, I have hundreds of those little storage bins..

 

[strnge]

Found this at the Alameda, Ca Antiques Fair.

Ball Bearings of course!

I went to Tap Plastics and bought sheets of plastic. I easily made my own bins. 200 of them!

 

[azhatchback]

I'm looking for a solution for parts storage in my garage. I have a few of those Stanley organizers with the removable bins and clear cover. They're OK, but I'd like to improve on that. I'm always unstacking and stacking the organizers, looking for what I need. I've seen some guys have built racks for the Stanley organizers and that looks like a good solution for guys who need to take organizers out to job sites, but my parts stay in the garage. This means I don't really need the covered portable organizers. One of the commercial Lista/Vidmar/Lyon parts cabinets would work, but they're pricey. The best idea I have come up with so far is a regular rolling tool box combo with 2" and 3" drawers and the plastic parts bins from Schaller. http://www.schallercorporation.com/

Has anyone done it this way?

Does anyone have a better idea?

Schallar is exactly what I did to organize my messy tool box. I have a 56" tool vault from strictly tool boxes. Sorry about the late post but as I was using search tool I read this. I would love to have a dedicated box full of schallar for fasteners and what not but I am out of garage room unless I boot a car out. I like the work surface too so the upper box is big NO for me. Here are my Schaller drawers:

View media item 42941
View media item 42939
View media item 42942
View media item 42940

 

[azhatchback]

The funny thing is I thought I was going to sacrifice space to get organized and it was the opposite. I was able to put more in my box with out the clutter. If you look real close like on the nut driver drawer toward the rear of the boxes I used that black round foam pipe insulation and cut it in half to fill the empty space so boxes woulden't shift. That stuff has a strip of stick tape so I put that toward the wall of the drawer. Worked out very well and you can barely tell there is a filler. Look at all the drawers now that you know what to look for as I did the same to those. The automotive drawer with brake tools has them on the sides where boxes don't line up and big drawer they are towards the rear.

Durham has parts cabinets for work vans similar to Lyon ones. I thought about these as they are way cheaper than Lyon version. Not sure of the quality though. I was actually using the search tool on here to see if anyone uses them when I ran into your thread.

 

[xtremek]

Plano bins for all of my stuff. I'm in the "process" of building racks for my nut/bolts bins,

 

[911mike]

I picked up three blueprint cabinets pretty cheap on Craigslist.

Painted them up and stacked them on a 4x6 wooden base (also painted).

Bought a ****-load of Schaller bins (all kinds of sizes) and went to town. I have TONS of small parts storage at my fingertips. Have probably $500 in the whole thing.

I've tried it all and this is by far the bast solution. I label the drawer "electrical" or "metric" etc. you pull out ONE drawer and you see EVERYTHING at once. It makes finding parts soooooooooo much faster.

The days of pulling out small individual trays and knowing it was in one of the 300 trays but not sure which one are gone.. It always was the 299th tray. LOL

 

[HunterMike]

Wow. There are a bunch of great ideas here! I copied a couple of them and here are the results:

I found a bolt bin on CL for $35. Needs repainting, but I decided to just clean to prevent losing the logo.



Since the bin only has 40 slots, I decided to double up or more each slot. I purchased a tupper ware set from the dollar store and cut them down in height, and riveted them to a piece of plexi-glass. I then added a door pull to be able to lift them up over the lip and out.



It took quite a bit of time to cut the plastic bins down because they are so flimsy. I broke a few of them. I then stumbled upon this thread and saw the Schaller Corp bins. Not too expensive either ($0.72 each), so I ordered (80) 0304-2 bins. I started shopping for more plexi-glass, but found it to be too expensive. I found a 4' x 6' sheet of pegboard for sale on CL for $5. Ended up buying 4 sheets, but 3 are for another project. I have yet to build the trays, here is how it looks so far.



I also found this 27 drawer cabinet on CL for $20. The drawers don't have slides, but are 18" deep. I am throwing all my other misc parts in this.

 

[psychob0b1977]

Wow. There are a bunch of great ideas here! I copied a couple of them and here are the results:

I found a bolt bin on CL for $35. Needs repainting, but I decided to just clean to prevent losing the logo.



Since the bin only has 40 slots, I decided to double up or more each slot. I purchased a tupper ware set from the dollar store and cut them down in height, and riveted them to a piece of plexi-glass. I then added a door pull to be able to lift them up over the lip and out.



It took quite a bit of time to cut the plastic bins down because they are so flimsy. I broke a few of them. I then stumbled upon this thread and saw the Schaller Corp bins. Not too expensive either ($0.72 each), so I ordered (80) 0304-2 bins. I started shopping for more plexi-glass, but found it to be too expensive. I found a 4' x 6' sheet of pegboard for sale on CL for $5. Ended up buying 4 sheets, but 3 are for another project. I have yet to build the trays, here is how it looks so far.



I also found this 27 drawer cabinet on CL for $20. The drawers don't have slides, but are 18" deep. I am throwing all my other misc parts in this.

Awesome idea doubling up each bin! Consider this idea stolen!

 

[chicken12]

I just received my Durham 12 guage 48" wide bin cabinet. The damn thing is built like a tank. I needed a closed type setup as my shop is mostly used for wood working and I am tired of cleaning out all my wall mounted harbor frieght bins. I will not miss the cheap thin plastic of my old bins. These are strong enough to stand on even. . http://www.durhammfg.com/item.html?id=1262

 

[ich_liebe_meine_arbeit]

Found this at the Alameda, Ca Antiques Fair.

Ball Bearings of course!

I went to Tap Plastics and bought sheets of plastic. I easily made my own bins. 200 of them!

Dang that is awesome, great find! It looks like there is a tag riveted on the top center. Is the manufacturer legible?