Socket organization

[Grumpy365]

How do the rest of y'all hadle socket organization, ESPECIALY when you have multiples of the same size?

(I have 2 or 3 9/16 Craftsman 1/2 drive sockets. I don't have enough to make a complete extra set, just a few extra random sockets).

I need some ideas.

 

[bmrisko]

How do the rest of y'all hadle socket organization, ESPECIALY when you have multiples of the same size?

(I have 2 or 3 9/16 Craftsman 1/2 drive sockets. I don't have enough to make a complete extra set, just a few extra random sockets).

I need some ideas.

I have a Rubbermaid box just for any duplicates that I had after merging several sets over the years. I figure they are just there for back-up and I store them out of the way on a shelf. IMHO, no need for size duplicates in the box unless one set is impact.

 

[logical]

I relegated my old hodge podge Craftsman/Wright/NoName set(s) to the basemant last year and got the SK 1/, 3/8 and 1/2 sets in the green molded cases for the garage. The lids can come off if you want and everything is neat, tidy and low profile in a drawer.

I keep a few extras and some specialty (8-point, spark plug, etc.) sockets in a plastic case in the same drawer.

 

[bazzateer]

Piece of wood about 2"x1". Fix it to the wall in a convenient spot with the 2" side on the horizontal to form a small 'shelf'. Bang 6" nails into the vertical surface of the 'shelf' and put the spare sockets onto the nails (like a kebab). Write on the 1" vertical face of the 'shelf' the size of the sockets.
You can also bang nails into the vertical face at a slight angle and hand spare ring/combination spanners of the same size.

Nice and cheap as most of us will have suitable materials for this readily available.

 

[T1320T]

How many duplicates are we talkin about? I just stack my duplicates on my Hansen trays... you can stack about 3 tall on short sockets (unless it's a deep well socket).

 

[Kevin54]

Cheap socket rails and some 3" wide Poplar wood

 

[oldcpecdr]

Not for everyone but here is what I did....these are thread spool holders from the local sewing and fabric store, about 7.00 on sale and work with 1/4 3/8 and 1/2 sockets. They even had ones with longer spindles for my deep sockets... I took all my doubles and moved them to the upstairs shop...I find this FAR better than looking through the socket drawer...

Mike B

 

[JC23]

What Kevin said.

That is, if you want them in a tool box. I have what I call 'selective duplicates' as you may need to put the same size socket on two ratchets. They are of the more common sizes. The rails can be screwed to a piece of wood of your size choosing. It can then fit a drawer or box perfectly. I have a wide top box drawer so all of my SAE sockets, extensions and ratchets of all three sizes are in the same place on one board. I did the same for those peskly metric sockets but they are being punished by sitting in a drawer a few down from the 'regular' ones.

Those rails are cheap and easy and much like Kevin, I put them in desending order of size to pick 'em out quicker without having to read the sizes.

 

[mmhouse]

I use these in my toolbox. All my sockets fit in one drawer, SAE and metric. I like them because it is very easy to pick out the correct size socket.

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00933933000P?prdNo=3&blockNo=3&blockType=G3

I suppose if you had duplicates you could just get an extra holder and not fill it. I have just a few duplicates that I don't use often and keep them laying loose in the drawer.

 

[chopper1]

Cheap socket rails and some 3" wide Poplar wood

I really like this idea. I've got about 18 strips of extra sockets rattling around in a drawer and was thinking of screwing them to one piece of wood. With the strips individually fastened you can take out the one you want.
I don't keep them according to size but by manufaturer.

 

[mdbeck1]

I made up one full set of sockets (shallow and deep) then I put all of the dups on rails and put them in the "junk" drawer. They're still fairly easy to find.

Here's a pic of the current socket drawer.

The deep socket rails are on hinges and flip up so I don't have to use a deep drawer for my socket sets. The boxes for the socket set are 22 gauge steel and you can pick them up and take them to the vehicle for working.

 

[lilredex]

My solution to rounding up all those loose sockets, any dups reside in a low sour cream tub at the back of the drawer. It is 18Ga (old dryer) bent up using my "gingery" style brake with riveted straps across the ends. Paint any colour you want.

Hosted on Fotki

 

[A29]

I drilled a cheap pine board with a forstner bit of the correct size to hold 3/8 sockets and stuff. Don't have to snap em off a socket rail, just reach and grab.

 

[Handyman163]

Here's what I did...

I took a piece of 1/4" pressboard, drilled holes to mount some HF socket rails of different sizes (bought extras and added clips where needed), put a cut-to-size piece of the no-slip tool drawer liner over the board, then screw the socket rails down over the liner. That way nothing slips back and forth when opening/closing the drawer. The weight of the sockets keep the board from coming up when pulling the sockets off. With multiples, I have a couple sitting in between the rails towards the rear, but ideally they'd go somewhere else. This method isn't great for multiples.

Downside...It's not a portable option, but my garage is small and I've got extra rails if needed.

 

[bazzateer]

Some great ideas there guys! Gonna steal some when my garage gets built.

 

[Indy_500]

Here's how i organize my most used 6 pt. sockets (1/2" drive is 12 pt.):

Here's how i organize my hex, torx, 12 pt., adaptors, etc. sockets (my extra sockets):

 

[BirdRacer]

Here's how i organize my most used 6 pt. sockets (1/2" drive is 12 pt.):

Are those the Harbor Freight socket trays? I noticed you relabeled them. I've been looking at them, but notice they skip some common sizes, most notably 12mm and 15mm. I have been wanting to buy them, but that fact drives me crazy.

 

[supertooljunkie]

I have all my "sets" on socket rails. If I have enough duplicates to make up a good portion of a complete set, I put them on Hanson or HF socket trays. Left overs go on a socket rail with smallest on one end, all of that size, then next size, next size, until the rail is full. Then start another rail until all of the duplicates are on a rail.
I then hit pawn shops and yard sales to fill the missing pieces on the trays. Right now I'm working on ten different trays of 1/4, 3/8. & 1/2" in SAE & MM.

 

[Indy_500]

Are those the Harbor Freight socket trays? I noticed you relabeled them. I've been looking at them, but notice they skip some common sizes, most notably 12mm and 15mm. I have been wanting to buy them, but that fact drives me crazy.

yup, HF socket trays. the inch ones are numbered fine, the metric are numbered terrible. i paid another $1 for some white stickers and cut them to size. $16 for the 6 trays plus $1 for the sticker, pretty much the cost of 1 hansen tray.

 

[tdkkart]

This thread inspired me the other day, and I had reason to be close to my local Harbor Freight store yesterday, so I went looking on the website and found the red socket trays which looked pretty decent.

Once again, my HF store pisses me off. Never have the items that I'm looking for in stock. All they had on the shelf were the really cheezy metal clip style which I don't care for.

 

[supertooljunkie]

The HF trays I bought had stickers in the box for re-numbering. They just don't have all the stickers you need.

 

[BirdRacer]

yup, HF socket trays. the inch ones are numbered fine, the metric are numbered terrible. i paid another $1 for some white stickers and cut them to size. $16 for the 6 trays plus $1 for the sticker, pretty much the cost of 1 hansen tray.

Exactly! I just can't see $80-$90 for the six Hansens. I just bought THIS SET yesterday, but I don't like 'em. They take up too much space, some of the holes are tool small, need 2 sets for shallow and deep well, etc. I'm taking them back today and get the red trays.

I wanted the red trays originally, but that numbering thing just turned me against them. I couldn't believe the picture on the box could possibly be correct, so I took them out of the box and looked at them. Unbelievable that they would skip the most common sizes. I think I can deal with a relabel. Thanks for the idea.

 

[Igotta355z28]

I bought the harbor freight ones too, got them home then noticed the label issues. So around fathers day sears had the hansen trays on sale and i bought 8 hansen trays (needed 2 metric and standard 3/8s for my 3/8 impacts) i put the harbor freight ones in the back to hold extra stuff.

 

[dankicksass]

I had used plastic socket rails until recently, found Sears had two-pack metal rails with handles on sale $5/ea, so I picked up the lot. I don't get out to HF too much, I know I could do better dollar-for-dollar there but I didn't like it there much when I went to the one in Allentown. I'd like to go with Hansen trays, but I'm really too cheap for that.

 

[rartuin270]

ive been hearing a lot about sk tools on this site, i just decided to see what something like this would cost and crapped my pants

 

[brownbagg]

five gallon bucket

 

[mdbeck1]

ive been hearing a lot about sk tools on this site, i just decided to see what something like this would cost and crapped my pants

About 6 months ago I picked up a set on Ebay for around $100.00 + shipping. They're a lot more expensive from the S&K store.

 

[SnowBlaZeR2]

One other problem I have with the HF trays, is the largest sized sockets don't fit either. It's maybe not a big deal to some, but I'm OCD and it annoys the hell out of me. I just stuck them on my bench and have been throwing random sockets I've needed frequently in there. Looking to get mechanics time saver socket rails or something similar I saw in Sears the other day.

 

[NUTTSGT]

I use the Craftsman socket rails for mine. I have an extra rail in the back for the odd or extra/double stuff.

For my impact deep wells, I made a socket holder.

 

[JHunter]

Same wood/dowel as other mentioned - just painted and partially labeled (got tired of printing out the labels lol). I use some red rubber pipe caps to ID the dowels that go empty so I'm not searching for a lost socket that I don't actually have. Spares go in the little plastic case. Some spares (9/16ths) I made a dowel for.

<a href="http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/jaf31a/?action=view&current=HPIM2883.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/jaf31a/HPIM2883.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/jaf31a/?action=view&current=HPIM2888.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/jaf31a/HPIM2888.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/jaf31a/?action=view&current=HPIM2889.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/jaf31a/HPIM2889.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/jaf31a/?action=view&current=HPIM2887.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b295/jaf31a/HPIM2887.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

 

[Indy_500]

One other problem I have with the HF trays, is the largest sized sockets don't fit either. It's maybe not a big deal to some, but I'm OCD and it annoys the hell out of me. I just stuck them on my bench and have been throwing random sockets I've needed frequently in there. Looking to get mechanics time saver socket rails or something similar I saw in Sears the other day.

i took my angle grinder to some of the pegs and now all my sockets fit.

 

[SnowBlaZeR2]

i took my angle grinder to some of the pegs and now all my sockets fit.

I guess I should have been more specific. That's my fault.

I'm talking about the largest sockets don't even fit the tray, or at least not my Craftsman. I believe it's only the 1/2" and it's only the last few sockets on SAE and metric. I can't remember the exact sockets, but they won't fit down in the tray. The fact that some don't fit on the pegs is also annoying, but I can live with that. The fact that the size it's labeled for don't fit, I cannot. Like I said, I'm OCD. I've never actually even used the sockets that don't fit either, but if they have the size there, the sockets should at least fit right?

 

[Indy_500]

I guess I should have been more specific. That's my fault.

I'm talking about the largest sockets don't even fit the tray, or at least not my Craftsman. I believe it's only the 1/2" and it's only the last few sockets on SAE and metric. I can't remember the exact sockets, but they won't fit down in the tray. The fact that some don't fit on the pegs is also annoying, but I can live with that. The fact that the size it's labeled for don't fit, I cannot. Like I said, I'm OCD. I've never actually even used the sockets that don't fit either, but if they have the size there, the sockets should at least fit right?

I understand now, i don't quite have every socket in 1/2" drive, hopefully mine fit? lol i have c-man sockets too so they prolly won't maybe i can rig something up? That's the way i look at it. If it's not perfect, make it perfect.

 

[beelsr]

2 words: brother p-touch.

get one. you'll start labeling everything. frugal tip: if you're making up multiple labels, type in as much as you can at a time and print them out at the same time. Each time a "label" is printed, it wastes an inch of label. I always trim that bit off anyways so it's simple to cut up the individual labels.

yup, HF socket trays. the inch ones are numbered fine, the metric are numbered terrible. i paid another $1 for some white stickers and cut them to size. $16 for the 6 trays plus $1 for the sticker, pretty much the cost of 1 hansen tray.

 

[djd99]

I need something for my larger sockets. Hansens are nice but too pricey.

 

[Krokodil]

Very nice setup jhunter!

 

[JHunter]

Very nice setup jhunter!

Thanks Krokodil - It took a bit of time and planning, but they turned out pretty good I thought.

 

[lilredex]

Found another, lowsided tray that was made up to organize 1/4" deep sockets within another box of various sockets.

Hosted on Fotki

 

[rartuin270]

2 words: brother p-touch.

get one. you'll start labeling everything. frugal tip: if you're making up multiple labels, type in as much as you can at a time and print them out at the same time. Each time a "label" is printed, it wastes an inch of label. I always trim that bit off anyways so it's simple to cut up the individual labels.

that is the only downfall besides the batteries, get the ac power adapter

 

[JSBriggs]

My solution to rounding up all those loose sockets, any dups reside in a low sour cream tub at the back of the drawer. It is 18Ga (old dryer) bent up using my "gingery" style brake with riveted straps across the ends. Paint any colour you want.

Hosted on Fotki

Found another, lowsided tray that was made up to organize 1/4" deep sockets within another box of various sockets.

Hosted on Fotki

I like your solution the best. I might need to get a small brake to make some of those.

-Jeff