Space efficient wrench and roll cab organization

[s14kev]

So I recently consolidated three 26" roll cabs into one KRA2411. Although a larger box, if loaded conventionally, I would still not have sufficient room. My aim was to make more efficient use of space. Having tools spread over multiple toolboxes and even multiple drawers slows work significantly.

The tool box I started with. Flat black KRA2411 with carbon fiber drawer pulls, black corner guards and armor edge bedliner style top.

My biggest problem was wrench storage. I had what seemed like an endless number of wrenches and even with commonly available racks (Ernst etc) I found I needed at least 3 shallow drawers to fit them in. I wanted them all in one drawer but easily accessible. My solution was this:

The wrench racks are time consuming to make. Each wrench was measured in thickness and height with a caliper before cutting MDF templates to allow each wrench to stand vertical rather than laying flat. I actually started making similar wrench racks about 8 years ago but never got around to making them for all of my wrenches.

This has allowed me to fit all of my metric and SAE small and medium wrenches into one drawer. The jumbo wrenches still needed a separate drawer. Here they are with some heavier tools and 3/4" drive sockets.

Pliers were also a huge space consumer. I used the pliers rack idea already posted by pendragon1998 here http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=208437&highlight=plier+rack
but on a slightly larger scale.

That's 42 sets of pliers/crimpers etc that used to take up 2 drawers now taking up a little over half a drawer.

I also reorganized the top drawer so that all commonly used sockets, ratchets etc are in one drawer. Previously I had to open one drawer for sockets and one for ratchets and extensions. Gearwrench socket rails are great.

Finally, the lowly screwdriver drawer.

I have found work efficiency is dramatically improved with the way things are organized now. Previously I would have to open two or sometimes three drawers to find what I need. In reorganizing, I was careful to avoid redundancy. Having 4 similar sized flat head or Phillips head screwdrivers only achieved more clutter. All too often we become tool hoarders resulting in 10 sets of the same size needle nose pliers etc. I have found that by paring down the number of redundant tools that I have, the better my work efficiency has been.

Also it seems that there is this misconception that everyone needs a gigantic tool box. 20 years ago, most professionals were working in 26-40" boxes. Nowadays, my classic 78 at over 50" is considered small. Yes, I do understand that there are more specialty tools now that cars are more complex but I do think some of the big EPIQ's are overkill. The more I see giant tool boxes (and especially homeowner boxes), the more I realize they are usually just overfilled with redundant tools.

So everybody, I encourage you to post your examples of space efficiency in this thread!

 

[Requin6]

Wow, that really looks great! I love the look of that box, it would be a perfect size for my current lot of tools.

I'll definitely be snaking a few ideas from you.

 

[JasonCAT]

You went all fancy with it. I put screws in scrap wood and then slid plastic tubing over the exposed part to make my wrench organizers. Took about ten minutes.

 

[Jagmandave]

Why use all those washers for your pliers rack? Why not just cut some EMT, plastic pipe or something similar to the right length?

 

[outdoorsman310]

i like the wrench organizers!!

 

[toolman1967]

Nice Job!!

Tim the Toolman

 

[toddacimer]

That looks really good

 

[Rickster]

I'm not worthy....

 

[Steevo]

I really like your wrench organizers.
A lot of work customizing the slots to fit, but well worth it!

 

[zkling]

BEAUTIFUL. Probably the most efficient wrench storage I've seen. Well, maybe next to Nine's drawer of magic. The quality per in^2 there is very high.

Just an idea, what might be really cool is if you wood burned the size of each wrench into their respective slot.

 

[s14kev]

Why use all those washers for your pliers rack? Why not just cut some EMT, plastic pipe or something similar to the right length?

Washers were easily the simplest and cheapest method. Pieces of pipe would require perfectly square cuts otherwise the dividers do not sit perpendicular to the threaded rod. Also the washers make adjustment easy. The idea is to be modular and easy to change. I try not to buy more tools these day but when I do need to add another set of pliers, I can easily adjust and slot them in any order.

 

[ol'Red]

wrench racks look awesome.

 

[s14kev]

Here is another idea. This one is not my own though. I saw it here on GJ a while ago. Crowfoot wrenches are awful to arrange. Socket rails make them overly bulky. Snap on make a great organizer but still not as compact as this solution. I also use them rarely enough that its not a big hassle to slide them off. It's just 3/8" key stock with a hole drilled at each end for a removable cotter pin. This is a full set of USA made metric and SAE crowfoot and flare nut crowfoot that used to take up a whole lot more room in my box.

 

[oldldh]

Ya dun gud, Bubba....

 

[Alexbn921]

Nice work. It's a wonderfully thing to have a nicely organized box. Are you going to label the draws? Even one or two give you a reference point to pick the right drawer every time. Gotta love sharing/borrowing ideas from others.

 

[BK13]

Nice work, sir!

 

[Tsquare]

Great job - I'm going to incorporate your methods into my own tool box - thanks for sharing - this is what make GJ so valuable - lots of smart posters

PS - Like all the Craftsman tools and looks like Gearwrench also - nice choices.

 

[Dick in Wisconsin]

The wrench racks are time consuming to make. Each wrench was measured in thickness and height with a caliper before cutting MDF templates to allow each wrench to stand vertical rather than laying flat. I actually started making similar wrench racks about 8 years ago but never got around to making them for all of my wrenches.

I smell a business opportunity here! Why don't the manufacturers of tool storage have something like this? In plastic. Great idea! I agree time consuming ... but a great idea!

 

[s14kev]

I smell a business opportunity here! Why don't the manufacturers of tool storage have something like this? In plastic. Great idea! I agree time consuming ... but a great idea!

Unfortunately every wrench is different in cross sectional area. This means for them to stand up vertically, the slots need to be the exact width of each wrench. Also the depth of the slot is often different from one side to the other and the width between slots varies to allow maximum space efficiency (ie. the small wrenches are closer together while the wider wrenches are progressively further apart to allow for the thickness of the offset ring end). I can't imagine how any tool storage manufacturer can predict the cross sectional width of each wrench of various manufacturers. To achieve the perfectly flush result you see here requires quite a bit of measuring and planning.

I can't imagine that many tool box owners will go to the effort to make racks for every wrench they own. For those who do you can honorarily name them "s14kev wrench racks" if you ever show or post pictures of them anywhere. My patent is of course pending

 

[zkling]

I smell a business opportunity here! Why don't the manufacturers of tool storage have something like this? In plastic. Great idea! I agree time consuming ... but a great idea!

Uhm, you mean wrench racks? They do make them in plastic, lots of people do.

 

[lilscorpion]

Very nice. Very simple idea, excellent attention to detail, and extremely organized. That wrench drawer looks perfect. I can't believe how many pliers you have in that drawer and how much free space there still is. Awesome.

 

[Provincial]

Because I do much of my work out of a smaller tool box mounted in one of the compartments of my pickup service body, I have divided my tools into the following drawers:
Narrow shallow: #1 - combo wrenches up to 9/16", #2 - punches, chisels, screwdriver tips, etc.
Very narrow shallow: measuring tools, equipment keys, tire service equipment.
Wide shallow #1: Screwdrivers, pliers.
Wide Shallow #2: Sockets, ratchets, and associated.
Wide Shallow #3: Wrenches - DBE, DOE, and Combo between 5/8" and 1", small metric combo wrenches.
Wide Shallow #4: Wrenches above 1"
Wide Deep: Misc. items like battery service tools, hammers, tools too big for the shallow drawers.

Everything else goes on shelves in the compartment, like air tools, VOM, big punches. Really big stuff like hammers and prybars go on the bottom floor.

I rarely need metric tools, since I work on older USA equipment on my tree farm.

Lots of good ideas in this thread. My recent HF 44" box has a layout like the OP's box, so it gives me a place to start.

I have three shop areas in addition to the service-bodied pickup and a real service truck with a 5,000 lb. Autocrane. One shop is 20 miles from my house which has the other two shops. As a result I don't have much of a problem with duplicate tools, since I spread them out among the five options!

 

[kbeefy]

I'm not able to bring my toolbox to my work. I admire the OP's organization, it definitely appeals to my OCD side! Thats how my home box looks. (well, not quite that nice).

At work, where I use my tools every day, I cannot bring my rolling toolbox to the work. I've had friends who built lightweight carts with oversized caster/wheels on them to carry portable toolboxes, and that works OK.

For ultimate mobility (I have to climb on top of helicopters and travel several hundred yards from our hangar and my large tool cabinet on a regular basis), I have developed a different strategy for storing and accessing tools. I have a small GI toolbag, it houses the most used tools for my job. Others use a much larger bag, but I find that most of my job can be accomplished with a few small, basic tool sets. The larger, and less used tools, are packaged to be easy to move. My wrenches are all in wrench rolls or on large diaper-pins. Sockets are all on rails. I can grab a set and go to the gob, they're all secured together and organized, easy to replace one and grab a new one. I hate digging through a pile of tools at the worksite and sifting through the things I'm not looking for. Unfortunately, most jobs wind up with large piles of infrequently used tools.

It's a work in progress.

 

[rollscanhardly]

Also it seems that there is this misconception that everyone needs a gigantic tool box. 20 years ago, most professionals were working in 26-40" boxes. Nowadays, my classic 78 at over 50" is considered small. Yes, I do understand that there are more specialty tools now that cars are more complex but I do think some of the big EPIQ's are overkill. The more I see giant tool boxes (and especially homeowner boxes), the more I realize they are usually just overfilled with redundant tools.

well while you are pleased with your organizing, and it's obvious you put some time and thought into it, your comments about "most professionals" you should just skip

it's one thing for a tool collector to have the time to display unused tools (no slight on you) but to suggest based on your experience that people that work with their tools on a daily basis and the tools have the war wounds to substantiate that they are used regularly, and have much much more tools have the need to be organized for sure but on a microscopic level would be counterproductive and they actually need their space.

Like I said, no slight on you, and it is some good ideas for the home guy/hobbyist

 

[rusjack]

This is VERY nice - I like the square stock used for the crowfoot setup a lot!
I'm more impressed by a well organized small box than I'd ever be by a massive, unrollable roller cart with 10 of each tool...

 

[s14kev]

well while you are pleased with your organizing, and it's obvious you put some time and thought into it, your comments about "most professionals" you should just skip

it's one thing for a tool collector to have the time to display unused tools (no slight on you) but to suggest based on your experience that people that work with their tools on a daily basis and the tools have the war wounds to substantiate that they are used regularly, and have much much more tools have the need to be organized for sure but on a microscopic level would be counterproductive and they actually need their space.

Like I said, no slight on you, and it is some good ideas for the home guy/hobbyist

Don't get me wrong. Large boxes are great. I have met many a master tech with giant boxes that are absolutely required. I appreciate them as much as most.

I am no professional. I do everything on my own vehicles and take very good care of my tools. As you can see, every one of them is wiped off and cleaned after use. My list of jobs is very small compared to most. For example this year all I have done are CV's, front and rear wheel bearings, rod bearings, turbo swap, header install, and a transmission change.

I also have the luxury of more storage space. Slide hammer, pullers, bearing presses etc are all on shelf in another room. I am not the professional tech who has to store them all in a single box.

I spent my teens working in a GM dealership. I recall no box larger than a 40" wide box. Most were working out of 26" boxes. They all could do much more than I can and I am inspired by how effectively they can work and organize with boxes with such small footprints.

 

[pendragon1998]

pliers were also a huge space consumer. I used the pliers rack idea already posted by pendragon1998 here http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=208437&highlight=plier+rack
but on a slightly larger scale.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/108285407@n06/10783071033/" title="img_3309 by kevinabvms, on flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3759/10783071033_1940ba66cf_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="img_3309"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/108285407@n06/10782880756/" title="img_3310 by kevinabvms, on flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5488/10782880756_f68111fabb_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="img_3310"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/108285407@n06/10782867205/" title="img_3316 by kevinabvms, on flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3819/10782867205_e65b6859f8_b.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="img_3316"></a>

that's 42 sets of pliers/crimpers etc that used to take up 2 drawers now taking up a little over half a drawer.

This looks really great! That's an impressive amount of space to have saved. I agree that it's easier to put the rack together with the washers method vs. either cutting plastic tubing or putting a nut on both sides of each blade. I recently put together another rack using the nut-on-each-side approach, and while it works ok, it took a lot of time and was looser than I liked (although I hand-tightened the nuts instead of using a wrench). Washers might be a bit more expensive, but I think they're a lot easier to use in the initial build and during any subsequent redesigns to accommodate new tools.

I hope you'll add your photos to the original pliers rack thread so other folks who view it can be inspired by your example!

 

[Gmonkee]

Neat wrench racks, and good use of space.

Yet something struck me as odd.

First off, I do collect antique tools. Right now they are boxed because space demands it this house.

Recently I left a heavy equiptment shop and there I worked out of toolbags as we went on site a lot. Yet on these forums I see lots of Harry Homeowner toolboxes that have duplicates of pliers, ratchets and sockets as well as way too many screwdrivers than a full time dealer tech can use in his entire career.

In my work bags I carried two screwdrivers, two pliers, basic wrenches, three boxed socket sets in three drive sizes (SAE and metric) along with a few important specialty tools and a hammer. It was maybe 50 lbs on a bad day.
I didn't need more tools for the job. Big tools were shop stocks and this motley lot did everything else.

I can't help to think when reading these threads that the line between basic needs and vast collection are very fuzzy.
My home use tools easily cover basic mechanical, plumbing and electrical with many tools crossing over all catagories. All that fits in a medium handbox.
The box I prepared for my lady has a little more than what she actually uses and amounts to a good handfull of basic tools. She is quite proud of having it, and what she can do with them.
To anybody on this forum it would look like a stripped out box from a rummage sale. No big brands, no trick ratchets or anything really notable. And to her it is " a bit excess" refering to what I put in there for her.

My collection, which is all sheer excess, is quite a few tools in itself and packing it all in one cabinet wouldn't require a common 26" top box. Adding in the modern tools it would be a loose fit for all.

It still amazes me that great grandpa got by with a handbox that covered carpentry to plumbing, even the car and it was all he ever thought he needed. Today we seem to think we need the tool truck parked out front to tighten a pedal on our kid's bikes, lest we are short that set of specialty wrenches just for that job. And yet we still call in the plumber for a leak and the car goes into the shop for a tune-up.

The times have changed.

 

[kenburkholz]

The organizers you made show a lot of patience and attention to detail. Beautiful results! Ken

 

[basspro]

Very nice, my dad did the same thing in his new HF 44", made wrench racks out of wood, and they are awesome! I have done alot of reorganizing myself, found that I had tons of duplicates that I dont use at all, so they go home or in my truck box. I feel most boxes are overbloated, im trying to get away from that and be more minimalist, its working so far. Nice looking box btw!

 

[s14kev]

I decided to keep a 26" box to store parts and fasteners. Having some leftover MDF I needed somewhere to store longer items. The cross bar for the engine support, underhood light, spare jack handle, longer lengths of aluminum and steel stock etc. This is what I came up with. Seems to improve space efficiency greatly and certainly beats having **** laying in the corner of the garage.

 

[tksorensen]

I know this is an old thread, but I have to say your wrench organization is incredible! These wood organizers are simple yet perfect.

 

[apollo11]

I'd say it's time for a 3D printer