Tool Cart, Drawers or both for machine tooling ?

[Hephaestus29]

Just curious if most people like all their
tooling in drawers, on a cart or both ?

I have a lot of smaller stuff in drawers
like inserts and drill bits, but I'm thinking
about building a tool cart for drill chucks,
face mills etc..

Any thoughts, ideas, and or pictures ?

 

[justanengineer]

I've been in-process on converting a vintage Remline roller bottom to hold my heavier tooling, spare collets, and a very limited assortment of common smaller items. Personally, I dont mind walking a short distance for oddball drills and cutters, but carrying the rotary table or extra vises around is a bit much. Also, my machines tend to collect clutter nearby which complicates cleaning up chips.

 

[hautpot]

Workplace has all inserts and tooling in (stationary) Lista drawers. It is killing the bearings on most of them but boss doesn't really seam to care as they are somewhat old cabinets.

I prefer to keep some tooling on carts, because everything is visible at a glance of an eye. I hate searching through dozens of drawers because someone misplaced an item.

 

[Ign]

I prefer drawers if any hot works or fabrication is happening anywhere in the same room (dust). Angle plates are too large to realistically go in drawers, so shelves for them

 

[zkling]

Drawers or a cabinet w/ shelving for me.

I've ran a small VMC at a place that was all about carted tooling. Still have the scar on the back of m hand to prove it, when I grazed a a fresh 1/2" 3 flute endmill reaching for my calipers.

A wall mounted rack or even some carts are ok, but they need to be well organized. IMHO.

 

[ttpete]

At home, I took an old kitchen cart and punched the top with R-8 sized holes to hold all of the chucks, drivers, boring heads and large indexable cutters. The other two shelves are for drill indexes and other small stuff. End mills I keep in drawers.

 

[LXCam]

Drawers here. I have two of these Lista 5 drawer set up for 90% of my machine stuff and a three drawer intermediate unit for my lathe.

 

[astroracer]

I just put my combo lathe on a HF 44" roller cabinet and all of my tooling for the mill is in a small Kenndy roll-a-around. Keeping the stuff in cabinets instead of shelves prevents surface rust, dust and grime collection on the tooling and also keeps it out of sight from prying eyes.
Mark