Tooling organization

[Kevin54]

Scorpion....if you would, could you stick a link into your signature so this thread doesn't get lost. I know there are quite a few people on GJ that are really going to like the storage ideas. Two of the main things are the plastic holders, and the one main thing is all of the French Cleat stuff you have done. Quite a few times it comes up about hanging items on walls and French Cleats are always mentioned, but you have to do a lot of searching. If you have it in your sig, then all we have to do is find you and click on the link. It's up to you, but I think it's a good idea. You have a lot of storage ideas for everyone.

 

[lilscorpion]

Scorpion....if you would, could you stick a link into your signature so this thread doesn't get lost. I know there are quite a few people on GJ that are really going to like the storage ideas. Two of the main things are the plastic holders, and the one main thing is all of the French Cleat stuff you have done. Quite a few times it comes up about hanging items on walls and French Cleats are always mentioned, but you have to do a lot of searching. If you have it in your sig, then all we have to do is find you and click on the link. It's up to you, but I think it's a good idea. You have a lot of storage ideas for everyone.

Good idea, kinda forgot I could do that.

 

[Steevo]

I find your continuing organization and storage thread inspirational and chock-full-o-ideas I can plagiarize at a later ate.

Thank you.

 

[Richard D]

This info came at a great time. I am in the middle of getting my garage in order-I only bought my house five years ago! I'm gonna rip off lots of your ideas. I have a mill and a couple lathes as well. Machine tools are great; I have yet to utilize mine. Only the 9" Southbend is up and running.

One question. On your bench backsplash, with the French cleats, why the wide verticles, not cleats all the way across?

P.S. I priced HDPE form a Houston plastics supplier in full sheets, it came out to exactly $30 per 24"x24"($240)! I didn't call around, but I figured it would be much cheaper in full sheets.

 

[CustomCareDetailing]

I'm glad I cam across this thread. The ideas you have are amazing and I definitely plan on utilizing as many as I can. I'm looking forward to when you build up a couple new cabinets because I'm in the process of finishing my garage and would definitely like to follow in your foot steps.

 

[dladcock]

Scorpion....if you would, could you stick a link into your signature so this thread doesn't get lost. I know there are quite a few people on GJ that are really going to like the storage ideas. Two of the main things are the plastic holders, and the one main thing is all of the French Cleat stuff you have done. Quite a few times it comes up about hanging items on walls and French Cleats are always mentioned, but you have to do a lot of searching. If you have it in your sig, then all we have to do is find you and click on the link. It's up to you, but I think it's a good idea. You have a lot of storage ideas for everyone.

Kevin,

Is there a way a member can save threads like this in their profile? Like a "My Favorites" tab under the user profile. Just curious.

dla

 

[MetalMangler]

Kevin,

Is there a way a member can save threads like this in their profile? Like a "My Favorites" tab under the user profile. Just curious.

dla

Under the "Thread Tools" banner at the top of the page there is an option to "Subscribe to this thread". Once you select that you'll have the option to have it email you updates or not. I have my subscribed threads email me every time someone adds something, but even if you don't, you can access all your subscribed threads from your user Control Panel.

MM

 

[dladcock]

Under the "Thread Tools" banner at the top of the page there is an option to "Subscribe to this thread". Once you select that you'll have the option to have it email you updates or not. I have my subscribed threads email me every time someone adds something, but even if you don't, you can access all your subscribed threads from your user Control Panel.

MM

That'll work just fine. THANKS!

dla

 

[LennyTheLizard]

I'm looking to re-think my organization theme now. This thread is awesome. It makes me wonder, how do you store your garden type tools (long handled rakes, shovels, etc.) Do you use french cleat system for that also or some other means?

 

[abstamaria]

Thank you for the thread, Lilscorpion. It has been not only instructive, but also enjoyable. Your photos are remarkable as well. Very carefully done, as with the rest of your work. Best wishes for the New Year.

Andy

 

[don long]

Man do I want to organize my workshop!!
Thank you scorpion for all this valuable info.

I got kicked out of woodshop for cutting 2 fingers in one month
so I ended up in metal shop instead (wish I had more training with wood)

I also would have liked to learn more about machine shops but cars is where my interests were channeled

your origanizational skills and creativity are an inspiration to us all
thanks for the thread WELL DONE
Don

 

[lilscorpion]

I'm looking to re-think my organization theme now. This thread is awesome. It makes me wonder, how do you store your garden type tools (long handled rakes, shovels, etc.) Do you use french cleat system for that also or some other means?

LOL!!! The trick is to take up as little space as possible with gardening **** so it doesn't take away from the useful space. Right now, I isolate that stuff to the wall next to where my wife parks. I only have what I need and keep it to a minimum. I used Rubbermaid wall mounts (the same track I used for my hoses and electrical cords). It's not as cheap as French cleats but quick and easy.

The rest of it is carelessly hung above my mill out if the way...

I wish to be a little more creative in the future but it's worked well enough. Yard work isn't a hobby, it's household maintenance to me. I do it to get it done.

 

[lilscorpion]

Today I started addressing my ratchet drawer. I've been putting it off for a couple of weeks now for two reasons - it's cold has hell and I wasn't looking forward to trying to figure out how to machine the plastic for goofy shaped ratchet heads. Anyway, here's how the drawer has been for a while now. It's not difficult to get to any of the ratchets, just not ideal. I don't grab and go, I stop and look because I don't really know where the ratchet I want is.

Just before Christmas I had ordered in some thicker HDPE (some of the ratchet handles are 1/5" in diameter and the 3/4" HDPE seemed too thin as the ratchets wouldn't be able to sit down in there deep enough). I'd noticed that the Starboard isn't quite as thick as the advertised thickness...roughly .050" undersized so I needed to take this into account when taking measurements. One mistake I've made before was assuming I was working with exact numbers only to find that after I'd machined the part, it didn't fit right.

I started by laying out the ratchets on the material to try to get an idea for how I wanted to nest them. One thing I've been thinking about is how I was going to cut the goofy shapes of the ratchet heads and if they were going to cause a lot of problems with nesting. The longer wrenches nested okay with a little space left over for something else small down the road.

I decided not to attempt machining one piece with all of the ratchets for fear I'd mess one up and have to pitch the entire piece of material (or worse, figure out how to trim it down to smaller ones after the mistake in a last ditch effort to save some of the work). I figured I'd keep the bigger ones together on a smaller one and put all of the shorter ratchets on a single board because they nested together much easier.

 

[lilscorpion]

I cut the piece down to just what was needed and headed over to the mill. The torque wrenches have a little pin and interesting tapers around the drive square that I needed to create reliefs for.

After cutting the head reliefs for the two torque wrenches I decided to do the machine work for the long handled flex head Craftsman 1/2" wrench. I gotta tell you, the shape of that thing leaves something to be desired. It took some math to work out the profile in CAD but I got it to work out in the end.

I completed the profile and test fit the head before programming the rest of the ratchet.

The fit was a little snug but that's what you get when you forget to factor in clearance. I went back and added in a little so that I didn't have to push it into place and then programmed the rest of the profile so I could move on to the other profiles. The temp was dropping to somewhere in the teens in the garage and my coffee is ice cold.

 

[lilscorpion]

Now onto the shank profile of the other two torque wrenches. In a single pass I was able to cut the 7/8" shank diameter of the toque wrenches. I cut the relief for the handles using a ball mill I've been sitting on for a little while. I won this NOS 1-1/2" Diameter Ball on ebay for around $45 I think. If you've been following along, I'm sure you're thinking the same thing my wife was thinking when she opened the box that came in the mail - "how many of these things do you have?" The answer is "to make these trays I really need every size!" Besides, it's really fun watching such a large cutter plow through plastic.

After just a few passes the tray is complete for now. All three ratchets have a very specific home and they all fit in securely.

It took me far too long (just under 2 hours) to complete what I thought was such a simple tray. It looks good in the drawer and already I have a pretty good idea of how the drawer will turn out overall. Hopefully it'll be a little warmer out soon so I can tackle the more complicated one. Given the complexities of it, I'm gonna guess it will take me 2 to 3 times as long if not longer.

 

[dladcock]

I'm intrigued by your attention to detail and creative solutions to the issues we all have. Effective storage solutions should be only two things, simple and convenient. I believe you have mastered both seamlessly.

In reading your earlier posts, I was surprised to read about your disappointments with Delrin as a machining material choice. I have machined miles of Delrin. I would suggest (if you have not before) using carbide cutters and a mist coolant. Carbide and mist make a world of difference in the final finish in Delrin. However, HSS does an excellent job, but does dull quicker in plastics.

Thanks for the inspirational thread. I'm looking forward to following your journey and what you think up next!

dla

 

[Bull]

If I am ever reincarnated, I'd like to come back with a brain and degree of patience more similar to yours than my own.

 

[fringeofinsanity]

If I am ever reincarnated, I'd like to come back with a brain and degree of patience more similar to yours than my own.

I'll second that!

 

[BarnFab]

Wow what a great thread and great level of attention to detail. I am keen to hear more on your mill conversion when you get a chance. I have an old Bridgeport EZ Trac I am keen to update to take a feed from solid edge.

 

[brownbagg]

only thing I always hated about the plastic tools holders is, they take up too much room, cut the toolbox down to a quarter

 

[lilscorpion]

only thing I always hated about the plastic tools holders is, they take up too much room, cut the toolbox down to a quarter

When drawer space is at a premium, I agree, organizers typically take up space that's needed for other things. When I built the cabinets for my garage I ended up with more than 40 drawers that I could use to get hyper-organized. It was all planned and I could never pull it off without that much drawer space (though I do have a few empties).

 

[lilscorpion]

Day two of the ratchet tray project and I'm dreading the nesting and crazy profiles of the various ratchets I have. I figured I'd tackle it by trying to come up with a way that wasn't so labor intensive so I sat and pondered the work ahead by spinning the ratchets around in various combinations to see if there wasn't another not so obvious way to do the tray.

A subset of the ratchets nested almost as well as all of them did. My preference was to keep the polished ratchets together anyway so I decided to go this route.

The heads were shaped very differently depending on the style of ratchet. Since I didn't want to get into profiling (like I did with the long flex-head ratchet yesterday) I decided that I'd try to come up with a simple shape that both satisfied the profile of the head but allowed for heads of slightly different shapes to fit since any one of these ratchets may not last the rest of my life. A slightly over sized oval seemed to work nicely.

One thing I didn't like about the longer ratchet tray was that the tray itself was really designed specifically for those 3 ratchets. If even one of them went by the way of the dodo bird, I'd either have to start over or hope that I could modify that tray to fit whatever ratchet took the failed ratchet's place. I'm not a fan of the hack approach so this new tray needed to be more universal. I started playing in CAD when I noticed that I could actually mirror the ratchet's and make it so that I could set either style (flex or non-flex) on the same row depending on orientation.

Here's the nesting of the heads. If I set all of the shorter ovals to one side and the longers to the other and connect the two with the groove for handles, I could use the same "row" for either or both (in the case of stubbies). Sorry for the reflection. I shot the pic from the side so you'd not have to see me and the camera.

With the program finalized, it was time to make some chips. I was able to use the 1/2" ball mill for the handle of the 1/4" ratchet, a 5/8" ball mill for the handle of the 3/8" ratchet, and a 7/8" ball for the 1/2" ratchet with a near perfect fit.

 

[lilscorpion]

With the profile cut, the last thing to do was cut some reliefs so I can get my fingers in there and pick up the ratchet's more easily. Instead of attempting to cut one individually for all of the ratchet grooves I decided to cut two all the way across. By keeping the depth just a hair deeper than the deepest grove, I'd still have just under 1/5" of thickness at that point - plenty thick to keep it rigid.

All that's left is breaking all of the machined edges with the 1/8" quarter round router bit and it's ready to go in the drawer. I'm not a huge fan of how the bent 3/8" ratchet sits up in the tray though it may grow on me.

I set the spacing of the ratchets to be .100" (between the heads) and was initially worried that it wouldn't be enough but it turns out that there's more than enough room to grab the neck of the ratchet with a thumb and my first two fingers quickly. Next is the Craftsman and Cyclop ratchets. Already I can see quite an organizational improvement in the drawer.

 

[marty_p]

OK, I'm in awe!

Thanks for your inspiration -- and Happy New Year, too!

 

[383 240z]

Ok, now your just showing off!!! Keith

 

[boiler7904]

You just gave me a whole new list of things to do to my garage that I didn't know I needed / wanted to do. Time to get some Starboard, make some templates and breakout the router to organize some tools.

 

[lilscorpion]

Even though it was fairly cold in the garage I got out and spent a little time working on the drawers again. Got the smaller tray completed for the screwdriver drawer so the drawer is done. It's really nice opening the drawer and being able to see everything easily and go directly to what I opened it for. I also like that nothing moves when the drawer opens and closes (my box is a pre-GripLatch drawer so it has detents).

I also made a tray for the new Williams drivers my wife got me for Christmas.

To complete the screwdriver organization I just need to make tray for my ratcheting drivers and a small tray for the smaller Williams drivers.

 

[oldno3fan]

is there anyway to do this if you dont have a mill or know how to program mill cuts.... aka drill press were you manually move the base plate maybe

 

[aosty]

is there anyway to do this if you dont have a mill or know how to program mill cuts.... aka drill press were you manually move the base plate maybe

You can probably use a wood router with a guide to assist.

 

[oldno3fan]

i just saw this anybody got this gem http://www.harborfreight.com/two-speed-variable-bench-mill-drill-machine-44991.html

 

[lilscorpion]

is there anyway to do this if you dont have a mill or know how to program mill cuts.... aka drill press were you manually move the base plate maybe

Yes, these could be done with a manual mill with a little patience and a little practice. A router cuts this plastic well. A plunge router would probably be the best choice as an alternative to a milling machine because you can set depth. Making some templates/fixtures out of wood would make the job easier too. I've been spoiled with the mill but do still use the router for simple ops from time to time. Most of the trays I've made all have very simple shapes cut into them. The last tray, for the Williams drivers, is all squares with a line for the driver blade. Cutting any one of them wouldn't be any more difficult than cutting a hinge for a door with a hinge template (maybe a couple passes).

 

[lilscorpion]

Though I really wanted to finish the screw driver drawer today, I decided to put it on hold because I'm waiting on a T-Handle driver that I want to fit to the remaining tray...so another day. After getting all of the Christmas decorations down I started looking through drawers to see if there was something I could start in on. The second drawer I opened was the drawer I refer to as my "punches and prybars" drawer.

This is another one of those drawers that never seems to be organized and I realized, as I took inventory of the drawer, It became clear that only half of what was in it was actually worth keeping. I had a cheapy HF tie-rod splitting fork that is no longer useful but still lives here. I had a couple of broken screw drivers that have been cut off and then put in here for some reason. I started by throwing away all of the stuff that really was junk. I pulled out the prybars that were still good and put them aside (I have a prybar rack project I'm planning on doing in a couple of weeks so they no longer need to be in the drawer).

When I had what I was going to keep, I realized that since this drawer hast he items I beat on, it may make sense to make an organizer that's more generic and able to handle other items that I may add to this drawer down the road. I measured what I had and over-sized the slots a bit for this reason and started cutting some of that read HDPE.

Seems that organizing this drawer will prevent me from storing as much but it will make things much easier to find and put away. Now it may be worth my time to get some new punches and chisels.

I had to stop before I got it completely done. I have a set of dowel pin punches I need to work into the free space but I'll have to tackle it another day.

 

[Scuderia-F1]

A lot of really great inspration in this thread, keep up the good work & don´t forget to post pics!

 

[akdiesel]

You do great work on those trays. I want a milling machine soooo bad.

 

[GarageDan]

When I purchases retail, I typically order through Amazon. When I do, I prep myself by going to http://www.camelcamelcamel.com (free) to find out what the high and low prices are for the item I'm looking to buy. CamelCamelCamel also has alerting so you can sign up to have the site send you an email when the price you desire is hit. I usually set my buy point to be within a dollar of the cheapest it's ever been on Amazon (if I can't find it anyplace else for cheaper). Sometimes I have had to wait a year but that minimum price does eventually come around. Here's an example of the 1/2" Dewalt impact I recently didn't buy when it hit an all time low. Most people that shop Amazon just buy without any understanding of how the pricing works. I'd rather buy at $80 than $110. That's $30 I can put towards something else.

Another secret of mine is I have a list of items that I really could use. My next purchase is always well thought out. I rarely get a wild hair. I utilize a watch list on ebay, Amazon, and manage one on my phone for other places with the best price I've found. When I window shop, I'm looking for things on the list and I have prices to compare to. Saves me time and makes getting a good deal easy.

AWESOME TIP! I never knew about this. Thank you.

 

[GarageDan]

By the way, I love what you did making the drawer organizers. Makes me wish I had a mill so that I could do something like that.

 

[lilscorpion]

Thanks for the props guys. The milling machine is likely one of the best "investments" I've made in the garage...close rival may be the table saw. I usually use the word investment when I have to spend more than $500. When it was manual with a DRO, it was very useful but took more time to get to the finished part in metal and aluminum because you can only cut so much in a single pass and cutting a radius is much more difficult. I never tinkered with plastic back then but I know now that these projects would be the easiest on a manual mill because you can easily set stops where they need to be to make such simple shapes in a single pass. Look around your area, in the past 5 years I've found BridgePort full size import clones for under a grand in used but good shape...as long as you have a way to get it home and off the trailer yourself of course.

 

[vegar]

This is just an amazing tread. I love the pull-out cabinets over the lathe

 

[lilscorpion]

It was COLD today. I'm already tired of it and ready for some warmer weather so I can get back to the cabinets and truck. After setting up the heater, I decided I better get something done even if it wasn't much so I decided to knock out the smaller Williams tray. I'm conserving space for some ratcheting drivers I have so I need to make this tray as small as possible and as short as possible so I can fit a tray of nut drivers in this drawer.

It almost ended up a little tighter than I wanted but it worked out. The drivers fit tight enough they don't move around but loose enough I can get them out easily. I may go back and add in some finger grooves later but for now I can get them out without any issue.

It's nice seeing things come together and this drawer is starting to shape up. I added in the nut drivers and the ratcheting drivers I have to see how they're going to lay out. Just barely enough space considering the T-Handle drivers' goofy shape.

The complex shape of the T-Drivers should be an interesting challenge. There's a mess of shapes within them that may result in some plastic hitting the trash can. I'll have to leave them for another day.

 

[mdkingsley]

Great stuff for you storage solutions. I want that mill, and your expertise in using it. Keep it coming!