My shop goes through times where I make things, and neglect cleaning up afterwards until it gets out of hand. I don't have a lot of room, so things get tossed under workbenches and piled up on nearby horizontal surfaces. Then it gets to a point where I'm moving things to get to other things and I have to clean it up. This weekend was the latter.
Before (and after I pulled out half of the junk piled there) are pictures of underneath my two benches. First is general workbench area, and second is under mill/lathe bench, and where I keep most of my material stock. Taller pieces are stored elsewhere.
A trip to my local big box store netted me some small shelves and a bunch of plastic bins. I made a drawer for my tap sets and installed a shelf to mount it. I got everything up off the floor as well as labeled, so I can see at a glance where everything is. I even freed up enough space to get my ultra-quiet air compressor under the bench where it's more convenient to use without tripping over it.
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Location: Rochester, NY
The following 6 users Like rleete's post: EdK (02-12-2022), Highpower (02-12-2022), f350ca (02-12-2022), JScott (02-12-2022), Dr Stan (02-13-2022), Mayhem (02-14-2022)
02-12-2022, 04:01 PM (This post was last modified: 02-12-2022, 04:14 PM by rleete.)
More organizing!
I am sure that many of us (because we are mostly old) take prescription meds. Like many others, I save the bottles for storing small parts, hardware, etc. They tend to pile up on the corner of my workbench. They are often in the way, and I have to paw through the stacks to find what I need. As shown below:
I decided to get them off the bench, and more organized. So, I took some scrap PVC from work, and using my CAD skills whipped up a small rack using the available material. I really like making simple things like this from PVC, because it cuts well on the tablesaw, bandsaw or sander and is easy to work with. I glue the pieces together using PVC conduit cement
I suppose I could have 3D printed a spice rack, and in fact spent a day or so looking at options. But at the end of the day I decided to make it. Note the holes on the sides. I (stupidly, as it turns out) decided it would look better with the holes. Unfortunately for me, the hole saw tends to melt through as much as cut, and the small circular pieces jam in the saw. So, drill a hole, spend a minute removing the blank, drill a hole, another minute... After the third or fourth one, I was already regretting my decision.
Not the prettiest, but for a shop it's ideal:
And, just because I tend to be a little compulsive, I labeled all the bottles before putting them in the rack. I think it uses the space next to my cabinet nicely, and yet the bottles are still near to hand.
Forgot to mention: it's held to the steel cabinet with strips of "fridge magnet" material. Industrial grade, discarded at work. I used double sided tape to attach, and to prevent the whole thing from slipping, there's a lip on the top edge that supports the weight.
All of my bottles with misc hardware are tossed into a cardboard box. Which always seems to get buried at the bottom of the piles of other boxes full of 'stuff'.
Mine are all in various plastic grocery bags. Some of the larger stuff is in cole slaw containers (when you buy it from the supermarket). I have stacks of empty cole slaw containers. Rx bottles are slowly becoming fewer, haven't taken an Rx med in over a year and the bottles I was getting aren't the nice somewhat see-thru any more.
Nice job repurposing the PVC. I'd like to remind members to only cut PVC with conventional tools and never ever use a laser. When burned PVC produces some seriously toxic smoke/gases.
I remember them things. I was thrilled when the company sprung for the electronic leak detectors. Didn't have to use them often tho, the oily mess usually gave away the leak's location.
I get plastic storage boxes from one of the biomed companies, that used to hold plastic pipette tips. They come in two sizes and stack nicely on top of each other. I use them to store nuts and bolts. I store them in 25mm/1" increments, which makes them manageable. So the first box will hold bolts up to 1" in length, then next 1" to 2" and so on. I made up shelving to suite the height of two of the short boxes stacked and have everything colour coded (metric course, metric fine, UNC, UNF etc).
The ones on the right have hose clamps and 12v solenoids in them. Up the very top and masonry bolts etc in other similar boxes but the orange ones are much stronger and the lids lock down more securely. Each lid is labelled with the bolt size, length range and any other features (drive type [hex, SHCS], captive washer, flange).
Works extremely well and saves me a ton of time sorting. I recall working with my Dad as kid, and he'd give me a bolt and ask me to find another one just like it. All his bolts were stored in a big box!
