I need to gather ideas so I can set up my workshop.
My SO and I bought a house recently in the north end of Tacoma WA. It's a smaller house than we were in (so neither of our kids can move back in), and we wanted old with character, cheaper than market value so we could afford to fix it up and make it our own.
The resulting house gave me what might be called a 1.5 car garage. It's really about the width of a modern 2 car garage, which is to say scarcely wide enough to park two cars without door dings, but with a single width garage door off center.
This puts the V10 Touareg outside (not real popular with my lover but she picked the place), and my Porsche and two bikes inside.
We're going to be here a while and she's been prompting me to make the garage how I want it. At the place we rented it had a bunch of peg board over a full length bench:
I was sort of moved in to the place above but it had room for improvement. In the cabinet that is open in the picture I had things like VCDS, Porsche IMSB tools, TuneECU, compression tester, etc. An entire shelf in the cabinet to the left I had what I refer to as "goo". Every tube of rhino mucus, grease, loctite, tar remover - you get the idea. Far right were things that would be frowned upon in NY apparently (enough to get me in the evening news but not the history books).
So here I am in the new place. Standing in the open garage door there's a bench along the right side which is interrupted by a man door. It's got room underneath it where I have my air compressor, tranny jack, floor jack, a 155 Howitzer shell because who doesn't have one of those, and some reloading equipment that I'd also like to have out where I can use it.
I'll post a pic of that later, but for now I'm turning to the right to the space between the man door and the stub wall leading over to the roll up garage door.
I've put every bottle of goo, oil, spray paint, etc on the existing shelves by the door. I stripped the wall of the previous 63 years of ideas and hung peg board, and started to organize.
As you can see, I started working in the lower right corner and I'm expanding as I go. It has actually changed some since this picture was taken.
So here's the problem. Peg board sucks. The idea is great, but it looks like shit and the little wire things they sell you don't work very well. Wrenches and hammers, sure. When you get to screw drivers they work okay for the larger sizes but don't take into account that small screw drivers exist. Allen wrenches? Never thought of that did they? Sockets? Total failure.
I've got some of those &#$*& annoying Harbor Freight strips that you clip sockets to. They're about as durable as single ply bath tissue. They get tweaked and the friggin little clips start falling off. I thought surely my local box store would have an elegant solution. Nope. They have a plastic version of the same socket strip but it's $24 and still made by a chinese kid.
I went to a local place called Tacoma Screw. The real one. Men work there. Real ones, who could identify a 5/16-18 socket head cap screw while blind folded. I wander around the showroom for a while looking to see what real mechanics buy to organize their stuff. I don't see much but grab the blue plastic tubs you can see in the picture above.
I take them to the counter and ask how much they are. They seem reasonable, so I ask how you're supposed to mount them. "Er, uh...". They don't know.
I start to say "I'm trying to find-" and I see the wall behind them. It's a beautiful array of sockets, socket handles, wrenches. It was enough to make your eyes moist. I point and say "-That! I want that. Sadly I have one of pretty much everything on that wall".
I explain how I've got a blank canvas and a joint debit card with the little lady. I've gone to all the usual places and can't find anything that will help a dude at home to organize his tools in such a fashion. By now I'm getting approving nods and grunts from people who are obviously picturing their own fur ball of a work bench at home.
First order of business was the blue tubs. They seriously don't sell the brackets required to hang them. So I said "how about I buy a piece of strap steel and you guys sell me some thick washers I can use to gap it out for the back of the bins and I'll drill it up at home and mount it to a board?" More than one guy there liked my idea and said they'd copy me.
You can see the end result in the picture. Punches and cold chisels in one tub, allen wrenches in another. I consider it a prototype and it will likely move soon, but it's quite solid. About $14 for the tubs, a couple of bucks for the steel strap and under $1 for the thick washers. Ten minutes on my drill press and a piece of scrap fence board.
Sockets. On their wall they had used some L extrusion aluminum which is mounted to the wall. The shelf created by one leg of the extrusion has been drilled, and they used small cylindrical nylon spacers, tapped for 10-32 and the perfect diameter to slip 3/8" drive sockets on. They sold me 40 of the spacers for about $12.
I obtained some super straight pine that I'll use to make my own L angle, and I'll create a set up on my drill press to blow an array of holes into the board shelf.
It will be right on 6' long, so I'm thinking of also drilling holes for screw drivers, etc.
Anyway, I just wanted to see what ideas you people have used that you're happy with for tool organization and use.
My SO and I bought a house recently in the north end of Tacoma WA. It's a smaller house than we were in (so neither of our kids can move back in), and we wanted old with character, cheaper than market value so we could afford to fix it up and make it our own.
The resulting house gave me what might be called a 1.5 car garage. It's really about the width of a modern 2 car garage, which is to say scarcely wide enough to park two cars without door dings, but with a single width garage door off center.
This puts the V10 Touareg outside (not real popular with my lover but she picked the place), and my Porsche and two bikes inside.
We're going to be here a while and she's been prompting me to make the garage how I want it. At the place we rented it had a bunch of peg board over a full length bench:
I was sort of moved in to the place above but it had room for improvement. In the cabinet that is open in the picture I had things like VCDS, Porsche IMSB tools, TuneECU, compression tester, etc. An entire shelf in the cabinet to the left I had what I refer to as "goo". Every tube of rhino mucus, grease, loctite, tar remover - you get the idea. Far right were things that would be frowned upon in NY apparently (enough to get me in the evening news but not the history books).
So here I am in the new place. Standing in the open garage door there's a bench along the right side which is interrupted by a man door. It's got room underneath it where I have my air compressor, tranny jack, floor jack, a 155 Howitzer shell because who doesn't have one of those, and some reloading equipment that I'd also like to have out where I can use it.
I'll post a pic of that later, but for now I'm turning to the right to the space between the man door and the stub wall leading over to the roll up garage door.
I've put every bottle of goo, oil, spray paint, etc on the existing shelves by the door. I stripped the wall of the previous 63 years of ideas and hung peg board, and started to organize.
As you can see, I started working in the lower right corner and I'm expanding as I go. It has actually changed some since this picture was taken.
So here's the problem. Peg board sucks. The idea is great, but it looks like shit and the little wire things they sell you don't work very well. Wrenches and hammers, sure. When you get to screw drivers they work okay for the larger sizes but don't take into account that small screw drivers exist. Allen wrenches? Never thought of that did they? Sockets? Total failure.
I've got some of those &#$*& annoying Harbor Freight strips that you clip sockets to. They're about as durable as single ply bath tissue. They get tweaked and the friggin little clips start falling off. I thought surely my local box store would have an elegant solution. Nope. They have a plastic version of the same socket strip but it's $24 and still made by a chinese kid.
I went to a local place called Tacoma Screw. The real one. Men work there. Real ones, who could identify a 5/16-18 socket head cap screw while blind folded. I wander around the showroom for a while looking to see what real mechanics buy to organize their stuff. I don't see much but grab the blue plastic tubs you can see in the picture above.
I take them to the counter and ask how much they are. They seem reasonable, so I ask how you're supposed to mount them. "Er, uh...". They don't know.
I start to say "I'm trying to find-" and I see the wall behind them. It's a beautiful array of sockets, socket handles, wrenches. It was enough to make your eyes moist. I point and say "-That! I want that. Sadly I have one of pretty much everything on that wall".
I explain how I've got a blank canvas and a joint debit card with the little lady. I've gone to all the usual places and can't find anything that will help a dude at home to organize his tools in such a fashion. By now I'm getting approving nods and grunts from people who are obviously picturing their own fur ball of a work bench at home.
First order of business was the blue tubs. They seriously don't sell the brackets required to hang them. So I said "how about I buy a piece of strap steel and you guys sell me some thick washers I can use to gap it out for the back of the bins and I'll drill it up at home and mount it to a board?" More than one guy there liked my idea and said they'd copy me.
You can see the end result in the picture. Punches and cold chisels in one tub, allen wrenches in another. I consider it a prototype and it will likely move soon, but it's quite solid. About $14 for the tubs, a couple of bucks for the steel strap and under $1 for the thick washers. Ten minutes on my drill press and a piece of scrap fence board.
Sockets. On their wall they had used some L extrusion aluminum which is mounted to the wall. The shelf created by one leg of the extrusion has been drilled, and they used small cylindrical nylon spacers, tapped for 10-32 and the perfect diameter to slip 3/8" drive sockets on. They sold me 40 of the spacers for about $12.
I obtained some super straight pine that I'll use to make my own L angle, and I'll create a set up on my drill press to blow an array of holes into the board shelf.
It will be right on 6' long, so I'm thinking of also drilling holes for screw drivers, etc.
Anyway, I just wanted to see what ideas you people have used that you're happy with for tool organization and use.
We have a roller tool cabinet in the kitchen, and I have a roller box in the bedroom for fine/electronics tools.
