Show me your hardware organizers

[Phil Thien]

So this last weekend I realized two things: (1) The prices my local hardware store charges for hardware (wood screws, machine screws, etc.) aren't going to reverse direction (and they've gone up quite a bit). (2) I need more room to store stuff so I can buy in bulk, and still find what I need.

I was thinking of buying four of the Akro-Mils cabinets (pictured) and wall mounting the things.

I have something similar to that now, but need more drawers.

What have you guys done?

Any pics?

[glenn bradley]

I have two smaller versions of those setting empty at the foot of my smaller bandsaw. Wish you were closer. I found them usable and was at the point of building some sliding panels to mount them on so I could get more storage in a smaller space but, shifted gears to Plano boxes.

The little dividers in the cabinets you show wouldn't stay put; I even glued some of them in finally. Like the Plano boxes they are good for smaller stuff but, rapidly become over-taxed for larger hardware.

I use Plano for most screws and project supplies,

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shoe boxes for larger project items,

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and other containers for larger nuts, bolts and screws that see little use.

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[David Ragan]

I found them cheap @ BORG. You can see all of them mounted in little frames with cleats on the Workshop thread. I really like them. Easy to use. Easy to keep up with. Need somethign, take the drawer out.

I did, however, during the re-organization, buy a bunch of huge bins from WalMart and organized all my HF stuff and bulk screws, etc. so now, I can just pull out a bin drawer--that pic is also in the Workshop under 'renovation complete'

Cleats are cool. I have never moved the boxes, but if I wanted to, I could.

[Phil Thien]

The little dividers in the cabinets you show wouldn't stay put; I even glued some of them in finally. Like the Plano boxes they are good for smaller stuff but, rapidly become over-taxed for larger hardware.


Were they the Akro-Mils brand? The one I have now isn't Akro-Mils, but the dividers work fine. I'd hate to buy four of these and find the dividers don't work well. In fact, you have to order dividers for these separately sort of, they don't include more than a few for each unit.

[Larry Wilson]

I built myself an expandable system from an article in ShopNotes #2. I thought it was so cool and easy to do. It was one of my first projects and it still serves my well. Please excuse the mess. Like you I try to buy in bulk. I hate having to make special trips for a few screws or bolts of whatever.

[Darrin Davis]

Free if you can find a local library that's ready to get rid of them after years of taking up space in their storage closet.
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[Bill Adamsen]

In the shop, full extension drawers with the Vidmar type plastic boxes. For jobsite, I've been migrating to sortainers. Might do that for everything.

[glenn bradley]

Were they the Akro-Mils brand? The one I have now isn't Akro-Mils, but the dividers work fine. I'd hate to buy four of these and find the dividers don't work well. In fact, you have to order dividers for these separately sort of, they don't include more than a few for each unit.

A couple of them are 'Stack-On' brand and fairly new. One is an unknown but, is probably 30 years old. The dividers are all equally bad in both styles so I would try to get more of what you have. I see the reviews on Akro Mils units were about what I faced. They're great for buttons and beads but the whole housing buckles if you get too much weight in them like screws, nuts and bolts. I dropped an email to Plano asking how to go about getting additional dividers. About a week later, a dozen strips of 6 showed up in the mail???

[Kent A Bathurst]

Free if you can find a local library that's ready to get rid of them after years of taking up space in their storage closet.
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Got enough vises there, Darrin?

[Bruce Page]

I picked this up at the salvage yard for ~$35 IIRC. Industrial grade, it holds a ton of stuff. The drawers come out easily if you want to take it them the bench.

[John McClanahan]

Free if you can find a local library that's ready to get rid of them after years of taking up space in their storage closet.
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Pssst, hey buddy, can you spare a vise? :eek::D:D:D

[Phil Thien]

Well the unit I have now is an older model Akro-Mils, and I found another one at work that wasn't doing anything important, so I brought it home.

I like all the options presented here, so I'm hoping the one additional unit I found will tide me over until I can consider something better thought-out than my original plan.

[Greg R Bradley]

I'm sure you will figure out I received the same organization gene as my brother.

I have most of my small items in Durham small drawers. They are surprisingly inexpensive as most of them were bought from zorotools at 20% off, and free freight over $50. That make this drawer unit $13.23: http://www.zoro.com/durham-compartment-box-9-14-in-d-13-38-in-w-215-95-d571/i/G1076302/
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They do get more expensive when you add the sliding rack and buy the bigger drawer units:
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This bigger beige drawers are leftovers from many different paper storage. Bought 25 years ago for real money but pretty obsolete today.

I also have some of the Durham larger drawers:
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The Stanley drawers sold by the big box stores are useful for some pieces that are fairly light weight but screws and hardware max them out pretty quick. Those items are getting moved to the Durham units:
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I'm convinced that it is cheaper to buy to stuff in quantity when it is readily available than it is to go find it when you need it. The catch is that you need to organize it so you don't have to go buy more because you can't find the stuff you know you have.......somewhere.

[John Lankers]

Cheap to build not counting the labor. The full extension drawers are through dovetails in BB, the boxes are box joints in BB.

[Yonak Hawkins]

My grandfather started this with 3 jar carousels and I ran with it :

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[Phil Thien]

Got enough vises there, Darrin?

Yeah, we're going to need an answer on that.

[Darrin Davis]

Got enough vises there, Darrin?

It's a high school woodshop.

[Kent A Bathurst]

It's a high school woodshop.

OK, then - that would be a "no". :p

[Rob Damon]

I made two shelf units one for the larger bins and a second for the smaller bins.

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[Frederick Skelly]

I use the second one in your set of 4. I have multiple copies. They work just fine for bulk stuff.

[Jim Matthews]

I keep two of the clear containers popularized by Lee Valley with the hardware
that is difficult to find (square cut nails, for example).

I consider Amazon and the local ACE Hardware to be my stores
for everything else. Too many of my 'bargain finds' have rusted
to the point of being useless in my damp basement shop.

There's a reason estate sales always have so many loose nuts and bolts to sell.
Most of us gather more than needed for multiple lifetimes.

Amazon can deliver most any screw, bolt or nail in two days.
Why keep so much clutter?

[Jim Becker]

Phil, I use a couple of wall mounted bin cabinets like you picture for specialty fasteners and other hardware that I like to keep handy and sorted. I also have another unit with much larger bins for the most common fasteners I use in the shop for projects. Because the bins are closed, less dust and dirt gets in with the stuff and it's easy to stay organized.

[Bill Huber]

I have basically 3 different types of storage.

I have some fiberglass bins that are about 12"x12"x18" that are full of just different stuff that I keep, bolts, nuts screws and other type of things that I don't have a lot of but just don't want to dump them.
I then have 3 Stanley boxes which I really like, the little bins in the boxes can be taken out to the work area and the rest of the bins will stay in place. I have 2 smaller ones and one large one that I keep larger items in.
My third place in a drawer cabinet I got out of the trash a few year ago, not sure what it was used for but it is really nice for hard ware and I also keep some tools in it.

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[Jim Finn]

314564Made three of these. Work fine for me.

[Phil Thien]

I keep two of the clear containers popularized by Lee Valley with the hardware
that is difficult to find (square cut nails, for example).

I consider Amazon and the local ACE Hardware to be my stores
for everything else. Too many of my 'bargain finds' have rusted
to the point of being useless in my damp basement shop.

There's a reason estate sales always have so many loose nuts and bolts to sell.
Most of us gather more than needed for multiple lifetimes.

Amazon can deliver most any screw, bolt or nail in two days.
Why keep so much clutter?

I hear ya, it is a constant battle between clutter, impatience, pricing.

I'm not going to add a ton more stuff but I'm absolutely getting more organized so I don't buy anything I don't absolutely need.

[ian maybury]

Late in. Specialist fixings and fittings (beyond metric bolts/nuts/screws and spax type csrews) are available locally here Phil, but not very reliably - so having a decent stock is essential. Trouble is it's always the one you want that's not in your stock.

I've had cabinets with plastic drawers similar to what you showed at the start, but found that the drawers started to get brittle after a year or so. The problem with cheap plastics (especially Eastern polyethylene) is often that unless it's well loaded with a UV inhibitor (which the cheap guys leave out/don't use enough of/are anyway environmentally nasty) the sunlight unzips the polymer and it gets very brittle very quickly.

I use wooden wine boxes (below) for this reason for storage of larger stuff like power tools, tapes, adhesives etc - they work great, but are hard to get as only the very expensive French Bordeaux etc come in them now. High end wine shops will sometimes give them away, or they can be bought. The shelf unit is Ikea Expedit - works well. I have several in various storage jobs. The plastic storage boxes sold by the box stores tend to suffer from the UV embrittlement problem too, and are bloody expensive.

Re-sealable plastic freezer bags amrked with a pen (Ikea do heavy duty ones) are very useful, especially for odds and sods of fasteners too unusual/small in quantity to justify setting up a dedicated storage location. I bag my leftovers, and drop them in the relevant one of two wine boxes labelled 'metric' and 'imperial'. Ditto into another box for stuff like electrical consumables.

I had a load of what looked like good quality storage boxes of a name brand I can't remember) very like those Bill H shows for engineering fasteners etc bought about the same time, except that the sections were divided by drop in plates. They have actually held up well, and it's very handy to be able to lift them out to search for stuff. The problem is that the drop in plates are very easily lifted by accident, allowing the contents of adjacent sections to mix. Next up is a major session with silicone to glue them in.

I also have several of these all metal 36 drawer wall cabinets made by Clarke which are probably available in the US, and use them for wood fasteners. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clarke-CTB1000-36-Drawer-Parts-Cabinet/dp/B007JC9NA0 They seem cheap and basic at first sight, but so far are are the best i've had - dead simple and solid, and hence reliable. Think i'll be buying more once i figure out where to fit them. (my wall space is tight) They come in several different sizes. The one downside is that you can't look into them, and so have to rely on labelling them well.

Not a fan of open rack mounted plastic storage bins in the workshop. I have some in the separate sharpening area.

Not strictly on topic, but I tend to buy kitchen cabinets of one sort or another from Ikea for cost effective quickie wall storage. (there's a big range of sizes and types) Best to reinforce the joints using long Spax screws of large (5 or 6mm) dis, but so far they have held up well mounted using french cleats.

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[Brian Peters]

I do the stanley bins as well but use the harbor freight knockoff. They are a lot cheaper and basically the same exact container. I'm not a fan of open containers for hardware as they collect dust easily in a woodshop. The containers are really versatile too because they can be pulled out and brought to your work or to a job site very easily.