WWA Info Exchange

All my working life I've never been able to permanently solve the question of tool organization. Organize by task? By location? By SAE vs. Metric? and so on. Drives me nuts. No matter what I do, it seems the socket or wrench I need requires at least 3 trips back and forth between the shop, the house, or the garage. On a busy day, I'll probably put in a good 1/2 mile at 100yds per trip.

I've got probably $5000 worth of tools not counting big power tools. I'ts 50 years worth of working on cars, planes & houses. I've got specialized tools that I might use once in 20 years.

I guess the up side of all this tool traveling is that it forces me to get some aerobic exercise.

Anybody have a solution?

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I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)

GENE: Bring the job to the tools?

The only solution I've found to this problem is to abandon any hope of ever achieving a solution, thereby at least achieving piece of mind. (What? Me Worry?)

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Jess
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Hey Gene,

Multi pockected shorts might work

Happens to me too but dont have that far to walk only a few feet to the spare room thats acting as a tool storage for now.

Its murphys law ,the one tool in need will be hiding behing something somewhere

Thats why we woodworkers are suppose to be blessed with the patience of a saint

As for the soultion, I am still looking for it after all these years



Have Fun
Francois

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Its the quality that counts not the quantity.
If you want creative workers give them time to play.

Hey Gene,

Where I work, we have a moderately large campus, where we have to lug tools from job to job. Our solution has been the rolling tool chest. But unlike most rolling tool chests, which are so huge and overloaded that they can barely roll, ours has over sized wheels, is moderately sized, and is unloaded at the end of every work day, so it only holds the tools that are likely to be needed for each job.

Of course, you do have to correctly estimate what you're likely to need when you load up, and we often do have to make more than one trip, but everything goes back in one trip on wheels.

Tom

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"There is no path to peace, peace is the path."
Mohandas K. Ghandi

Don't ever put anything away! Leave it right where you were using it last. Unless that's outdoors then bring it in and put it beside the shop/garage door where you're sure to find it next time. I hunt longer for tools that have been 'put away' than I do for them when they're lying about on the bench. Or more likely on the floor beside one of the few paths through my land fill. I mean shop.

All seriousness aside, I tend to keep hand and small power tools stored in a specific location regardless of type, etc. A cabinet that holds the ROS, biscuit joiner, belt sander, etc., just a given place where they're supposed to be. Some of the time. I don't do as much wrenching on my cars as I used to so don't have that extensive a collection of automotive related stuff. Wrenches, sockets and the like are simply in a three drawer tool chest. Do have another small one with metric stuff.

I guess 'organized' doesn't apply to my approach, just getting used to where things are generally stored. As far as trips back & forth from the house project to the shop for the tool I should have known I'd need, it's not quite that far for me but like you mention - it doesn't hurt me in the least to walk that extra distance.

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Nullum Gratuitum Prandium

Cheers - Dennis

A tool box for the most common English tools and another for metric. Buy ratchets and extensions for each box. Specialty tools all in one place out of the way. Bring the Box to the job, not just the tool you think you need.

Other than that cussing as you walk back to the shop can be therapeutic!

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"To all those who work come moments of beauty unseen by the rest of the world." Norman Maclean

Thanks for all the help. I've taken some ideas offered (wheels, multiple boxes, take box to shop, etc. ) and I think I've come up with a solution. Don't know if the wife will approve the funds tho.

Here's the idea: Build a model railway from the shop thru the garage (covered from shop to garage), thru the kitchen and down the hall to the back master bedroom, with sidings along the way and a return track. I think I could get by with about 40 flat cars, each containing different tools. Might have to have 2 trains, one for SAE and one for Metric. And of course a remote control for the whole thing.

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I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)

Used to be I could readily distinguish the difference between 1/2 from 9/16.
Now it's just dumb luck.

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Sean

Countin' flowers on the wall,
that don't bother me at all,
smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo,
Now don't tell me I've nothin' to do.

Second recipient of the D'oh Award. 4-13-08

Maybe if you're lucky, you could find a surplus data center tape robot to go with your train set idea. You know, the ones that run at high speed and grab what is needed and delivers it where it is needed? Heck! With a little programming, you could have the thing turn the tools for you. Then you could sit back and get paid while the machine does the work for you.