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wrote:

I am in the process of rearranging my shop layout....what shop storage
method do you like the best in your shop. For example....do you have
work benches with storage under it...shelves on the walls, old school
lockers, ect...I am thinking of building work benches with storage
under...and configure the benches with openings for welders, grinders,
bandsaws and other tools with designated storage and use areas. I have
been racking my brain trying to develop the best design, then thought
"why not ask what others like best in their shops..."

You can't really design your shop around storage, you sort of have to design
your storage around your shop. Here are some of the things I do:

2 rollaways for most hand tools except hammers, chisels, punch pins, also I
keep a lot of end mills and carbide inserts in there too, also some fasteners

closet with shelves with boxes on shelves for unfinished projects

workbench drawers

4 sets of steel drawers some 3" wide some 6" wide for a whole bunch of stuff

hand-forged hooks up on one wall for welding lead, torch lead, air hose

more hooks on a different wall for extension cords

2 rolling carts one with mill tooling and miscellaneous clamps other with
lathe and grinder tooling

an A-frame style rack made from old bed frame iron to hold stock inside, I
separate stock into 4 categories
angle
solid (flat, rectangular)
round
pipe/tube

a bigger rolling rack outside for steel storage which I keep tarped

a wooden bookshelf between my 2 lathes for lathe tooling, bottom shelf
is for welding rod/gloves/hood/slag hammers

2 more small wooden bookshelves for miscellany (mostly mill fixtures)

a larger wooden bookshelf for materials like stockpiled electrical parts,
3M pad boxes, rolls of electrical wire, stuff like that

I keep all my work gloves in one drawer. I keep all my safety glasses in
one drawer. I keep all my steel tapes in one drawer. I keep most of my
Allen wrenches in one drawer. I have my sockets organized with one of those
Kennedy socket organizer trays, which works OK. I have a place for every
wrench. I use different drawers in my rollaway one for straight screwdrivers
one for Phillips and bit boxes, one for anything that looks like pliers.

I have a hook for my leather apron. I also have a crawl space in which I
store large electrical cord or rarely-used big stuff like that.

There is an adjacent machinery room (furnace, hot water heater) in which I
have a table where I keep my optical comparator under a protective cover.

Organized? Hardly. But it's better than it was.

GWE