Finally made some progress on organizing my shop

[karlmagne]

One of my goals last year was to get some organization in my shop. So I built this bench and tool boards and bought some cabinets to store everything. Thought everyone might like these pics.

Dang, I wish my shop looked as neat! Good job!

 

[karlmagne]

I can clearly see that you have way too much open space, so you obviously need to buy more tools!

 

[Auminer]

I'd be ready for a nap after fetching enough tools to fix the lawn mower.

 

[kmesr9]

One of my goals last year was to get some organization in my shop. So I built this bench and tool boards and bought some cabinets to store everything. Thought everyone might like these pics.

Looks great! Here are mine after I got tired of mess and reorganized. I used MDO for the tops and had some leftover diamond plate aluminum to trim it all out.

 

[grsthegreat]

Looks great! Here are mine after I got tired of mess and reorganized. I used MDO for the tops and had some leftover diamond plate aluminum to trim it all out.

Those windows look like tv monitors viewing outdoors cameras. Made me at first think your a drug trafficker

 

[tulenutn2o]

One of my goals last year was to get some organization in my shop. So I built this bench and tool boards and bought some cabinets to store everything. Thought everyone might like these pics.

You are hired! Coming to Iowa anytime soon?

 

[kmesr9]

Those windows look like tv monitors viewing outdoors cameras. Made me at first think your a drug trafficker

??

 

[grsthegreat]

??

They place monitors all around their property and watch them on big screen TVs looking for cops

 

[kmesr9]

My shop could look clean and organized if I just stop doing too many projects at once... well, that will never happen. As for hanging everything up that doesn't work for me. I need a drawer of hammers, a drawer of flat head screwdrivers, a drawer of phillips screwdrivers, a drawer of metric wrenches, a drawer of SAE wrenches, a drawer of 1/4" drive sockets etc, drawer for 3/8ths, drawer for 1/2, drawer for vise grips... you get the idea. Lots of drawers.

I so get this. Every time I do a project there is cr_p everywhere and after 5-6 I have to stop and reorganize and clean!

 

[kmesr9]

Weird, never heard of that. These were taken with an iPhone 12 a few years ago.

 

[kmesr9]

They place monitors all around their property and watch them on big screen TVs looking for cops

I could never afford those monitors lol! As a retired old man I’m lucky to hoard and scavenge parts for most anything I do!

 

[mx842]

Looks really nice, good job. I made a promise to myself to never build another work bench or table for my shop. Every time I put something up everything under the sun finds its way home and it's no longer a table or bench but more a storage unit. My new building is all metal and, in some ways, I like it but in others I don't. I put 29ga white metal on the inside walls and it's a pain when you want to hang anything. My side walls are 12' and now I wish I had hung plywood the first 8' but decided not to.

My old building burned to the ground and that's something I'll never forget. It was pole barn design but I framed the inside walls put bat insulation then osb over that. It was nice to be able to hang stuff but once a fire gets to osb it's no stopping it. Everything I ever owned went up in a big ball of fire; nothing was spared.

I have to use strut if I want to hang something heavy like a wall cabinet or tool board. I bought a lot of shelving and cabinets at an auction and most of my stuff I can put on the shelving and other stuff goes in one cabinet or another.

 

[macdoesit]

To clean, organized to be real LOL. I like it.

 

[Onecountry]

Looks really nice, good job. I made a promise to myself to never build another work bench or table for my shop. Every time I put something up everything under the sun finds its way home and it's no longer a table or bench but more a storage unit. My new building is all metal and, in some ways, I like it but in others I don't. I put 29ga white metal on the inside walls and it's a pain when you want to hang anything. My side walls are 12' and now I wish I had hung plywood the first 8' but decided not to.

My old building burned to the ground and that's something I'll never forget. It was pole barn design but I framed the inside walls put bat insulation then osb over that. It was nice to be able to hang stuff but once a fire gets to osb it's no stopping it. Everything I ever owned went up in a big ball of fire; nothing was spared.

I have to use strut if I want to hang something heavy like a wall cabinet or tool board. I bought a lot of shelving and cabinets at an auction and most of my stuff I can put on the shelving and other stuff goes in one cabinet or another.

I know what you mean when a fire gets to it. I remember my dad's garage/shop went up and burnt everything up. Started from a wood stove we used for heat. I put in-floor heat in when I got around to building a new shop/garage.

 

[Onecountry]

Nice looking shop! I need another building that I can use for storage. Then maybe I could organize my shop, so it doesn't look so cluttered.

 

[CH4Ohio]

Looks really nice, good job. I made a promise to myself to never build another work bench or table for my shop. Every time I put something up everything under the sun finds its way home and it's no longer a table or bench but more a storage unit. My new building is all metal and, in some ways, I like it but in others I don't. I put 29ga white metal on the inside walls and it's a pain when you want to hang anything. My side walls are 12' and now I wish I had hung plywood the first 8' but decided not to.

My old building burned to the ground and that's something I'll never forget. It was pole barn design but I framed the inside walls put bat insulation then osb over that. It was nice to be able to hang stuff but once a fire gets to osb it's no stopping it. Everything I ever owned went up in a big ball of fire; nothing was spared.

I have to use strut if I want to hang something heavy like a wall cabinet or tool board. I bought a lot of shelving and cabinets at an auction and most of my stuff I can put on the shelving and other stuff goes in one cabinet or another.

What caused your fire?? Do you know?

 

[mx842]

What caused your fire?? Do you know?

I had a AC reclaiming machine in a corner by the back door with an old boom box sitting on the top of it. I had been cutting wood for the past several days and all of my chain saws, gas can, bar oil and my tool bag laying on the floor beside it in my sand blast room. That room was an old 20' container that I incorporated into the building, and it had a wood floor. My border collie Stella hates it when I leave her at home when I go out. I left her in the house when I left so she wouldn't follow me out the driveway. My wife lets her out after I've been gone for a while and she lays in the driveway until I get back, the dog not my wife.LOL I think she went looking for me down at my building and jumped up on the back door which popped open and knocked that boombox off the machine and on to the floor right in the middle of all those tools I had laying there. I think when it hit the floor a spark ignited my tool bag that had a couple wipes, I used to clean around the gas and oil fill holes on my saws. Probably had enough gas/oil fumes on them and the rest was history. Once the fire started Stella went to the house and kept jumping on the back door barking until my wife saw smoke and went down to investigate at that time the back of the shop was ablaze. It took about 20 minutes for the fire units to get there but by then the whole shop was ablaze, and it was no putting it out. They sprayed 12, 1200-gallon tankers of water and 2 loads of foam on it all night and finally got all the hot spots put out about 10 o'clock the next morning. Then they came out and sprayed more water on it a couple times a day for several days afterward. Everything I ever owned and worked for was in that building or close enough to it to set it on fire.

 

[CH4Ohio]

I had a AC reclaiming machine in a corner by the back door with an old boom box sitting on the top of it. I had been cutting wood for the past several days and all of my chain saws, gas can, bar oil and my tool bag laying on the floor beside it in my sand blast room. That room was an old 20' container that I incorporated into the building, and it had a wood floor. My border collie Stella hates it when I leave her at home when I go out. I left her in the house when I left so she wouldn't follow me out the driveway. My wife lets her out after I've been gone for a while and she lays in the driveway until I get back, the dog not my wife.LOL I think she went looking for me down at my building and jumped up on the back door which popped open and knocked that boombox off the machine and on to the floor right in the middle of all those tools I had laying there. I think when it hit the floor a spark ignited my tool bag that had a couple wipes, I used to clean around the gas and oil fill holes on my saws. Probably had enough gas/oil fumes on them and the rest was history. Once the fire started Stella went to the house and kept jumping on the back door barking until my wife saw smoke and went down to investigate at that time the back of the shop was ablaze. It took about 20 minutes for the fire units to get there but by then the whole shop was ablaze, and it was no putting it out. They sprayed 12, 1200-gallon tankers of water and 2 loads of foam on it all night and finally got all the hot spots put out about 10 o'clock the next morning. Then they came out and sprayed more water on it a couple times a day for several days afterward. Everything I ever owned and worked for was in that building or close enough to it to set it on fire.

Wow! That was a freak set of circumstances. Thanks for the info. Reminds me to pay attention to what can possibly go wrong and not be complacent about where I stack stuff!

 

[grsthegreat]

Your dog is a pyro.

Man, I’d hate to lose everything I owned like that. My best buddy’s dad had his Quonset hut shop burn down. I never did hear of the cause. Lost 60 years of tools and equipment. Insurance did replace most, but it took years of back and forth as to whit was there. I know they had a lot of fighting to do with proof of what was there.

 

[mx842]

Wow! That was a freak set of circumstances. Thanks for the info. Reminds me to pay attention to what can possibly go wrong and not be complacent about where I stack stuff!

Yeah, I did a post shortly after the fire in hopes people would maybe at least update their insurance and take some precautions about how you store and leave stuff laying around the shop. All of my OSB was covered with a fire-retardant paint well at least 8' up from the floor especially in my welding and grinding shop. I was always worrying that a spark would find its way up under the OSB and the floor. I cut enough 14ga ss sheet metal into strips 7" tall and put them on the bottom of the walls all over the shop so there was no way any sparks could get in there.
I was always sniffing the air for any signs of something smoldering and always did a around the shop look see every evening when I went into the house. This day I was in a hurry after cutting firewood because I was running late for a meeting I had to go to that evening. When you get in a hurry sometimes you just get careless, that's just plain and simple. I think that is the hardest thing I've had to contend with is knowing all my things burned up because of a careless mistake.
Now 4 years later I don't even want to do anything out there because every time I try to do something out there, I get reminded about it because I will have to go out and buy something I already had. I had more plumbing/electrical, nuts bolts and screws than you would find at most hardware stores along with pretty much anything else you might need in a shop.
I replaced a mill a lathe and a huge radial drill press that I had in my old shop and in 31/2 years I haven't done the first job on any of them. I just don't have the spark, pun intended, anymore. I have used some of the welders that I replaced but not like I used to. Thank God I didn't go out and replace all my powder coating equipment, my 5'x10 plasma table and a couple other big-ticket things I had in my shop because that stuff would be sitting around like the thousands of dollars' worth of other stuff that I did replace.
Yeah, I'm crying the blues I know but most of it now is that I hope some other person reads this and stops and thinks about the stuff you have, where and how it is stored along with maybe inventorying your stuff in case something happens. I'll bet good money not a single person here has an idea of just what and how much stuff we keep in our shops. Also take a look at your insurance policy's just to be sure you are covered. Put rider policies on your big-ticket stuff and keep an updated list of the things you have because there is no way of you will remember all this stuff if something happens. I took me 1 1/2 years of dealing with the insurance companies and there are a thousand things I missed. I missed them until I now go to do a small job now and all I can say is damn I had one of those.