Tool Storage

[Zewnten]

Trying to decide a new storage system. Currently I have a 60" cornwell roller, but it is stuffed and I don't have any more room. I have a lot of "shop" level tools like a 17.5 ton hydraulic puller set with all the parts, bottle jacks, come a longs, chains, etc along with all the normal small tools.

I had originally thought to get a small roller or tool cart for every day tools and stick everything else in a heavy duty cabinet but every time I need something I'll have to unpack it from the cabinet and whatever case or box I used in the cabinet.

My other thought was to buy another used roller, a top chest, 2 lockers and 2 over head cabinets. But this storage comes with a cost premium for the amount of storage, $6-10k vs $2k.

Thoughts?

 

[Mike L]

Big ass gang box.

 

[JD955SC]

For our line of work tool chests don’t hold what we need efficiently and well. They are great for sockets and wrenches but suck for the big stuff, test hoses, and so on.

Approach stuff differently to find a better solution. Industrial cabinets and gang boxes and the big job box cabinets are tough and hold large bulky stuff better. There’s a ton of different ones available look at stuff like Durham Mfg on Grainger. Expect to modify to put a rack in for your come alongs and so on

another route is to go to salvage yards and get the big upright cabinets off of a service body. I worked with a guy who had two mounted on a frame side by side. One had the drawer on one side and that held his big sockets and wrenches and pullers and the other side had a rack for chains and come alongs. Other cabinet held breaker bars, long ratchets, cheater pipes, and so forth.

 

[crane operator]

another route is to go to salvage yards and get the big upright cabinets off of a service body. I worked with a guy who had two mounted on a frame side by side. One had the drawer on one side and that held his big sockets and wrenches and pullers and the other side had a rack for chains and come alongs. Other cabinet held breaker bars, long ratchets, cheater pipes, and so forth.

Around me, it seems like there is a surplus of fire trucks that are being offloaded cheap. I know of one guy who is parting them out and scrapping the bodies. They have some pretty industrial storage cabinets also, I just never thought of them as tool storage.

 

[Zewnten]

How do you keep your stuff organized in a gang box? We have one at the shop for the big shop tools but it's all just piled in and you end up emptying most of it to get at the stuff at the bottom.

I have been leaning hard towards a large tool cart with a heavy duty cabinet and a set of industrial drawers like Lista, those pop up pretty frequently around me, for all the big stuff.

 

[JD955SC]

How do you keep your stuff organized in a gang box? We have one at the shop for the big shop tools but it's all just piled in and you end up emptying most of it to get at the stuff at the bottom.

I have been leaning hard towards a large tool cart with a heavy duty cabinet and a set of industrial drawers like Lista, those pop up pretty frequently around me, for all the big stuff.

gangboxes are only useful to me if you either do a lot of customization for organization or using them as a load out box for kits for field service. The big pile of crap that results normally is more infuriating than useful.

Kaack and jobox make a bunch of cabinets too check them out

 

[Randy88]

If I ever find the time, I'm wanting pallet racking set up in a cold storage building, then put things into crates that have built in pallets so I can go get what I need with a skid steer, bring it into the shop and when done, move it back out and put onto pallet racking for storage. I know of one guy who does this locally and though it sounds like a pain, keeps stuff neat and tidy and organized enough he knows where stuff is at. His hydraulic gear pullers are in one "tote" all his larger manual gear pullers are in another "tote", he had piles of blocking organized in totes as well, large railroad ties all different lengths are in one pile, shorter ones in another, planks in yet another tote. Track press and associated stuff in its own tote. Myself I was thinking about making the totes out of home sawed lumber, but that guy found metal "bins" made up from somewhere, they were about four foot square by two to three feet high, no top on them, seem them around over the years, some of the salvage yards use them to sort smaller scrap like copper, brass and aluminum into, once full they just take them out and use a skid steer to flip them over and dump them out, built out of some sort of corrugated metal bent into a square. I think he told me bought them for so much a pound or basically nothing. His racking is in a shed under a roof and if he wants to keep the dust and animals out, he just puts a piece of plywood on top and sets a junk rim on them to hold the plywood down, each is labeled with a spray paint as to what's inside, he must have 20 plus totes of stuff set in his shed on racking as high as his skid steer can reach. He's also got 55 gallon barrels of new oil and waste oil barrels as well all set under his pallet racking also on pallets so they can be moved via a skid steer.

I've done the whole job box thing myself and didn't like them, yes they stored the stuff, but like has been said, you dump everything out to find what you need, then put it all back in again, every time whatever you need is always in the bottom and was a total pain to deal with, then stand there and say, which one is what I need in, so instead of digging through just one box, you ended up digging through two or three boxes before you found what you needed.

 

[colson04]

My dad used job box's on construction sites for years. It was an easy way to send a lot of tools to a jobsite, hours away from their shop. It also provided lots on site storage. That said, when he started his own business, he refused to use them for all of the same reasons as mentioned by everyone else. He favored dedicated buckets, totes, etc for specific tool groups. Something he could grab quick when loading the truck, and put away quickly when done as well.

 

[Steve Frazier]

I don't know what your setting is or how mobile you have to be and my answer might not apply. My shop/building at work is only accessible to employees and we service and repair our vehicles and equipment, largest truck is an F600 and we've got a 75hp New Holland tractor, Cat 304 and Toro 5900 as the largest pieces of equipment. Our frequently used tools are in a multi drawer mechanic's upper and lower tool box and next to it I've got a steel storage cabinet next to it for power tools and less frequently used items. On the other side of the box is a small bench with all the cordless tools and a charging station. We have a couple carts to work from at the job, which is within the building. None of this is at any level of security because the building itself is not open to the public, in fact the whole property is pretty much employee only. This seems to work for us pretty well.

 

[JD955SC]

I don't know what your setting is or how mobile you have to be and my answer might not apply. My shop/building at work is only accessible to employees and we service and repair our vehicles and equipment, largest truck is an F600 and we've got a 75hp New Holland tractor, Cat 304 and Toro 5900 as the largest pieces of equipment. Our frequently used tools are in a multi drawer mechanic's upper and lower tool box and next to it I've got a steel storage cabinet next to it for power tools and less frequently used items. On the other side of the box is a small bench with all the cordless tools and a charging station. We have a couple carts to work from at the job, which is within the building. None of this is at any level of security because the building itself is not open to the public, in fact the whole property is pretty much employee only. This seems to work for us pretty well.

if I had a shop to myself there would be a ton of Wall Control floor to head height pegboards with all manner of tools, several feet of plastic sort bin racks for consumables and stuff like hydraulic caps and plugs, test fittings, gauges, etc and then custom stuff like dedicated carts for 1” and 3/4” impact guns and sockets, and a hydraulic pulled cart set up with pump, rams, and pulling rods. Lista drawers for smaller tooling. None of this throw everything everywhere type crap I deal with now.

Unfortunately I have to lock everything up. Trust me I wish things were different.

 

[Zewnten]

There's lots of traffic through the shop and a lot of it doesn't need to be there but nothing can be done about it so everything has to be locked up all the time. As for mobility I have a cantilever tool box with basic tools for most out of the shop jobs.

Definitely thinking one or two steel cabinets and a couple sets of tall drawers is the best for my situation. I just can't see a way to make a gangbox work.

 

[JLarson]

All my like shop "hand tools" are in a 57" roller. There's no way we'd get all the stuff needed for heavy equipment and industrial in drawers. Cabinets, pallet rack, even job boxes.

You don't have to get the biggest job box you can find either. Those 20"x32" ones are great for putting big puller kits, porta powers and stuff like that in then you just fork or crane the little box you need on the rig.

 

[Delmer]

Sort of like Randy, the long term solution for me is palletizing a lot of the mid size equipment and supplies. In my case I want some stuff on floor level and accessible quickly, so a pallet shelf works. Wood pallet with 3-4 levels about 5' high, so blocking, jacks, large tool boxes etc. can be stored compactly and easy to pull out with a pallet jack.

In a shop, an attached lean to could be locked for storage, or build them as enclosed lockable cabinets. But if you make them solid and steel, then you'll probably just put casters on and forget the pallet jack. Still easier to pull a pallet jack than a lot of casters.

 

[JD955SC]

There's lots of traffic through the shop and a lot of it doesn't need to be there but nothing can be done about it so everything has to be locked up all the time. As for mobility I have a cantilever tool box with basic tools for most out of the shop jobs.

Definitely thinking one or two steel cabinets and a couple sets of tall drawers is the best for my situation. I just can't see a way to make a gangbox work.

that’s our issue too. Last year we started having sticky fingers come around and where we used to be able to leave our boxes unlocked and tools on the table we can’t anymore.

 

[Zewnten]

I appreciate the input everyone. Seems like most people here like what I refer to the "European" storage style. Dedicated boxes for each task: electrical, hydraulic, specialty tools.