9 Cheap And Easy Shop Organizers - Super Simple HOW TO

hey guys this is woodshop junkies and today i'm going to jump in with a few very simple projects to organize some of the more often used objects in my shop i have a lot of more often used objects in my shop but because i don't have a storage and organizer system in place for these items i often end up having to look for them when i want to use them by trying to remember where i used it last so today i want to implement a dedicated storage system for each one of these items things like the variety of tapes i use in my shop all my drill chuck keys tool adjustment wrenches goggles gloves or measuring and marking equipment you know things like that now i don't really have anything specific planned i did draw up a few rough sketches but today i'm going to take more of an improvisational approach by analyzing each item and looking at the easiest way to store and organize it now before i jump into today's video i'm very excited to announce that my channel has a brand new long-term sponsor upat south africa the official importer and distributor of fisher and stabila products has come on board with woodshop junkies if you guys have been following my channel since i started setting up the shop you would have seen me use the featured duo power plug to set up my french fleet wall my lumber rack and my ultimate space saver the reason for that i have a hollow cement brick wall or as many might know it a cinder block and i haven't really found any other plug that gives me a proper hold in a hollow block so i'm very excited to have these guys on board if you want to know anything more about these products or about up south africa all the relevant links will be down below right so the first items in need of storage and organization in my shop is my tapes i have a whole variety of them that i use for different applications i've noticed most people like storing them on rods like this but i don't really like the idea because it restricts access to the rolls stored towards the inside instead i'm going to be turning them like this and storing them on pegs this has the additional advantage of showing me exactly how much i have left on each roll alright guys so for this project i'm using a piece of 5 8 or 16 mil thick mdf and i cut up a whole bunch of these 16ml58 dolls that i'm going to fix to the mdf backboard and use that as pegs to store the rolls to prepare the mdf backboard i needed to make all these holes using a fastener bit to better secure the dowels now to make all these holes i couldn't use my bench drill and needed to use a handle so to make sure that i drilled them all at the same depth i made a mark on my bit this allowed me to visualize the depth while i was drilling then i made the small hole in the center so that in addition to glue i can also fix the dial from the back using a screw now before i fix the dowels or the pegs in place i'm going to add a cosmetic chamfer around the outer edge of the board i'm also going to fix a french cleat at the back because that's how i'm going to secure it to my wall and i'm going to add a coat of paint [Music] [Applause] so mbf can be quite tricky to paint because it sucks up paint like a sponge i like to use a good quality spray paint with a built-in primer so far i've been happy with the results right so while the paint is drying i need to do a little bit of prep work on the dolls i need to drill a small pilot hole at each end one is to fix it to the backboard without splitting the dowel the other side is to fix a washer to act as a retainer to prevent the rolls of tape from coming off to do this i made this really simple jig which is pretty much just a one inch piece of plywood with a 16 mil or 5 8 hole in it which will help me keep the dowel upright while i drill all the pilot holes [Music] so [Applause] [Music] right guys so that's pretty much it for the tape storage and as you can see i added some samples of each type of tape to each pick where it's going to be stored and the reason for this is when the roll is not on the peg i know what i didn't put back in its place or what i need to buy the next thing in my shop that's in need of organization and storage is gloves i have a variety of them that i use for different applications and somehow i always end up having to look for them now i figured the quickest and easiest way to store these is with a clothes peg i know the idea is a bit silly but if it works now for this project i'm going to start with a similar base as i did with my tape storage a piece of mdf with routed edges and a heat attached at the back the cleat isn't a deal breaker the unit can be installed straight to the wall to this i'm going to fix a bunch of clothes pegs that i can use to store my gloves give it a coat of paint and i'm pretty much good to go [Applause] okay so that's all the gloves stored and organized and easily accessible as i said not very complicated at all next i've got a whole bunch of small tools here that i often find myself having to look for when i want to use it in the shop so i figured if i clustered them together in an easily accessible way it would make more sense and save me some time now the only thing these tools really have in common is the fact that they all are metal so a magnet station might be the most logical approach right so for my magnet station i made a base similar to the two projects i already built once again using mdf obviously the overall dimension is a bit different now i also drill these holes like i did with my tape organizer using a fastener bit and into these holes i'm going to be installing magnets now the magnet i'm going to be using is about 22 more by 10 mil or just under inch by a half inch ray earth and i'm going to be installing it into the holes like this now if you've worked with rare earth magnets before you'll probably know that this is a little bit overkill i could have gotten away with a slightly smaller magnet and gotten pretty much the same results but i've got a whole bunch of them for a different project i'm working on so i figured i might as well use them now in addition to installing five magnets into the five holes i drilled i am also going to recess this plate into the wood over the magnets like that i'm hoping this will better disperse the magnetism but i'm no scientist so i guess i'm just hoping [Music] [Applause] [Music] so right so that's the plate installed with the magnets i made the plate to stand out slightly because i obviously want this to be the surface that the tool is in contact with when it is stored now i also drilled these two holes so i can fix the plate in place with screws from the front and i countersunk the holes so that when the screw is installed it would be flush with the face of the plate right so that's pretty much it for the magnet station and this is just an example of some of the tools i would be able to store on a station like it now for some of the equipment like the drill chuck key it would make more sense if i kept it closer to my drone press so i figured i would take the magnet station concept and scale it down make a few of them and install them all over my workshop that way i can store the tools closest to where they are more likely to be used now my objective with all these projects was to marry functionality with simplicity and affordability this is one of the lesser cheap projects to make due to the cost of the magnets but if it means that i never have to look for one of the items on the station ever again it would be well worth it right so for my next project i'm looking at a very simple general use hook that i can make a couple of and have them all over my shop to store stuff like my shop apron or a coiled up extension cord pretty much anything that is better stored when it is on a hook now initially i'm only making three of these general use hooks and this time i'm moving away from the mdf for a base and instead i cut up a few pieces of 18 mil or three-quarter inch pine plywood reason being i need these hooks to be a bit stronger because i could potentially be putting heavier items on them on each of these three bases i then created these tapered cuts on the side using my miter saw but this isn't really functional it's more cosmetic just to round off the base a bit nicer from there the preparation on each piece or each base was pretty much the same as with my previous projects i added a cosmetic chamfer around the outer edge of each base and then using a fastener bit i drilled a hole halfway through the plank into which i can install the dowel a small hole was then drilled all the way through so i can fix the dowel in place from the back for the dowel i used a thicker three quarter inch dial because once again i need it to be a bit stronger and once again to act as a retainer i'm going to add a washer on the front like that at this point the hook can be fixed to the wall and used but i want to use it with my french cleat wall so i cut up a few pieces like this which i'm going to add at the back and my general purpose hook will be pretty much complete [Music] [Music] [Applause] and that's it for the general hook storage nice and simple yet functional so for me it's a useful addition next up is hammers and mallets i've got a whole bunch of them always laying all over the shop and instead of looking for the right one for the job i always tend to use the one that's closest to me so i figured if i store them all together i would have the opportunity to pick the right one for the job but before i go on i would like to address this because i feel like there's going to be a few comments about it this hammer won't be allowed on many job sites as a health and safety risk because it's a modified tool but i keep it around because this is actually one of the tools i've earned the longest i started my apprenticeship with it and back then not knowing any better when the handle broke off i welded a pipe on it so like i said i keep it around because i hope to one day put a wooden handle back on here and be able to use it now to store the hammers i only really have one of two options the first one is a pegboard like i did with my tape storage which would have the added advantage of drawing an outline around each hammer showing me which one has been removed the second option is a rail system where i store all the hammers in line like this for me considering hammers of bulkier items the second more compact option is the better one now to make the hammer rail system i've got a backing two sides and then i cut up two pieces of three-quarter inch aluminium piping which will form the actual hammer rail the two pipes will then be inserted into these two holes i drilled with a three-quarter inch fastener but the spacing between them is wide enough to allow the handle of a hammer to fit through but close enough together to support the head of the hammer when it has been inserted into the rail other preparations on the side include removing the one corner with my mitre saw just to round off the overall look then i once again added a chamfer with my router and the foster holes aren't drilled all the way through so that when the unit is assembled it would retain the rail or the pipes you [Music] [Music] right so that's the hammers stored and organized and the next thing i need to focus on getting organized is my pencils and markers for my pencil and marker organizer i cut up a whole bunch of different gauge pvc conduit and i'm going to install it into a wooden frame like this so i can store my pencils and markers in them the wooden frame is going to consist out of three basic components a base a backing and a top the preparation on these components up to this point has been pretty much identical to the projects i've already done i drilled these bunch of holes here using fastener bits to create a seating for each pipe then once again a small chamfer around the outside edge and the only thing i really did differently was to round these edges using my belt sander from here the unit is going to be assembled just like with my hammer rail system with the two sides preventing the pipe from coming out before i can assemble the frame there's one small piece of preparation i need to do first on the opposite end of the top side i need to create holes that is going to allow me to put my pens and pencils into the pipes now the holes i'm going to create on this side need to be slightly smaller than the ones i made on this side so that the difference between the two holes can create a shoulder still keeping the pipe inside the frame while giving me access or the ability to put something inside the pipe now to mark the center of each hole i need to make from the opposite end i drilled a small hole all the way through at the center of each of the holes i made with the foster bits from here i can either use a slightly smaller fastener bit to drill the hole from the opposite end but i think a flash driven bit on my router is going to give me a much more accurate sizing uh so this is more or less what the finished product is going to look like at the top here i drilled these holes just big enough to fit the trim bit on the ralter so now i can cut away the excess wood gear so that the hole is flush with the inside of the pipe [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] at the opening of each hole i added a small chamfer to help guide the pencil into the pipe so right so that's the marker stored and organized and it might not be the simplest solution but it's cheap effective and considering that it doesn't look half bad now next up i'm going to store my safety glasses i don't really have different ones for different applications but for some reason i always have a bunch of them all over my shop so i figured i'd get them organized and up against the wall now for this one i'm not going to go into a crazy amount of detail because i didn't use any technique i haven't shown already once again a mdf backing with a chamfered edge and to save some time in the video i painted it already i then drilled a bunch of holes that i'm going to be gluing dolls into for each pair of safety glasses i drilled three holes that i'm going to be installing three dolls into the most important thing is the fact that the top of these holes are all in line in the center i'm going to have a large doll that the bridge of the glasses can rest on while these small holes or small dolls will prevent it from tilting then as for the large dolls i once again fixed the washer on the front to act as a retainer but this time i added a bit of electrical tape around it to prevent the washer from scratching the glasses but i don't think this is going to be a permanent solution i might swap this out for some heat shrink at some point right guys that's the safety glasses stored and organized next up is my squares now i only have a bunch of cheap squares but considering the fact that i depend on these for the accuracy of my work i should have stored and organized them long ago having them lay all over the shop where they can get damaged is not ideal for this one i'm going to start with a frame very much like the one i've used for my hammer rail system once again a three-quarter inch plywood backing and three-quarter inch plywood sides once again i removed the bottom corner with my mitre saw just to clean up the overall look a bit the biggest difference is the chamfer is moved to the inside of the side and this time it is actually functional but i'll get to that in a moment i then made up these one-inch plywood blocks with the corner removed and i added the chamfer to those three edges using the router to make them a little bit easier to handle while cutting off the corners with the mitre saw and adding the chamfer i made them up as large blocks like this then i simply cut them in the center these blocks are going to be fixed in the frame like this to create a slot that i'll be able to store my square in the chamfer is to create a lead end to guide the square into the slot when it is being placed in the holder then to ensure a uniform spacing between all the blocks i'm going to place a piece of quarter inch mdf between them before i secure them once they're secured i'll remove the mdf so [Music] so right so at this point this design should be fairly effective at storing my squares for squares like this however this design will not work so what i'm going to do is at the top here i'm going to add two small slots so i can store these squares in the slot like that so right so the next thing in my shop that's in need of a proper storage system is rags i tried to keep bundles of these offcut pieces of material in my shop for stuff like mopping up spills cleaning up glue or wiping off my hands but i don't really have a dedicated storage system in place that would allow me easy access to the rags when i want to use them so to store the rags i made up this simple mdf box by nailing and gluing a few sheets of mdf together now on the piece that's going to go in the front i'm going to add a slot which will give me access to the rags inside kind of like a big tissue box right so to make the slot i drilled two holes in the front piece here a large one at the bottom and a smaller one at the top i want the slot to run with a bit of a taper because i'm going to be more likely taking rags out the bottom but i made the slot for if the rags bunch up inside and don't drop down i can get my hand in there to push them down then to remove the segment between the two holes to create the slot i'm going to use a technique that i've used on my channel many times before i'm going to cut slightly off of the line with my jigsaw then i will place a piece of wood on the line to act as a guide and with a trim bit or a flash drum bit on my router i will clean up the cut [Music] so hmm hmm [Music] hmm right so that's pretty much it for my cheap and easy rack storage unit now i was planning about 15 small shop organizer projects for this video but unfortunately i have run out of time so if you guys enjoyed this kind of video please let me know in the comments down below and i will try and work in the remainder of the projects in a video in the future the ones i did manage to get to were way overdue and i think the shop is a lot more organized with them here it also gave me an opportunity to use a lot of my off cuts and i think my biggest expense with these projects was the paint for now however it is time to jump back in with my table saw restoration and my ultimate space over if you guys want to see those videos or more videos like this one remember to subscribe but that is going to have to be it for this video thank you so much for watching and once again a massive thank you to you back south africa for sponsoring the video hope you guys enjoyed it till next time cheers

Channel: Woodshop Junkies

Views: 328,134

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Id: PM94Z4eqHJw

Length: 29min 36sec (1776 seconds)

Published: Sun May 23 2021