So, there are two types of people in the world. Those for whom the shop is *for* their hobby, and those for whom the shop *is* the hobby. For the last six months at least I’ve definitely been in the latter group. However, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Last year, I was getting to the state where I’d go out to the workshop to do some work and just be overwhelmed with how much clutter there was. There was a lot of things that had no place to live, which meant they were all left on the side piled high. There was no place left to put anything down and no way for me to do anything productive in there, with tools I couldn’t get to without shifting the rubbish from one place to another.
Of course, that wouldn’t do. I needed to get in there and do something about it. To tackle this I had a few ideas:
- Declutter. Lots of things that I don’t need any more. Either something I got and just never use, or old tools that I’ve since upgraded.
- Give everything a place to live. If something has somewhere to be stored, then its easy to put away.
The first step was easy. Make a pile of things that I no longer need and palm them on to friends and other local clubs like Lancaster and Morecambe Makers. Something just got scrapped, but I’m not a fan of throwing things away if they’re just no use to me. Theres always someone who can make use of an item. This step I found quite cathartic.
Step 2 is a bit more difficult, but also the fun bit, time to build some shop infrastructure. The main problem was storage for all the nuts and bolts I had, along with various tools.
Shadow Foam Wall
I saw Shadow Foam on a Colin Furze video, and I always like to support small businesses wherever possible and it looked like a great solution. Of course I bought way too much, but I’m sure I’ll use it all at some point. The first thing I made was something I’ve wanted for ages, and that was to sort out all my various measuring and marking tools into an easy to reach system.
Remarkably easy to use and cut out the shapes, they supply all the tools you need. I collected all the measurement tools I had and laid them out on two full sheets of foam and started cutting around them. I knocked up a couple of 3d printed brackets to hold it all on the wall, and just like that I had a chunk of my garage sorted. It was great motivation to start work on the rest.
Just having all this gear in easy reach made things so much easier too, and I was more likely to use the right tool rather than guesswork or making do because I couldn’t find something.
Storage Drawers
The next thing to tackle was all the storage I needed for various small items. I had so many random boxes and bags of bolts (both metric and imperial – thanks R2!) and other various items that were strewn around the workshop in various places. All very inefficient and led to me buying duplicates of things I already had.
The one thing I wanted to utilise in all this was a system by a guy on Youtube called Zach Freedman that he had developed, Gridfinity. This is similar to the other system I’ve been using by Alex Chappel. A standard grid with various sizes of containers. Unfortunately the two are incompatible with each other, with gridfinity being more open and has a large following who are making all sorts of custom containers.
So the storage had to be compatible with gridfinity. In practice, this just meant the drawers would be a multiple of 42mm wide and deep internally, and a set height to take what is referred to as a 9u gridfinity box. With the drawer dimensions set, I started putting together an idea for a large storage unit with 10 drawers and a couple of cupboard spaces.
Cutting up full sheets of plywood isn’t fun in a tiny shop when its raining outside, but I got it done and I’m extremely pleased with the results. It isn’t going to win any awards, but its more than adequate for a shop solution. With clamp storage on the sides, all my nuts and bolts are finally sorted and easy to get to, along with various other things like my leatherworking tools. Just need to find the time to go through and label both the drawers and all the boxes inside them. Still a work in progress of course, what shop infrastructure isn’t, but just this one piece has made my workshop so much more usable.
More gridfinity
Along the back of my main workbench I had some desktop organisers and a few random pots that were getting very full and disorganised. This was never going to do so I printed some thick gridfinity bases that allowed for screwing into worktops and put them down all along the back of the bench.
Its still not in the best state, but I’ve been adding to it over the months and its so much better than the random mess that was there before. My CA and epoxy glues that I use all the time are much easier to reach, all the pens and pencils are sorted, and not shown on this picture are the sets of mini gridfinity drawers I’ve printed that now hold things like grommets, spade connectors, nail gun nails and staples, etc.
I’m still printing containers out but its a massive improvement already.
Next….
I’m not stopping here of course, theres still some other things I want to work on. But at least my garage has now turned from one big mess, into a handful of little messes.
Next up, I’m working on a new mitre station with more gridfinity sized drawers behind it. This is going to replace a load of part bins I had on the wall which were not the easiest thing to use as storage, and excelled at catching and keeping sawdust! Along with that I’ve been working on combining the separate router table and table saw into a single unit. This brings the table saw up to a more usable height, and is also a lot easier to get in and out. Having that in an easy to reach place means I’m more likely to use it, which made this second set of drawers a lot easier and quicker to make.
Just waiting on some plywood to be delivered to finish those projects off.
After that, maybe I’ll work on the drill press. I really would like a nice fence and big table for it. Plus some better lighting!
But for now, the workshop is slowly transforming from a project in itself, to a place to do projects. I’ve even managed to do work on some of those projects. Learning woodworking by making a dovetail box, did some work on BB8, and also finished the rewiring of my CNC (and then crashed a £50 bit into a screw head!).