Technical bolt storage or what do you do with your nuts

To me and my shop, yours could be in “Better Homes and Gardens “.

 

Did you notice that I didn't show more of the garage? Definitely not a Better Homes and Garages top 10...

 

Well, I could take a pic of the ghetto

 

I ran a grain elevator for years had access to lot of used grain leg cups mount them on a wall they work great

 

I keep mine in a sack…..a nut sack

 

Well, that took a while!!

Ben

 

Ben, sometimes I just can’t help myself

 

What's a grain leg cup? I know a lot of stuff about a lot of subjects but that's a new one on me.

 

Well, the question was begging for that answer.



Ben

 

I started out 45 years ago with an old tackle box that I would throw my nuts and bolts, and any other hardware in. 30 years later, it grew to a bunch of coffee cans, buckets, jars, piles on the benches, piles on the floor, etc. To find something, I'd kinda remember where it might be, dump a bucket out on the floor and start sifting thru them. It was a frustrating, depressing, waste of time that often led to 45 minute excursion to the hardware store and back.
This situation was driving me crazy!
I am not by nature an organized person. If I don't try really hard, everything becomes chaos. And even trying really hard, I still usually have a mess on my hands. And I always feel like I don't have time to organize, I should focus on getting the car done, not extraneous stuff.
But finally about 15 years I made a commitment to do something about the nuts and bolts. I bought a couple sets of bins, screwed them to an old pallet, and set it on the back of a workbench, screwed to the wall. It helped a lot, but it wasn't big enuff. There was still too many, and buckets and cans were still in use.
So about 6 years ago, I went and bought a 4x8 sheet of particle board that has a white formica facing, and enough bins to fill it, and hung it on the wall behind a table. I have somewhat of a system as to how it is layed out. Rows of bolts by diameter, columns by length, nuts and washers on the right end of the corresponding bolt rows, nut columns for course, fine, course locknuts, fine locknuts, flat washers, lock washers, AN and grade 8 washers, fender washers. Then on the left end of the regular bolts, in the same rows by size, but all lengths together in 1 bin columns for: AN and ARP bolts. studs, carriage bolts, aluminum bolts. Then kind of a hodge-podge of hitch pins, chain links, bushings, and other misc. It is working pretty good. It is so nice to have most of what I need right there and organized, it save SO much time. It has definitely paid for itself in time savings.

Here is the other thing: I quit saving used nuts and bolts. Unless they are clean, like new and 3/8" or up; or OEM, ARP, or something special, they go in the trash. The other stuff isn't worth the time to sort it. I haven't ever taken a picture of it, but here is part of it in the background.

 

I had 2 antifreeze jugs I took to the track. These had the tops chopped off and were so dense they never fell over. Both were full of old hardware, clamps, you name it.

Other racers would come by to sift through them, out of the trunk of my '68 Chevy tow car. Protocol was, dump them out on a floor mat, take what you want...put back whatever you don't use.

 

My great grandpa used to take old jelly jars, nail the kids to the beams in the ba*****t ceiling, then fill the jars with nuts and bolts and screw them into the lids, I do the same thing

 

I like the "throw them on a blanket" and drag it around the car you are working on. Then everything is "right there" .

 

Over time they do wear and need to be replaced 4B Big J - Jumbo™ Steel Agricultural Elevator Buckets and Cups (go4b.com)

 

I also have another one similar for electrical and Rubber grommets etc.

 

Several years ago at a garage sale I bought a pickup bed of metal boxes, I reinforced a store fixture and this is my bolt storage rack. I must have $10 in it

 

1st- A pair of small elevator buckets back to back to put hardware in for use under car.
2nd- Gray tote pans hold pipe fittings, boxed screws, boxed nails. Organizers have car electrical stuf.
3rd- These organizers have Metric stainless and even a few Whitworth.
4th- These have set screws, roll pins, dowel pins, some misc. and a few lug nuts.
5th- Thinner cans cut down to hold stuff.
6th- Most of my nuts, washers and bolts are in these drawers, 1/4" and up.

Gary

 

I have a similar one for my truck, but it has a pressure gauge in it to check the pressure

 

You wouldn't happen to smoke a few cigars now and again would you? Haha

 

Not the kind that come in boxes, too poor. I go to a cigar store and buy them. I look for finger jointed corners and such. That is years of collecting. Oh, and I don't drink coffee. My wife and son seem to like it though. Mike

 

Had a task to sort a 5 gal pail of hardware. At the bottom I found a Biker Gremlin Bell. Still have it after 35yrs.

 

I bought some used dorman cabinets, Works like a charm, I personally have had bins, jars etc, and this has been the best solution so far, I buy in bulk normally at Tractor Supply by the pound when I need to replace things. These are tucked inside a metal storage cabinet so they are out of sight out of mind, small shop woes....

I do like the other guys filing cabinets and other free standing metal options.

 

I bought these two library index card chests back when libraries were switching to computerized book listing. They're solid Maple and heavy as hell. I bought the both of them for $125.00, which included delivery to my shop, unloading and moving them into place. Lots of storage for not only fasteners, but all kinds of hardware.

 

Hello,

Our teenage backyard garage had no organized storage area, other than an old two door white metal cabinet our dad used to keep his fishing stuff inside. reels, parts, new fishing line rolls, his fly fishing stuff and all of the lures he made for fresh and salt water activities. He got a new two door cabinet and gave us the old one. The shelves were evenly spaced out and started getting our little boxes of extra nuts and bolts, etc.

My brother had a way of setting up the multiple rows of shelves. The one that had easiest access from a standing position was the Number one that had a white towel and the current project parts spread out, but would remain there until the project was finished. Then the “important” parts were given their spaces on the remaining shelves. We also were the recipients of our dad’s old fishing tackle boxes he no longer used, due to wear and tear or faded color. We had several that had parts for carburetors and ignition. In the “new” fishing cabinet was always a new tackle box.

He was pretty much the gatherer and organizer of our work area and somehow, through out his experience with his own older teenage friends working areas, got some idea of how he wanted the backyard garage work area set up. Open shelves for storage, but access for parts and smaller boxes of nuts and bolts. The work table below cleared, except for the area to do actual ***embly work. The white metal cabinet for access to get “stuff we needed, but did not use all of the time…” Where did we learn about that aspect of mechanics? Ha!

Jnaki

Moving on during our married life, we started needing containers for the now, gathering parts and new nuts/bolts we had looked at several antique oak library consoles. The ones where we used to go to and pullout a drawer to check out the “card catalog.” Perfect in size and quan***y, but the drawback was that the label had to be specific and we wanted larger labels. Since my brother took most of the parts after we cleaned up the working backyard garage, we had a clean slate to start gathering parts, ourselves.
It was a good thing the building had extra space to the left side of the small two car garage. It was under the stairway leading to the upstairs apartment and gave us plenty of "inset" workable space, besides room for a 65 El Camino, a 62 Corvair and when the Harley cooled off, it was wedged into the far reaches of the corner to allow the two cars to park, inside. All in all, even with a packed house, I was able to do my darkroom developing and photo enlarging processes with plenty of space and light tight door sealing.

We got a couple of old used file cabinets and painted them different colors. My wife liked red, so her stuff was in the one with different color, pull out drawers. Mine was blue with all yellow pull out drawers. Needless to say, they took up floor space, but were packed full of “stuff.” A couple of drawers had photo stuff that could not stay out on open shelves and took up several lower drawers. The car stuff was placed in tiny cardboard boxes stacked in the other drawers.

Then, later on, we used to have the standard clear gl*** marinara sauce bottles screwed into the upper wooden shelf in our garage. It was the easiest way to store the left over nuts/bolts for the next time need or usage. But there are so many sizes. I had a separate tool box little sections for the small parts necessary to make my commercially oriented skateboard/scooters. They had different parts than for our El Camino or station wagon. The gl*** jars were for the standard left over from home projects, cars and such.


We have a policy that keeps the garage somewhat organized and not cluttered. So, when we did our first garage clean out, all of these years later, the majority of the skateboard products got tossed or given away. But, I stored several nuts and bolts to put together several extra boards I had in the attic storage area.

Those nuts and bolts are still in a plastic drawer in a small tool box inside of a cabinet out of sight.
The most common parts for ***embly of any projects for us...
The small sizes of containers/drawers were perfect for the varying sizes of nuts and bolts. But, the more I gathered, the more small blue boxes showed up. Then a row of these drawers fit nicely on the open shelving of our old garages. Finally a larger unit held “more stuff.” So, another whole row of them were on the lower shelves.

Finally, after several purges and give aways, I now have two storage bins for small parts for daily use or repairs. But, as one notices, the small blue drawer on the right still has parts left over from the skateboard/scooter build days. Those sizes came in handy during the family “toddler” stages of our son and toddler granddaughter. Now, 15 years later, haven’t been used for years, just taking up space, but behind closed dust free cabinet doors.

This is in an upper cabinet. The lower cabinet drawers are full of stuff, too. Daily stuff to model car projects to tools and larger tools. It is growing, even after the purges, but necessary for our uses. So, I keep telling my wife. As long as she cannot see the possible mess on the pristine counter, she is ok with the storage solutions, including “her” daily or weekly accessible shallow drawer.

(the excuse for these two last parts cabinets still in the clear drawers, (behind closed doors) is that I still have several new/old skateboards and handles… perhaps, one day…) YRMV

 

I'm into old Fords, so as I tear down parts, I throw the good bolts and nuts into two blue bins. Once full, I take them to a local plater who cleans them and plates them in black zinc. They look factory again once he's done with them.

I found the metal box rack at an auction. Works nice since I can separate them by course, fine or application.

 

I just have two small plastic cabinets with probably around 25-30 drawers each. Had them for 25 yrs. Bought some hanging plastic bins in an attempt to reorganize things, and ended up never using them. I scrounge through them anytime I need hardware, and curse myself for not being better organized. Things are kind of organized based on type, but not thread size. Always super frustrating trying to find mating threads.
So, I then drive 45 mins one way or more into the city to buy what I need, and then become even more frustrated when more than half the time the stuff I need isn’t in the bins.
Don’t get me started with metric hardware and the lack of it at a major “fastener” store in a country that adopted the SI system when I was a kid in the 80s.
I was thinking lately, I should just breakdown, and buy a grand of hardware to save me the aggravation. Rant over. Carry on gentlemen.

 

If you can purchase off Ebay, I'd recommend looking there for your needs. You can get good quality stuff in quanity. They have the nice bolts and nuts with serrated washer flange heads. Depending on size, I buy in larger quan***ies and keep them on hand. Its way cheaper than driving around trying to find stuff.

www.ebay.com/itm/292779237622?hash=item442b00a0f6:g:68gAAOSwjhdbylx9&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4HnBMPZQXNA%2FSpnFqEcRUOQE73jiL3J2wOdq2cetPEChrjQktcQ1YqRYwhBwnrRmYkEUvZ%2Fi1gyp5lPI0ZlEJrtRXUwAeKlt1Vz8bPDX3ZzEec2sQSxnRd8pttCAUCdPgzTpUhC8udNnh3SIvwrcOVFdsDtTcn22nPY4NWBIPNpWHCwqUIIWwo6zPOBsjoXgdhpT5kTO8r3S50n4NS%2FStabSteRz72%2FF%2B0m%2Br0glRxd93Mg5wEVD56D2AmILsZZcFXmo63RrGpyiyAJuNjK**DCTMp1Vu88QFFto0AIzpOgw%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR7jc4YKjYw

 

ebay to Canada is not really practical. Shipping is either super expensive or not offered to here.
I Like the non-serrated flanged nuts and bolts, they don't wreck paint as bad.

 

I definitely gotta get organized for hardware by springtime...some great storage ideas , some great bargain finds too...