If I straighten it up I wont be able to find anything,I decided to clean up a small section of the garage last week and found a couple things I lost a couple years ago.
It is a constant cycle. Start a project, a pile of materials, scrap parts and tools build up. I get to a point I have no flat working surfaces tripping on stuff and cant find my tools. I put everythiing away feel good about myself and repeat. Dave
I've a woodworking and metalworking shop that shares space with a New Beetle, my Falcon and my Triumph Tiger 955i. Equipment is: 3' x 7' workbench (woodworking). 3' x 8' steel-topped workbench. 3' x 4' workbench. 2 bandsaws, steel and wood. 2 tablesaws, 1 converted to disc sander. Miller Syncrowave 250 TIG. Planer. Jointer. 1 roll-around cart. 1 5.5' tall toolbox. Safety-Kleen #14 parts washer. Drill press. Oxy-acetylene torch set (the big one, with cart). 2 grinders on stands. Shop vacuum with dust collection tag-along (basically two vacs, tied with one hose). And all of this fits (cars and bike, too) into a 24' x 24' garage. Everything save two workbenches are on wheels. And, yes, it means I spend about 1/2 hour moving everything back when I finish. Guess that means I have to be slightly organised, else nothing would fit. Cosmo
Im definitely guilty of this as well. As time has gone on I have gotten sick and tired of spending more time chasing tools around the shop than actually using them. As I have been cleaning I have been trying to actually ORGANIZE the mess into something that actually functions as a space, not just something that disassembles itself into chaos as soon as you turn your back. You have to make it easier to keep it clean, or in other words making it messy requires MORE effort than it would have to just put stuff back away. I have been using the general concept of the 5S methodology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology) to help get things in order. It really helps make sense of cleaning and organizing for me anyways. I think the ultimate answer is a big shop, pallet racking and a forklift...some day
My disorganization is actually a cleverly efficient way to fool myself into thinking I don't have any room for any more stuff. If I can see concrete floor, I'll find something to cover it.
I'm always in the progress of cleaning, throwing junk out and organizing during and between projects. Just never seems to get done.
I was completely unorganized until I went on blood pressure medicine last August. Since then, I have felt like a new man. I cleaned, and built a new bench in the shop, organized it into work zones according to what I want to do, and am building both a parts washer and a media blasting cabinet. I wired in my welder, and installed 16 outlets and a pegboard in / above the new bench. I moved most of the non-car related things to my other shop.... Only keeping the woodworking things, and them only until I wire up the other shop. I work in a 30 x 40 pole barn, and store things in a 24 x 40 metal barn, or under the 22 x 40 lean-to on the side. I love my new house! Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2
I've always thought that the TOOL BOX companys are missing a huge market by not selling a work bench with a full length hinged lockable lid. Cause my tools are not in the box....but all over the bench.....I"d buy one!
I can't get anything when my shop gets very messy.... light clutter is ok but anything past that and it's time to clean shop
Hahaha that's me! I built some heavy duty shelving, numbered the shelves and coordinates, and started an excel spreadsheet. I go around the garage and pick stuff up, put it on the shelf and write down the location. Works fairly well except now you have to have a laptop to carry around and get greasy prints on, so hard to be consistent. Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app
My shop was built in the early 1940's. My grandfather built it. He kept it very clean. He could get a 1940's International Model K-11 dump truck in there, and still have room to walk around it. But when I got the shop, things went down hill fast. I started out keeping it clean, but, things just piled up, eventually. As of now I have only a path, from the front door, over to the fuse box, and to the big doors, and over to the other side of the shop. That is about all. The term Extreme Horder has been applied to me several times. However, I know EXACTLY what is in there. I know EXACTLY where to go for the item, even though it is messy in there. But yea I need to get in there, and clean house, big time! Need to get it back to the way it was. Its just the idea of getting at it. It will get done... I hope.
close but I prefer Whoarder, thank you very much I consider mine as a cleaver anti theft device. as long as I can't find anything no one esle could either. harder to steal I'm just moving to a new shop. seems like a perfect time to organise. problem I'm running into is I keep downsizing to smaller shops. 3rd shop in only 23 years
everytime i clean up i find parts "i need or should sell" they end up in the corner .where they stay.... my work bench is just a really nice catch-all... the area around the vice is kinda clear....
I won't worry too much about it until I discover something like a complete engine or a whole car I forgot I had.
Its obvious that you have never photographed a cluttered garage. I photographed my 40X80 but by the time you step back far enough to get the picture, the clutter is just a mass of pixels.
Sorry guys, i'd take pitchers but it wouldn't do any good the only bucket's i know about you carry water in them, totally computer illiterate thank god for spell check ,Just go to the nearest land fill and take a good look that's my garage
If I cleaned up I would never have time to get anything done. Spent two hours looking for the hard facing rods I put awaylast time I cleaned up.
my problem is all the good stuff i bring home from work that they just toss out...save it till i get pissed from moving it around then end up scraping it or tossing it..my son is quite a bit better than me he keeps things tiddied up pretty well!
I'm hoping to move into a place with a bigger garage, half my garage has made it's way into the house,which has become half garage, if I had a bigger garage I could put all my car collectibles and stuff hanging up, signs, etc all out there in one place, I just ran out of room, and since you never stop collecting car parts, they now go directly into the house. I have a loft out there, but the car is on stands and blocks, and I cant put up the ladder, getting up there involves climbing like a monkey, and with a broken back, thats not happening, I'm clueless whats up there
I have what I call MAADD, or Middle-Aged Attn Deficit something...look, a kitty! I'll be working on something in the shop. A shiny object distracts me in the middle of that job. I go to the next task, which is always unrelated to the first. Another shiny object catches my eye. Attention diverted yet again. Nothing really gets "done". It sucks. The drop axle project on my Dodge pickup is in month number eight...there is maybe three hours of work left to finish. I pulled the cluster out of my Coronet two months ago. Finishing that project should take two hours. I was going to drain the years-old gas out of my son's project van, but I got as far as crawling under the van and disconnecting the fuel lines. See what I mean? So, as a result of all that, my shop has tools all over the place, a truck up on stands, and a car that should be back on the road right now. For me, the problem is being easily distracted out in the shop by things unrelated to the current task at hand. And it does suck.
My garage is exactly that as well, I have to keep my workspace clean at work, so home is the total opposite. The wife is amazed that I can remember seeing a wrench on the floor by the passenger front wheel 2 weeks before.
The only part I feel ok about is that everything is in the garage(s). Now, my Uncle, on the other hand- a 2 car attached garage, a generous 3 car garage and a 50' quonset hut and one car inside. And no room to walk in any of them. Thought I needed to tie on a safety rope last time I went looking for something there. So, as in all of life, it's relative. right?
The Jalopy Journal
