Clean workbench??

Why would you want to clean up your workbench? It looks like there are closet doors in front of it. Close the doors and... Presto! the workbench is clean.

At least that is how I "clean" things.

I'd post a picture but I'm not to sure which pile my camera is buried under at the moment.

Work Bench's

Since Rick started this with "my work bench is messier than yours" I thought I'd join in.

The door to the man cave with in a man cave. This was a couple of years ago:

At the door.

Two years ago inside. Left side.

The right side.

The three metal working machines. Grizzly mill, Sherline lathe, grizzly 9 X 19 lathe.

The this past year I redid the shop with kitchen counters. One 12ft on the left and an 8ft. in the back.

Added a shelf and cabinet. But those darn tool gremlins come back at night and mess up the workbenches every time I try to keep them clean. So I gave up.

So now you can see were the projects I post are made. On a messy work bench. Darn Gremlins.

Bernd

Ok,

DK when can I expect you to come by and do the same for me?????

Bernd Take heart. FWIW,

Bernd

Take heart. FWIW, when I entered the workforce in the dark ages (mid 1970's), there was a saying -

" A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind".

So you are normal.   I only have a 24" x 18"  work area, and not a lot of tools, so it hard to get it too messy, but last week, I did have to organize it a little.  I would like to clear off some space in the garage, so I can work out there for the messy/smelly stuff.  Maybe when it get a little cooler.  Fall is my outdoor time - I hate summer.  It is my hibernating season.

Hiding the mess

That's been my solution for the last few years.  Even now, the doors are closed to keep the cats off (mainly to protect the cats, not the models).  However, it got to the point that I was doing all my modeling work on a flimsy TV tray in another room because I couldn't get to the workbench.  When I needed to find some parts today, it was the last straw, and something had to be done.  Besides, I built the nice peg board surround for the desk, and I had all the hooks, but I'd never bothered to put everything in it's place.  Hopefully now I can keep it a little neater.

I really think that physicists need to re-think gravity a little.  Entropy has gravity far in excess of what the mass alone would suggest.  I think it is entirely possible that all the dark matter in the universe is really just a giant mess, and the entropy of that mess is generating its own gravity.  A good universal spring cleaning, and all the dark matter will go away.  Of course, then we'd all fling off into space, no longer held by the extra gravity, and out planet would become a dark place pretty fast.  So perhaps messes are essential to maintain life as we know it.

I don't work cheap

You cannot afford my rates, Gary!  Actually, it only took me about 2 1/2 hours.  As you can see, though, I already had the makings of organization - drawers for parts, trucks, couplers, metal, styrene, scraps, detail parts, tools, decals, etc, plus that pegboard.  It was really just a matter of moving everything and then putting it back in the right order.

I know the saying

Believe me when I say nobody can accuse me of a sick mind. Just ask my wife. Naw, on second thought don't bother.

Bernd

My wife once.....

...... "put some order" in my hobby room. Used common sense ( all pointy things in a big coffee can, everything square in another, roundy thingies in another, and so on ). Suffice to say that the lions at the Miami Zoo ( 60 miles away ) ran deep into their cages and refused to come out for days. YEARS later I still find misplaced parts. Put a warehouse-type lock on the door and made the room off-limits unless I am present. We are doing fine now.

It may be a mess...

But it's MY mess!  My wife tries to organize our kitchen from time to time, and I can never find anything after she does.  I've finally given up and adopted a system as close to the one her mother uses as possible, so that hopefully things will seem natural to them - and I've just learned to manage.

...

You can't work if you can't see your tools, your parts, your goals, all laid out before you, now can we??!

shelving

Would it be a lot easier to put shelving underneath the work bench then all tins , bottles and boxes could be stored

out of the way thus giving plenty of room to work on the bench top and also keep tools in separate compartments 

such as screwdrivers chisels hammers rulers pencils or whatever and also have them marked so as not to go

looking through every box for what you require and would also save time . just an idea as it works for me .

Shelves are good, but..

If I were building a workbench from scratch, I'd definitely have shelves underneath it, as well as above, on the side, and anywhere else that I could fit them.  I like shelves.  As it happens, though, I'm using an old desk that I found super cheap, so I'm a bit limited in what I can put underneath.  The top is a separate piece I built some time ago, to house a light, outlets, and a master switch as well as the obvious pegboard.  The top doesn't have a "roof," but I used the doors which I had to remove (now that it's stashed in a closet) to make a surface on which I could stack bins, drawers, and miscellaneous stuff.  I do need to empty the books, slides, and computer stuff out of the desk drawers so that I can store my projects in the nice deep spaces provided.

As far as labeled drawers, I have the tools and parts pretty well sorted, and I know where I put everything.  Besides, with the clear plastic drawers, I can see what's inside.

Someone made a big mess in the train room.

I thought my wife and I had an agreement.  The train room is mine and the rest of the house is hers.  She is not to mess around in my train room,  Well, yesterday I came home from work to find a bigger mess in my train room!  She had decided she would help me to clean up my train room while I was at work. During her efforts, apparently early in her efforts, she shifted the books and magazines on a shelf the wrong way and it all came tumbling down onto the floor and in the process hurt her finger.  She immediately gave up and retreated to another bedroom she uses as her studio.  She left the mess she made for me.  Now it is up to me to organize it again in my way.

Den

Storage

One problem I have is that any horizontal clean space is fair game for storage.

As far as the wife rearranging my railroad stuff.  Will never happen. Why? I'd rearrange all her antique clocks. Fair game as far as I'm concerned.  

Bernd

How mine looks startig out

I know it's going to become a disaster, but just for the record, my workbench as it looks now. I think the key is having a dedicated storage place for everything. But I know that only works until you get something that doesn't fit into your dedicated storage category or until you but something that is too big or awkwardly shaped to fit your previous storage parameters. My goal is to limit projects, and therefore limit the clutter that comes with working on a project. It's been a good strategy so far.

Those magnetic strips

Greg,

Do you find that those magnetic strips magnetize your tools? I noticed the screw drivers and tweezers there. I've always found that it magnetizes tools and then every little piece of steel sticks to the tools and some start to look like they need a shave.

Bernd

Keeping the wife out

I have a simple way to keep the wife out of my train room and to never get into an argument about what area I can use as a train room.

Don't have a wife.  Works well for me..... your mileage may vary.

-Doug M

A happy bachelor with the WHOLE basement for his train.

No wife? No way!

I'll trade the occasional frustration and need to share space for all the benefits I get.  I like having someone to come home to and share my life with.

...

This girl I'm seeing had a very positive reaction to the club layout...aka, she passed the toy train test....

...she said we need more space....

A little more work

Even more functionality!  Neater workbench!  More work space!

Can you tell I'm happy?

I had built these project boxes some time ago, using dollar store silverware drawer organizers.  I've been looking for a creative way of stacking them up so that I could still get to them easily, and figured it would be some sort of shelf design.  While shopping this morning, I realized that I could use these cheap, simple peg hooks.  I may need to get a couple more, maybe some smaller ones for the other side, for smaller boxes.

Drawers

Gentlemen,

I have about 100 plastic drawers in my work shop. Most are not labeled, a friend of pointed out that the drawers that are labeled have a MISC label on them. When I was younger I could find stuff, now I know it's in a drawer, I just can't remember which drawer.

I have amassed a large number of parts. If I have more than one of any type part, I try to put each part in a different place. That way I have a better chance of finding one when I need it. As I get older I find new ways to cope.

Regards

John

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Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction. Will Rogers

Removable drawers

One of the things I like about those cheap plastic drawers which you can see atop my workbench is that they're easy to take out and set on the workbench.  That way, I can easily look through them to find the item I need.  I also find it helpful to sort by whatever logic suits your deranged brain and modeling style.  For me, I keep detail parts in two, screwdrivers in another, cutting tools; drills and taps; electrical bits; metal bits; plastic bits; miscellaneous scrap bits; steam locomotive parts; wheels and couplers; decals; paint (by brand); lubricants.  The organization fits my mind and I am able to easily pull a drawer out and find what I'm looking for.  The trick (for me) is to never mix the drawers, so that I'm never looking for a screwdriver in the drill bits, or styrene in the miscellaneous scrap box.

Here's what I use

Here a few pictures of what I use. I got them at the local Lowe's home improvement store. They are made by Plano. They are 14" X 9" and have compartments that you can size length wise, but not side ways, to your needs.

Here's one with wheels and trucks in it. Nice to be able to view through the top to see what's inside.

Have about 2 dozen or so. Now all I need is a place to store those.

Bernd

...same here...

Bernd, those things are wonderful...I'm scared to go through my stack sometime!

I just put up a Lumber Rack on a wall, it's basically a couple shelving brackets with just the arms on the racks.  This allows me to very comfortably store my 3' dowel and hardwood pieces on my wall, instead of in a pile on the golden hortizontal space.