A toolbox is not much more than a tool garage inside your car garage, which means it’s merely a scaled-down version of the lack-of-space problem that plagues car enthusiasts. How do we fit the 10 pounds of stuff we love into the 5-pound bag we can afford? There’s always the option of just shoving stuff in until the drawers barely shut, but all that does is make finding anything frustrating at best and time-consuming at worst. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t have infinite time to work on my old projects, so being efficient is worth a little effort.
That doesn’t mean going completely off the deep end and turning your toolbox into a spick-and-span spot that would make a boot camp drill sergeant blush. There is a middle ground, and here are five tips that might help you find the happy medium between chaos and being so organized that you are afraid to take anything out.
It’s obvious, but once you have a toolbox to contain your stuff, using organizers to separate tools is the easiest way to keep tools handy each time you go to grab them. Organizers have come a long way in the last handful of years thanks to the widespread availability of 3D printing. Custom-sized trays, rails, or dividers have never been easier to design using free computer-aided-design software, and can be printed by an online source or even a local library should you choose not to buy a printer yourself. The ability to put sockets or wrenches in tidy order can be truly wonderful, but it is also important to be careful and…
The other edge of the organizer blade is that having perfectly organized tools often takes up more space than things thrown haphazardly into a drawer. As an example, I used Kaizen foam to lay out a few of the drawers in my toolbox, and to be honest, it led to a lot of dead space. The drawer is visually attractive, but I could fit more inside if I didn’t so carefully fit each part and piece next to one another. It’s a balance. Just having sockets on rails to keep them together might be enough, so beware of focusing too hard on making your toolbox pretty.
Most toolbox drawers have a surprising amount of depth to them considering how relatively small most hand tools are. With the right positioning, it’s easy to stack items inside the drawers without creating piles. This essentially doubles the storage space inside some drawers, but the downside is that it also makes it very easy for the underlying items to fall victim to “out of sight, out of mind.” In the throes of a project, it is easy to forget that the line wrenches or the second set of sockets are actually underneath my wrench organizers. I like to think I’ve got a pretty good memory for keeping track of what tools I own and when to use them, but occasionally have to remind myself there are indeed more tools than I can easily see inside my box.
If you find yourself stacking and hiding tools from yourself, it might be time to take a hard look at what you’ve got and if it makes sense to retain it all. I keep my fair share of tools that I just simply cannot get rid of for one reason or another, but have also actively gone through and removed, sold, or gifted away tools that have, for whatever reason, become duplicates of duplicates. Do I really need three sizes of the same hammer? Of course not, but I’ll be keeping all my “spare” ratchets for the foreseeable future.
Toobloxes are wonderful, but convenience can trump even the most organized drawers. For many years, I was not a fan of pegboard or leaving my tools out in two different places. I preferred having all my tools in one spot, even with an overfilled toolbox and having to give up a small amount of time to open drawers and get tools out. But the more work I did in my current garage, the more certain tools rose to the top. Hanging my Allen wrenches and a set of common-size T-handles right at the back of the bench has made wrenching more enjoyable and also helped free up a small amount of space in the toolbox.
Could I avoid all of this by buying a larger toolbox? Maybe. I don’t want a larger toolbox, though, as that would cost me floor space that I really don’t have even in my larger-than-average shop. Instead, these methods enable me to keep growing my skills and capabilities without forcing a large investment. Hopefully, they can help you in your shop too.
I just scatter my tools all over my shop and in a few of my vehicles and that makes all kinds of room in the toolbox
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