This topic gets a lot of play here.....people are getting tool caddies (good idea).....some are admitting they are totally disorganized......some advocate a certain type of storage system over others......some say drawers are bad.....peg board is a thing of the past.....french cleats are where it's at......avoid flat surfaces, they just collect stuff.....and tool trays on the back of workbenches cause some to have psychological events.....etc.....etc.
What I'm finding is that the effort to organize my shop is an unending challenge. I reorganize this.....and am reminded that this other thing needs some improvement also.....on and on. I've also had the realization that as time passes and I'm hopefully improving my skills and methods of woodworking, my choices in tools, hardware, etc. are also changing which calls for new means of shop organization to accommodate these changes.
What we are seeing, in the photos people post, is a moment in time where a person has got his shop organized to a certain level/degree......but, it isn't the end product. There is no such thing as perfect organization.....certainly not one type of organizing that should be thought of as applying to everyone.
I have a FIL who has a work area in his basement. He is scorched earth, very frugal and will clean everything every single time he does something. The tradeoff is that he spends more time cleaning than he does making things, but making things costs money and cleaning doesn't cost much, so I think he likes it.
I am on the opposite end of things. I try to keep items in spatial piles, and I will admit that I have 3 times as much as I should and if I could snap fingers and sell off some of the stuff (a lot of it), I would do so.
I've noticed in life that there are two types of people in general - those who really like keeping things in perfect order, and as my father in law would say "taking care of things", and there are folks who are on a jones when they're in the shop looking for stimulation or productivity first. There aren't many people who are both, and Derek and others could probably cite all kinds of studies about the creative mind vs. the organized, etc.
There are few savants who cover both territories - who work with cruel efficiency both in creativity and in organization. I'm a little jealous of them, but I would rather be on the jones than be cleaning.
You mention the folks who take pictures of their shop once it's cleaned. I sometimes clean things just to get to the point of functionality, and when the shop gets really bad, I have a five tool rule. Each time I walk past something or am idle, put away 5 things. It eliminates the stress that comes along with realizing that once I do try to put everything away, I just can't physically do it, and it gets me back to a point where i can actually work.
Apparently, I don't have the sense to know what's acceptable visually for a shop, as I used to post youtube videos and folks horrified by the filth and disarray would leave comments. I always wondered what they make and how much. I get the sense that they may make 30 of the same thing exactly the same way each time, and I don't think I could tolerate that.
...separate and aside, I once heard something from a guy who saws large boards in georgia. "Crosswga" on youtube.
He made a large bandmill out of parts of six trailers according to him. It's a functional cobble.
He said he's told his wife of the theory of spontaneous junk, or something like that, which is as follows: If you have enough junk laying around, sooner or later it will spontaneously turn into something useful.
I showed it to my wife (she doesn't really approve of the woodworking hobby or pretty much any of my "making" hobbies). She wasn't that pleased to see it and criticized the way the sawmiller was dressed
I just got through a monumental several day (or is it weeks) cleanup of my shop since it was causing me a lot of grief trying to find things and a place to work.
I started a project and my wife asked how it was going. I said taking too much time, before I spent too much time looking for my tools and components now I am spending too much time cleaning up as I go to keep the shop tidy.
I have been working on organizing my shop over the last week or two. Actually, for a few months off and on, mostly off.
In the past I just left stuff laying around and somehow, when I returned to the shop, I just picked up where I left off. Then I decided it would be good to develop the habit of putting ten things away when I walked in. So, for a while I did that, even if I just went in there to look at something, I found myself putting ten things away. Now that has turned into an annoyance. I want my "blank". Now I have to look in two places, starting with where it should be if I put it away and then moving on to where I had it last. Or just looking. And looking.
I think the types of things you do in your shop can make a big difference in how you organize. Different areas of my shop get different attention. Most of my shop time concerns woodturning and very little with flatwood projects. Those who build cabinets or furniture would have to organize differently
For the woodturning, I did spend a lot of time thinking about my tool organization in my new shop. I had the advantage of experimenting in two previous shops to figure out what worked for me. I made a plan, set it up and barely changed things in maybe 3-4 years now.
Everything I use most is within arm's reach or two steps, two-five steps for things not often used, and storage elsewhere in the shop for things rarely used.
I basically work within a U-shaped area and make heavy use of the walls, cabinets and shelves, a machinist's tool box for small things, and a workbench immediately behind me with shallow drawers and open shelves. I built shelves out of reach near the ceiling for spray cans and things I access with a grabber. I can't think of any way to make this more efficient, not even if I expanded the space.
Best thing I did was panel the walls with 1/2" plywood so I can mount things anywhere.
With a small class in progress:
My little machine shop area is likewise efficient with almost everything I use within reach in drawers under and cabinets over. It only takes me a few minutes get things ready to turn or mill.
However, my welding and metalworking room is a horrible mess. I didn't allow space to store stock or even the tools I use. I have to spend 20 minutes getting things ready every time I want to make or repair something. My flat wood area is likewise a mess - things are spread around the shop and on the tablesaw and it's an effort to get things ready for use. I simply don't have (i.e., have not reserved) enough room for storage space. More space for both of these areas would be a huge help.
However, I sometimes go for months without using the non-woodturning areas. I think my tunnel vision inspires me to organize the things in my focus and let the others slide. A change of focus would require a realignment or shop addition!
BTW, I admire some of the things like racks and cabinets people have pictured for their tools. Some are works of art and fine furniture quality and sometimes their shops look spotless. However, this is something I have no interest in - I spend what little time I have in the shop using the tools (or teaching) rather than working on the shop.
I have something like your scorched earth policy. My shop use to get to the point where I couldn't proceed without moving stuff off of one surface to another surface, it itself needed to be cleared off first. So I just went to a "pick 3 things up" and put them away....only problem was I didn't remember where some of the stuff even came from...(sometimes projects took days or weeks to go before I hit the "cleanup" event). Anyway, it works for me, and I've been doing it for 20 years or so.
My solution to shop mess, is at the end of a work segment, I start putting stuff away that I'm done with (at least for the short while)... I don't necessarily have to put everything away or much of it, and it makes the end of the project that much shorter since I've done some of the cleanup already. By doing this cleanup at the end of a work segment, it also makes me focus what's the next step is on my project and what I might need for it. Some mental preeration, so to speak.
.... See the blue roll on the wall? It is a cut off portion from a roll of paper towels. There is an idea worthy of the top Fine Woodowrking shop tip award. I keep a roll of paper towels in the shop. Hangs by the clamp rack. I can't recall what it gets used for but it goes away in small bits at a rate of about a roll per year, usually torn(inconveniently) in small strips. Why did I never think of cutting 3-4" off the end of the roll and mounting this section and the remainder on the dispenser?!?
Every shop shot displayed in posts gets scrutinized for tips like this one. I like to see what people are using for this and that and how they keep it conveniently at hand.
Great article, but frankly a bit aspirational. I like to have things put away to the point where I don't have to move something every time I want to carry out the next operation. My shop is rarely in that condition however.
I remember a thread a while ago after another shop cleaning thread 'Post a pic of our shop now'.
I don't have the luxury of working in a messy shop. It's 10 x 10 and if it gets too bad it becomes a trip hazard. Everything has a place and try to keep most of my tools put away
If something is ancillary and not the main point, I have a tendency to not be such a good reader of it.
While it's apparently not what you said, I do think there's still the old fashioned "get this pretty before we take a picture". There's also plenty of commenters in my videos who don't think it's appropriate for me to make videos in a messy shop.
One of the members here in the past didn't like that i tend to work in one area of my shop with the bench up against the wall, too!! (that's a mess minimization technique for me - I used to bring a car in the garage in the winter - shop is an underground garage, but gave up on that. Still work on one spot so that what used to be parking area is open for handling material and items in assembly).
As far as inaccuracy, what we need to do to make it even worse is have a bad reader read my response to your post and then attribute their misreading of my post to your original material
There's a problem for the disorganized when putting away everything at once in a three-times-in-a-lifetime kind of effort. At least for me - things that are stowed tend to be out of view (as opposed to on open shelves) and I have a difficult time finding little-used bits and pieces (like burn in kits, specific hardware or single purpose little jigs or marking tools, etc) that were much easier to locate in a large mess.
It's almost as if you have to clean up a little bit at a time and take pictures and then study them so that you see locations enough to retain them.
For some reason, i can't slow down enough to read roger's post properly, but I can remember a line that I heard in a video (by my comment a little further down) four years ago.
I confess I am a life-long card-carrying slob of the 1st degree. But I finally found something that really helps - working out of a tub.
Besides woodturning, carving, welding, and other shop use (I also incubate and raise guineas and peacocks in the shop, do electronic repair, etc), part of my shop is a maintenance center for farm equipment - diesel mowers, skid steer, excavator, tractor, trailers, various vehicles, and even wheel barrows and spreaders.
I keep all tools inside but do much of the maintenance just outside on one end of the shop or the other. This requires carrying a lot of tools outside and putting them back when done.
I used to carry things outside and lay them around the vehicle or on an adjacent concrete area. When finished, this took a lot effort to locate and collect things, often in the dark with a flashlight, and several trips to put everything back.
I collect what I think I need at first and may make 10 additional trips to get things I find I need while working, but now I take a plastic tub or two outside. Tools go back in the tub when working and when done. This way I can carry the tub back inside and set it down until later when I'm not so exhausted. It keeps everything together and small things don't get lost. It is an easy thing then to carry the tub(s) to the various tool storage shelves and cabinets and put them away. (Of course large tools like the 30" adjustable wrench, porta power, and floor jack won't fit in the tub and are carried separately.)
The tub method is great for working on projects inside the shop too when I have to fetch small tools and supplies from elsewhere in the shop. I set a tub (or smaller container) on the bench or floor nearby. When finished with some, at least for a while, they go in the container instead of staying spread out on the workbench. If I need them again for that project I don't have to search through the clutter on the bench. When done this makes returning everything to it's permanent location far easier since I can carry the tub to the various tool boxes, cabinets, and shelves. If I don't have time to replace them then, when I do have time everything is still in one place - in the tub.
The tub method has saved a lot of frantic searching for where I left that big metric impact socket or tube of antisieze compound or the battery tender or wire crimper.
Same thing with wood blanks for the lathe. When I pick candidate blanks for a lathe project I take a container with me to keep them together. I use smaller, shallow containers to keep up with sandpaper that and small tools like drill bits and depth gauges that I might use again on that project. Specialized tools like Rotary bits and carvng supplies are in their own dedicated containers that I carry to the bench. All this makes it far less painful and more efficient for a confirmed slob to return things when finished.
The tub method does create a different problem - I have lots of empty tubs and containers that I have to figure out how to organize. And it doesn't help a bit with sweeping the floor...
..my projects are smaller, but if they are wandering projects away from the shop, I put the tools in 5 gallon buckets. Same reason - it's not always lovely to dig through a bucket, but it beats checking every windowsill, floor, corner, doorway, etc, for tools. For the honey-do stuff that I used to get an armfull of tools for to go outside or upstairs, and then constantly get a partial armfull, and then over and over, I use the "load the bucket" time to try to think of all of the tools I'll need. What seems like it should be a 4 tool job is always 15, and two trips is easier than 6 (it ultimately appeals to laziness, which I think is a function itself of being more interested in results than pride in process).
