Topic

Well I seem to have a tool fetish can't stop buying stuff and after buying a halfords industrial tool chest I looked at different ways of optimising the space in the drawers....I saw how tool companies sold foam inserts for the chest with sockets and spanners inlay ed in them....they call them eva shadow inserts....shadow because the top layer of foam normally black or grey and a lower foam layer in red...so when a tool is missing it shows the lower foam colour alerting you a tool is awol...these systems are expensive so I decided to make my own eva inserts....A Saturday trip to aldi is where I purchased the eva foam....the eva mats are general purpose yoga mats,kids play area,garage etc..I bought a pack in grey and a pack in light blue...there's 6 mats per pack and 1 pack was under a tenner...using just a stanley knife I cut the bottom layer in my case blue and fitted it to the tool chest drawer.

After carefully placing tools I on the grey layer workin out spacing for max storage..I cut them out carefully.
This is the grey layer fitted over the blue layer...clearly showing absent tools.

In my case this drawer held all my measuring equipment for engine rebuilds..mics..digital calipers,and the like...pleased with the first attempt has it makes it look more professional .got plans for the other drawers...just under hour and half to complete this particular drawer.

Good stuff! I never had the need to own my own various sized mics as, working in the power industry I had access to mics and similar up to 1 metre (yep... Biiiig-ass) and everything in between. I just have now in my toolbox 0 to 1 inch mic, Vernier caliper: manual, not a sissy digital, and a DTI with mag clamp for disc runout etc. I bought a Marshall Snap-On ripoff roller drawer cabinet a few years back for my car tools, and various boxes with my DIY stuff stored neatly. To do DIY when the nagging becomes unbearable. Tools are neat but not neat like yours.... Food for thought! Top drawer sockets, next down metric combo and open enders, next rings, next imperial: AF and Whitworth, (will come in handy maybe) next molegrips and rad pliers and hammers, pop riveter, bottom drawer: serious big stuff.

Love tools: recently bought a chainsaw: how have I lived so long without a chainsaw for gardening purposes in my life..... Our back garden now looks like Vietnam circa 1968: napalm, Agent Orange, Johnny's chainsaw.... little vegetation remains.....

Brilliant idea am going to try this on Gerry's tool cabinet. I always put things in the wrong drawer then spend half my time looking for them.
A few years ago I saw the same idea on a garage wall. The owner referred to it as a shadow board. I copied it and it's still in use today. Will take a photo and post it

Dave
El gordo escoces

About 40 years ago I spent a hell of a lot of time and effort setting up a whole workshop that I shared with my father with walls of shadow boards for tools...........what a complete bloody waste of time that was.
Dad would never put anything back where it was meant to go, most of the time he'd just leave tools where they were last used, if somehow he'd manage to hang them on one of the walls it'd be on the first hook he'd find, nearly always on in the wrong place and usually on the wrong wall!
Around 12 years later we set up a new workshop, the old bugger wanted me to do shadow boards cos he said he could never find anything in the old workshop..........bugger that!

Poor ol' Dad is long gone now, and I still don't have shadow boards, but not for the same reasons, now I have so much stuff I couldn't possibly ever have enough wall space to hang it all from.
And now most of my work is at clients premises, so most everything needs to be in carry boxes and tool chests.
I couldn't even use the shadow foam set up in the tool chests as I have to jam that much stuff in them, I can't afford the space the foam would take up.
The poor ol' work ute has to carry so many tools it has to drag it's arse up the road like a terrier with worms!

Managed to start another drawer ...this time ratchets 1/2inch..3/8..1/4..breaker bars..torque wrench etc..bit harder this time has the mics etc were a bit more low profile....the ratchets being bigger at one end sat in the foam ok..but to finish it off I will trim a bit of the blue layer to help them sit more flush and a scalpel from ebay is on its way.
Unfinished ratchet drawer below.

The next picture is the same tools without the eva foam...they were neat when just placed in the drawer but they never went back in the same place so when you were after a tool it could be in the wrong place a nd opening and shutting the drawers all day moved them around...

Yes there is some old vernier in my box as well as the sissy digital...

Oh yes love chainsaws..spend most Saturday mornings swinging one about..got 3 of em now and was going to make a chainsaw bike out of one just for fun.

Another tool system I tried was to pin them on a pegboard...it's great because you think your in a tool shop.

Spanners neatly on racks...didn't fancy cutting around themanyway...the racks tilt the spanner allowing more spanners per drawer and displayed in order.

at least I know where to come to when I need a spanner

You didn't get the xxxx adds in Australia that we got over here Cobber.
Your post reminded me of this.

Ah, shadow boards... Beloved of the college workshop wall back in the day. And my early minimalist spanner collection days.

The absolute bestest tool storage I've ever seen, better than F1 cosseted luxury, is an Alstom turbine portable workshop. 20ft container stacked out with floor to waist height drawer units. Custom cut outs for each and every tool. Reason: important to be able to account for any missing tools, which may possibly have been lost inside the turbine. Shift change = tool audit: all back in place. All tools have a unique identifier, both visible and also detectable only by sneaky means. Instantly obvious if owt is missing. Puts Merc F1 garage to shame.

Well since I started spannering full time I've lost over £130 worth of spanners..favourite to go awol were 10mm ratchet spanners ...found 1 missing 15mm long spanner 2 years later it had been borrowed never to be returned and had been ground down for a job...that 1 spanner alone was £15...cheap by some standards but having more and more tools of my own at work it was time to keep track of them.

After viewing all these OCD Tool fetish photos, I am too deeply ashamed to show you my workspace. Tools everywhichway.🛠

Very impressive, however my problem is what to do with redundant stuff. Centre stage in one of MGTFBSes pictures is a Stanley Yankee pump 'driver, I haven't used mine since I bought my first electric 'driver, yet it still nestles unused in a drawer. Glance over my familial shoulder & I see a long line of engineers, all of whom have handed something down to me & when I croak my son will get it all. He's an engineer & has a tool kit which would be the envy of many a pro'. My daughter, although now a teacher is a qualified sound engineer, so she'll get the sound equipment & both will need bigger houses after my residue is cast to the wind. So yes tool collecting is a fetish.
A comment for the sub group who appreciate the fineries of the chainsaw; armed with my Husqvarna battery saw I'm off to the top of the garden to see if, under the undergrowth, it's still there.

Yes the stanley pump driver...had it passed down to me when I first started working with diesel engines...no air gun or battery operated impact guns for me back then..found the need to take sumps of engines while they were suspended or should I say dangling from a iron fairy....a crane based on a ford thames trader....hook a engine up with it and take the sump of to look inside...never liked being under a engine which sometimes weighed in at a ton....so I welded a 3/8 drive extention bar to one of the stanley bits and hey presto I could whizz the sump pins off pump action style....less time spent under it the better....but health and safety has taken over...the crane long gone has a insurance inspector said he heard a rumbling from the rope drum...now and again I get the pump action stanley out just for fun and can I use the word...(whazz)my head bolts down on the engine before torque.😎
Below image of the said stanley pump driver and a coles iron fairy