Thread: Fastener storage: what's your recommendation?

We're acquiring a good number of fasteners, mostly SHCS, and it's getting a little hard to find what I need, when I need it. We assign our own internal part number to each item we use in an assembly, but right now, I have a box full of boxes of screws from McMaster.

I'm looking at p/n APRD120Y on the last page of http://www.alliedelec.com/images/pro...S/70145051.pdf but was wondering if anyone had some other kind of wonderful solution for fastener and other small part organization? Eventually I want to fill out at least the SHCS section with several lengths of each. Probably flat heads, too.

I would use a vidmar with 3" deep drawers and drawer dividers to make individual bins . finding the right fastener is faster when you can pull out a drawer and look down on a selection

I was in a similiar boat. I was finding two and three boxes of the same bolts and fittings I had re-ordered and decided to do something about it. I bought 4 of the 72 bin steel fastener bins. They work great, can't be happier with them. Easy to find whatever I need in a few seconds.

I have some of the 6' wide 5' tall Vidmars and I don't like them for fasteners. I feel like filling a many thousand dollar cabinet with a grand or so worth of bolts is a waste.

This listing has the good price
*Tennsco 7 drawer File Cabinet*

This listing has the photo
*Tennsco 7 drawer File Cabinet*

These are Austin craigslist, shouldn't be a long drive

Same seller, it seems (check the phone number)

Was $200, now $100.



It's hard to say what category a seller will use, I just search on "file" in all categories, and they pop up every once in awhile. Same as flat files; look long enough and you find one.

I think the bin on page 11 of you flyer is a good choice. I don't care for drawers. The bins can be sub-divided for smaller fasteners.

If your not dealing with large quantities, I've used this style for organizing hardware.

Compartmental boxes with fixed compartments.

McMaster-Carr

Tom

It depends on your budget and how many sizes you need to organize.

I have two 12 drawer Lista cabinets filled with 3x3, 3x6 and a few 6x6 plastic bins from Schaller mfg. in New York.
Lista Plastic Boxes

The two cabinets take up 6 feet x 3 feet of floor space and I have roughly 800 different sizes of fasteners in them.
It took a long time to label and organize but if you need proper organization with a part # for each bin it's the way to go.

Having them in drawers makes assessment of stock levels quick and easy as well.
I bought a Brother label printer and labelled every bin so it's a snap to find sizes.

Akro bins are ok, but once you get a lot of sizes they take up too much space.

Something like this:

I like the ones on page 12 where all the bolts stay in the front of the bin and are easy to get.

Especially if the bin is in your assembly area

I use these in the shop at work:

Gripper and Round Jars with Caps - Consolidated Plastics

Buy them by the dozen and put one size per jar. Use a label maker to mark the front and lid of the jar with the size and part number.

Makes seeing when you need to order a breeze and you can take the appropriate sizes with you when you need to go away from the bench. The square bottles will fit nicely in the 8" drawers of a Lista double-wide cabinet.

Check around at used office furnishing places, I bought a cabinet like S_W_ for 10 bucks, it used to hold two rows of 5 x 7 cards in the day and is bulit like a brick *&^%house. It is filled filled with probably 400 to 500 pounds of hardware and came with all sorts of dividers. I mean this thing could hold a nother couple hundred pounds if it had the room inside. They are really awsome if can them.

What size is the area you have to devote to fastener storage? I like open front cabinets. The downside is since they are shallow, they require a lot of wall space. If your space is less long but deeper, you need something with drawers. More narrow and even deeper, go with the Lista style deeper drawers.

Originally Posted by gbent

What size is the area you have to devote to fastener storage? I like open front cabinets. The downside is since they are shallow, they require a lot of wall space. If your space is less long but deeper, you need something with drawers. More narrow and even deeper, go with the Lista style deeper drawers.

This is going to sound wrong but it isn't exactly a major decision. Top line, second from the left is a good start.

raaco reol - Google-søgning

Your looking for something with small sliding drawers and that can easilly be marked as to what is in each drawer. Isn't that something every decent sized hardware store has?

Gordon - Unfortunately, here in the US, alot of hardware stores are going to the small, heat-sealed plastic bags (that you have to destroy to open) for their fasteners. This is what we call "progress". (Insert sad face here.)

We use these;



from this company.

Material Handling Equipment-Indianapolis, IN-Meyer Material Handling

If you can afford it, buy twice as many as you think you need. They are a huge time saver.

To add to the above (which is how I do it), there are ready made sheets that fit a sleeve with adhesive back for the inside of the cover. Mine are Dunham (Durham?) brand. The sheets match the container configuration below. That way you can write out the size of all these fasteners too. That is very helpful because a 10-32 sure looks the same as a 10-24 sure looks like an M4.

You might want to look at a storage bin cabinet. U-Line would be a good place to look.

I have a whole room full of hardware, in fact, I was just organizing and cleaning in there yesterday.

For bigger bolts, I use the yellow plastic bins- I have a roll around unit that is 4' wide and 8' tall, with hook panel on both sides. Works good for 3/8" bolts and larger, and for plumbing, electrical, casters, wall anchors, lag screws, stuff like that. I also have several smaller metal hook panels on the wall around the room.

But for itty bitty stuff, I prefer the plastic drawer units. Just bought another 64 drawer unit yesterday, to add to the 8 or 10 that are already in there. 64 drawers is almost enough for my 1/4x20 screw section. I use a brother P touch label machine to make labels for the little drawers. I like just being able to pull out the one drawer I need, take it with me to the bench, and be able to see which one is missing. I find the big metal segmented units are too heavy to pull out all the time and open up, and much harder to find what you want.
all my drawers are labelled, you can easily read which one you want.
Segregate by type and size- #6 are all together, #8, #10, and so on. Washers in another drawer unit. Sheet metal screws as well.

Managing all this stuff takes a lot of work. But its less work than not finding it, when you know you already bought it, spending a half hour looking, and then buying doubles again. Plus, where I live, its a one hour round trip to the fastener store, so not having in in stock costs a fair amount.

Durham, love the stuff.
Specialists in Industrial Storage - Including Steel Storage Cabinets & Metal Cabinets

For small fasteners and parts I like the large compartment boxes. For large stuff use bins.

I just started using the Durham drawers and cabinets like Kyle Smith posted above. They work great for small fasteners.
I bought a bunch of them, and placed them on some light duty pallet racking that is 6' wide x approx 2' deep. I can now quickly and easily find any fasteners I need and I didn't spend thousands of dollars.

Picking bin systems work well. I have two walls covered above bench height with the louvered steel plating and you can't see any plate for bins, have them organized with sizes increasing in size, all the say m6 socket heads in their own bin adjacent to the m6 hex head bin, then the m8, m10 upwards. I always label the bin with a dymo tape when I start a new one for something I started to keep around.

I don't have spare floorspace to have the cabinet systems but I've worked with them in the past and they're handy for being able to close the doors on the clutter or to avoid airborne particles ending up in them, as it is now, the bin's don't take up any floorspace per say because they are above equipment that requires the area below anyway.

You can get lidded picking bins for those items that have to be kept dust free that fit the standard racking . I have found linbin and shs brand boxes are good, and the chinese knock off import stuff awful with the boxes wilting with load over time and the rear hook tabs failing. I imagine the durham boxes have similar qualities as linbin but for the American market.



Small parts storage systems linbin .