Thread: Fastener storage: what's your recommendation?

Originally Posted by Garwood

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.

Strange feeling I guess. I have a 42"ish wide Vidmar and have it full of fasteners. I figure there is close to 10 grand worth of regular fasteners in it. If you start looking at my stainless or shoulder bolts that price jumps very quickly. (all hardware was purchased at auction) From a productivity point of view, that cabinet is well worth it's cost.

I use Durham, too. You can get them from McMaster. The non ball bearing slide models move very smoothly with a squirt of grease.

I like the open front bolt cabinets for the common fasteners, 1/4"-1/2" (or larger) coarse thread bolts, it gives me easy access and its easy to tell when they need restocking since no one can seem to mention it till we are out and more are needed right now. The problem with them is they seem to eat up wall space quickly. On the not some common fasteners pull drawers work fine for me since I don't have the quantity and the amount one can store in a given space is larger.

Originally Posted by snowman

Strange feeling I guess. I have a 42"ish wide Vidmar and have it full of fasteners. I figure there is close to 10 grand worth of regular fasteners in it. If you start looking at my stainless or shoulder bolts that price jumps very quickly. (all hardware was purchased at auction) From a productivity point of view, that cabinet is well worth it's cost.

You must be paying more for your fasteners.

Originally Posted by Chris999

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

:

VERY well organized
Linda

Plus 1 on what Doug8cat said. Old card file cabinets are built like a brick shithouse.
Bill

I used to design and install inventory control systems for the aerospace industry. Comingling of parts cost the companies thousands of dollars each year. When rivets are visually identical but a couple thousandths different in size there is no easy way to sort them. If they get mixed they're all trash, liability being what it is.
I used tip out bins for many hangars and assembly plants. They work great, are relatively cheap, easy to replace when damaged, and keep parts clean. A real bonus is being able to see what's in the bin without having to open it. If you get creative like I did you can replace lots of cabinets with much less expensive storage that is easier to use.




Vidmar and similar cabinets are stupid expensive and allow small parts to slide under dividers. Trays and cups to hold parts help but they're an added expense. The good part is that they're sturdy and have lots of small bins.
I greatly dislike open top bins that collect dirt, dust, swarf, and dead bugs while they're holding your hardware. I've got a couple cabinets with the yellow buckets in my garage. They work okay but collect an impressive amount of dust and stuff for a closed cabinet.
My electrical connectors and associated stuff are kept in one of those cheap bins with clear slide out drawers. They're too small and fragile for heavy use.

We built a shelving unit that fits the plano tackle trays from your typical sporting goods section. We do not have a giant fastener collection, but we have most everything we need for general purpose use. We have our shelving labeled as a fastener type aka "Cap Screws" and each tackle tray labeled individually aka "1/4 Cap Screws". If we don't have enough selection to fill a tray with a particular size it would be labeled similar to "1/4 - 3/8 Flat Washers".

Works pretty well for us, easy to organize, super simple to expand, and the trays are fairly cheap (like $5 each). It does take a little bit of woodworking to make a shelving unit though.