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Good Methods for Tracking Raw Materials at the Hobbyist Level

AndyF

Stainless
Joined
Nov 3, 2003
Location
Phelps, NY, USA
My Grandpa/Hobby shop raw material inventory is starting to get to the point of being more than I can easily keep track of by looking at the rack and continues to grow as I find "good" deals. I'm looking for a relatively low labor way to keep track of what I have without going the OCD route. I have several thousand pounds of various steels and aluminum alloys on the rack and would like to keep track of what I have for better project planning and to save myself time when my son the farmer calls looking for something to repair a piece of equipment.

Any suggestions are appreciated. My current system is to have materials organized by shelf, ex: tool steels on one shelf, rounds on another, HR bars on another, ... but as the shelves get filled, it's becoming easy to lose track of what is at the back or bottom.
 
Really you post this as a question for the group? Pretty simple. If you can't remember WRITE IT DOWN!
 
Really you post this as a question for the group? Pretty simple. If you can't remember WRITE IT DOWN!
Thanks Captain Obvious. Yes, It's a real question. If someone has a nice spreadsheet or app that they use, I'd like to know about it. Handwriting the inventory is an obvious solution and not to helpful if I'm not near the written list.
 
I color code all my metal, just need an assortment of rattle cans. But I don't think that's what Andy is asking about.

Keeping an accurate inventory, whether by spreadsheet or more sophisticated app is going to require painstaking and persistent input, both when stuff comes in and when it gets used. Like keeping accurate time sheets for a job. I have never been able to consistently do that, and I am OCD. Just different OCD I guess...
 
I color code all my metal, just need an assortment of rattle cans. But I don't think that's what Andy is asking about.

Keeping an accurate inventory, whether by spreadsheet or more sophisticated app is going to require painstaking and persistent input, both when stuff comes in and when it gets used. Like keeping accurate time sheets for a job. I have never been able to consistently do that, and I am OCD. Just different OCD I guess...
Keeping an accurate inventory is a lot of work. And if it's not accurate it's pretty useless. Maybe worse than useless when you go to get that material at the last minute and it's not there.

Know thyself. If I thought I'd keep it strictly up to date I'd probably have a spreadsheet on my phone. But I won't so I don't. I just look when I need to.

I label stuff with a paint marker. And I don't bury short pieces with long pieces. It helps to have different storage for shorts vs. longs.
 
Hi AndyF:
IMO you have to decide if this is truly a hobby of if it is more like a business before you get too invested in maintaining some kind of system that works enough to your advantage to be worth the pain of maintaining it accurately.

I think the first thing to recognize is that if you let it lapse, it becomes useless, so as you point out, it has to be simple enough to maintain that it's not a burden.

My way is to keep lots of shallow shelves compartmented and enforce the self discipline to never, ever put an unmarked piece on those shelves, no matter how small.

The common materials have lots of space and some of it has low walls around it so I can see what I have...brass for example is worth enough to me that I will keep even fairly small pieces, but tossing them into a bucket is worse than useless because I can't see what I have without dumping the bucket on the floor and then picking it all back up again after I've selected my bit.
It's easier to just saw a new bit off a bar, so if I have to rummage, the usefulness of having it is lost to me.
I depend on being able to SEE my stock...if I can't do that I might as well not own it.

That brings up another thing...don't hoard...if you're drowning in it, you can't find it to make a project from it.
Some things are just not worth keeping, even if you could maybe use that trivial scrap ten years from now for something arcane.

Let it go...just let it go, so you can better control what you do keep.

A third fundamental thing is to let your local friendly steel yard or McMaster or whoever, carry as much of the inventory you will use as you can.
It's WAY cheaper to just buy what you need for a major project than to try to gather it from the bottom of a pile.

I have lots of bits and bobs too, but I use them for odd things, not for real paying projects.

I figure they can inventory it...they know how to do that and they have the space to do it well.

So set it up so you can see it and get to it easily...no 36" wide shelves where you'll never ever get to the shit that's at the back ever again.
No ten footers either, for the same reason.
A Sharpie is your friend.

That's it... simple, like you said.

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com
 
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I try my best to mark the grade of material on each I keep on hand with either a Sharpie or paint marker. Most all of my material is purchased in 3 to 4 foot sections, a few 6 foot pieces. Most stored vertically against one wall in my shop, about 3 foot of wall space. 2 to 3 foot pieces are either stored againsts the wall kept in a couple of five gallon buckets. All pieces shorter than one foot are stored in a heavy duty roll away cabinet, the name, I can't say here. Had to set the roll away cabinet on 4 x 4's to keep it from buckling where the short drawers meet the long drawers. Larger, heavier pieces of stock are kept outside and or in the saw shed. For me, it's functional and works for my needs.
 
That brings up another thing...don't hoard...if you're drowning in it, you can't find it to make a project from it.
Some things are just not worth keeping, even if you could maybe use that trivial scrap ten years from now for something arcane.

This x1000! I get it that some folks just naturally want to save everything (and I acknowledge that the folks that grew up in the Depression had valid reasons for doing so), but sometimes the thing you need to save the most is....(wait for it)....TIME. They're not making any more of it! (Or not in *your* lifetime, anyway).

We've got a number of sets of hex keys, both inch and metric, because it seemed that we often had to hunt for the (only) one that was missing. We figured it was cheaper to have a bunch of sets on hand so that we could skip the wild goose chase! It didn't take many chases to just pay for the other set....jeez.
A third fundamental thing is to let your local friendly steel yard or McMaster or whoever, carry as much of the inventory you will use as you can.
It's WAY cheaper to just buy what you need for a major project than to try to gather it from the bottom of a pile.

Ditto! An employee once recommended that we just buy an assortment of stock to keep on hand for quick use. I remarked that we already had a pretty good "pile" going on (drops and the like, all somewhat organized), but that if he wanted to donate some cash to the cause and store it in his garage he should feel free to do so! At that point it seemed like a less desirable idea. McMaster-Carr is really a godsend for stuff like this!
 
At Alan Steel
Hi Ron: It was great to be just 10 mins away from Alan Steel when I was up that way. Once we move southward we started to use McMaster-Carr for bits and bobs.

Are you in RWC? I started off in a friends shop in RWC (near Spring and 2nd).
 
Keeping inventory is a full time job...companies employee people to do only that.

That's another way of saying 'give up now'.

It's good idea to write on any metal what it is, but otherwise your organizational system will need to be organic....that means put stuff wherever it makes sense to you, and of course, wherever you have space.

If you do it a more formal way, you'll spend more time organizing than actually machining. Not my idea of fun.
 
Buy full length bars whenever possible, print off the yard's color chart....cut off the OTHER end.
Why would you do that? The other method is much more common! :D

Don't different yards have different color codes? And some material is striped and they stripe the bundle not the individual bars, so you must re-mark. So you have to pick a code and remark as needed. I worked in a shop that had a station with rattle cans and chart by the saw but I never saw ANYBODY use it.

I have to use a paint marker since i need to track PO and heat# as well.

We used to use pretty expensive material and bar ends had value so they got saved. We made carts that would roll under the lowest bars on the stock rack, like drawers. It worked great and was easy to see at a glance. The drawers were about 6" deep.
 
Paint doesn’t seem to last for me. I stamp (both) ends with alloy # If thick enough. Otherwise, paint…

Vidmar is great for smaller, expensive alloy off cuts. Card in each slot with the slugs.

And when scrap price is good (like two years ago), ruthless culling.
 
I use one of those self inking date stamps for wood I am saving a few years to get dry. You could use something like that on clean material to add a serial number type system where each number means a different material ht etc.
Sounds like a lot of work and needing a cheat sheet to know what number to pull.
Bill D
 
Hi Ron: It was great to be just 10 mins away from Alan Steel when I was up that way. Once we move southward we started to use McMaster-Carr for bits and bobs.

Are you in RWC? I started off in a friends shop in RWC (near Spring and 2nd).
No, I'm south of there in San Jose.
That place is all cleaned up now with the same workers.
Remember those 12" or more artillery shells in the front. Buy a couple of those and stand them upright on each side of your front door.
Your neighbors will try their best to leave you alone.
 
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If you really want to record it, try a small pocket notebook on each shelf and tie it on with string. Book in and out what goes on and off the shelf. When you think you might have a piece of something, a quick check of the book will tell you if it really is there.
+1 on the chuck out / don't horde too much.
 








 
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