How to organize ye olde bolt bucket?

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I made a small shelf under my work benches for 14" deep bins. In these I keep my high volume fasteners like cap screws, button head, flat heads, and bolts. I further sorted the lengths of each size into ziplock bags so I can see what I do and don't have very quickly.

The bins up top are nuts, lock nuts, and washers. Each time I specialize the storage the quicker it is to access specific fasteners. There has been upgrades since these pictures.

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This shows the labels.

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Joined this siht sometime ago and have gotten some great ideas. Been looking for a good way to store tooling for my lathes and bridgeport mill. Still collecting others ideas to hopefully come up something that works for me.

Bolt and nut storage : man do I need help with that. My dad's old shop (relocated to a better location and to get it away from his home) had a couple added room for various reasons. One on the back end had two tables (the best I remember, CRS is kicking he's days) about 4' X 8' with maybe 4" sides. These two tables were pretty full too. I've seen him dig thru them for a good while from time to time and usually found something that would work. His new / old shop (my brother has it as our father passed about twenty years ago) has two or three lifts (they have a salvage yard with mostly import vehicles) and in front of one of the lifts little brother has maybe a 10' to maybe 12' in dia in the floor that is covered with nuts, bolts you name it. He told me that it was the only way they could find anything when they were looking for such.
I have three or four five gallon buckets rounded up, several bins that have drawers with maybe half the drawers full with fasteners and a 55 gallon plastic drum I cut in half with one half full. Guys, it is time consuming to sort such and I get ****** in a few minutes trying. I liked someone's suggestion to sort Big, little, nut, bolt so your always making progress. Might have to try this. I've tried buying some of the old hareware nail bins where you bought them by the pound. I have maybe ten bins that has drawers that I may try again to sort them. The negative side of this is once in a drawer it harder to dig through. Probably need to stop being a pack rat. Most of us realize we will never use very many but hate to thought of getting rid of them.
Sorry for the lengthy message, just one of them things that bug me about my shop. Since I've bought two lathes and a mill, I can just barely get the doors shut on a 40 X 60 shop.
 
Dodgewade said:
Joined this siht sometime ago and have gotten some great ideas. Been looking for a good way to store tooling for my lathes and bridgeport mill. Still collecting others ideas to hopefully come up something that works for me.

Bolt and nut storage : man do I need help with that. My dad's old shop (relocated to a better location and to get it away from his home) had a couple added room for various reasons. One on the back end had two tables (the best I remember, CRS is kicking he's days) about 4' X 8' with maybe 4" sides. These two tables were pretty full too. I've seen him dig thru them for a good while from time to time and usually found something that would work. His new / old shop (my brother has it as our father passed about twenty years ago) has two or three lifts (they have a salvage yard with mostly import vehicles) and in front of one of the lifts little brother has maybe a 10' to maybe 12' in dia in the floor that is covered with nuts, bolts you name it. He told me that it was the only way they could find anything when they were looking for such.
I have three or four five gallon buckets rounded up, several bins that have drawers with maybe half the drawers full with fasteners and a 55 gallon plastic drum I cut in half with one half full. Guys, it is time consuming to sort such and I get ****** in a few minutes trying. I liked someone's suggestion to sort Big, little, nut, bolt so your always making progress. Might have to try this. I've tried buying some of the old hareware nail bins where you bought them by the pound. I have maybe ten bins that has drawers that I may try again to sort them. The negative side of this is once in a drawer it harder to dig through. Probably need to stop being a pack rat. Most of us realize we will never use very many but hate to thought of getting rid of them.
Sorry for the lengthy message, just one of them things that bug me about my shop. Since I've bought two lathes and a mill, I can just barely get the doors shut on a 40 X 60 shop.
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cnj.craigslist.org

Industrial Metal 32 Cubby Hole (Cubbyhole) Organizer Display - tools...

9d x 19.5w x 34w Hardware bins for your workshop. This is a very heavy duty organizer, originally used in an auto garage Has some surface rust (see picture) but otherwise perfectly servicable
cnj.craigslist.org
 
brino said:
okay, I'll play....... even though my father in law pokes fun at me for being better stocked than the local hardware store....

For years I kept my bolts in coffee cans. I painted the outsides so that I could use sharpies to mark the size within.
I even built shelves to specifically fit the cans.
Eventually I realized that I still did NOT have all the bolt sizes I needed, and saw all the wasted space of cylindrical cans on rectangular shelves.....

Then I found this cabinet at my local used tool place:

View attachment 380488

Obviously on the door we play with magnets to make faces.......and the framed picture on the door shows where small bolts come from!
Stored under the cabinet is my router table that I pull out and use on saw horses.

Within the cabinet the middle section holds hex-head bolts in imperial and metric, then socket-head cap screws (again in imperial and metric),
Also thrown in between sections are various carriage bolts, lag bolts, dowel pins, eye bolts, etc.
View attachment 380491

View attachment 380492

View attachment 380493

Inside the left door is mostly washers, nuts, and some more random stuff....
View attachment 380494


Inside the right door are large drill bits (MT2 and MT3 shank), three sets of transfer punches (imperial, metric and numbered) and hanging there are also some "Thread ID" types of bolt gauges:
View attachment 380495

The bottom half of the right door is more random stuff:
View attachment 380496


Here's some detail of the large drill bit holders. All are just steel angle frames and appropriately sized plastic or aluminum tube. The drill bit tips sit against some plywood strips so they don't dull:

View attachment 380497

These plastic bins are all removable so taking a bin or three to the bench is easy.

As for stocking the cabinet:
When I need a bolt and see a whole box selling cheap I buy the box.
I also remove and keep fasteners before I scrap or junk anything (blenders, treadmills, vehicles, etc.)
When I still need to order a certain size or length I will buy extras to help shore-up my stock.
I recently discovered a site where I do not have to pay the insane US shipping fees for fasteners:
https://www.boltsplus.ca/index.php

For me this has been a fantastic addition to the shop.
Many times I can find the exact fastener I need without adding it to the list for the next hardware store trip, or online order.

-brino
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Wow, now that’s a forehead slapper. I don’t like those open bins because in every shop I’ve worked the dust and dirt would accumulate in them. My FIL had a bunch of them and I only grabbed a couple because of that. For whatever reason it never occurred to me to put them in a cabinet, doh! It looks like you have a lot of hours in the sorting of all that’s in those bins. I’m impressed Brino, good job!
 
It's just my prejudice, but the first thing I do when sorting hardware is to pull out all of the slotted screws and put them in recycling where they belong (also any damaged or overly worn bolts or screws). That thins it out a little bit.
 
wlburton said:
It's just my prejudice, but the first thing I do when sorting hardware is to pull out all of the slotted screws and put them in recycling where they belong (also any damaged or overly worn bolts or screws). That thins it out a little bit.
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I don't. while I tend to avoid them in use, I will use them for restorations. I tend to like the look of old screws as well. not these bright zinc plated.
 
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing at all. It’s just that I can’t seem to get that particular job high enough on the to do list to get it completed. I’m stuck at around 50% sorting because I keep getting more pressing projects in the way.
 
C-Bag said:
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing at all. It’s just that I can’t seem to get that particular job high enough on the to do list to get it completed. I’m stuck at around 50% sorting because I keep getting more pressing projects in the way.
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ya know one of those nights where you can't sleep. Go out and sort bolts, screws, nuts... you'll be sleepy in no time..
I too put on good music and just chill.

When I buy a LOT from a sale, I will sort it ASAP if I can to be done with it.
I actually have sorted on one of those I can't sleep nights. it helps.
 
woodchucker said:
ya know one of those nights where you can't sleep. Go out and sort bolts, screws, nuts... you'll be sleepy in no time..
I too put on good music and just chill.

When I buy a LOT from a sale, I will sort it ASAP if I can to be done with it.
I actually have sorted on one of those I can't sleep nights. it helps.
Click to expand...
you know I could see that. But my problem is the garage door from the house is in our bedroom. So the times I've tried to slip in there late at night to check something or take a pic has set off alarms in my wife. She keeps a close eye on me, her being a psychologist and because being a home entrepreneur it's too easy for me to slip into obsession mode. And most times when I can't sleep is because of some snafu related to the biz.

But I could see sorting nuts and bolts as actually soothing as it's kinda mindless.
 
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