How to organize ye olde bolt bucket?

[woodchucker]

Ah, well, good point.
In fact someone said genuine JD parts are not of this country?
Say it ain’t so!
Oh the humanity of it all.
The grade 8 bolts do the job though.

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[Calandrod]

The absolute best thing about being organized like this is you no longer have to wonder if you have or don't have a certain thing in those buckets. If it's not in the correct storage bin, then you don't have it. Saves hours or digging through buckets for something that might not even be there. If you do have it, it takes 5 seconds to find it.
Sorting stuff is kind of a zen thing anyway. Grab a beer, put on some music and go to it.

That’s exactly how I feel about it. I believe it’s actually being a bad steward if I am disorganized to the point where I can’t find something. I love being able to see exactly where my things are and find what I’m looking for in seconds. The hours I’ve spent sorting pales compared to the time it would take to drive to the hardware store for something I already had and didn’t know.

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

I like it!

Hey guys, I buy my bolts, nuts and washers at the John Deer dealer. They sell by the pound. Class 5-8.
Super reasonable!

Good to know; thanks for the tip.

 

[MrWhoopee]

I somehow ended up with a lot more cookie tins, so I was forced to organize.

 

[Mauzinette]

Let’s continue the discussion under the ongoing hardware organization thread Show us your hardware organization