Day 60, My Rechargeable Tool Rack
I'm not much of an organizer, really. I am the kind of guy who picks up a tool, and ten seconds later sets it back down and cant find it again. But it's something that I work on. Back when I began my journey toward acquiring more tools and becoming a better woodworker, I started to acquire some decent DeWalt rechargeable tools, and now have a fair collection of them. By far and away the most well used are the cordless drill and impact driver, but I also have a trim router, an orbital sander, and a multitool.
The key thing that has helped me stay somewhat organized is to have a dedicated place where tools are supposed to be. Every time I go looking for a tool and it is in the rack, right were it is supposed to be, it provides a small hit of dopamine. Instead of blunting my enthusiasm for whatever project I'm working on, I can then immediately proceed to working on what I was going to do, instead of scrambling around, looking for the tools.
I built this rack about five years ago, and frankly it's pretty scruffy and crude. I keep thinking I should make a new one, using some of the skills that I've developed and also refine some aspects of the design, but that has not yet percolated to the top of my TODO lists.
Some things that I do like about it:
- It is positioned right near the garage door leading to my back porch. If I am in the house, I take one step in the garage and I can get the tool that I'm looking for. And, when I need to put it back, it's very handy.
- It's also conveniently placed next to my main workbench and peg board to the right.
- It has some shelving to hold common items like drill bits, screws, and dry wall anchors. I keep my most used drill bit sets right there.
- I used my 3D printer to make some holders for spare rechargeable batteries. Once they come off the charger, I have a place to put my spares.
- I mounted a spare battery charger to the right on the wall, which is convenient.
- It is hung on the wall using a French cleat, which means that I could update it pretty easily.
Some things that could be improved:
- Frankly, I didn't measure this very carefully. Most of the slots that hold the tools are a bit wide, and some don't fit very well. Next time I won't tack them together in an adhoc way.
- The shelves which are above the main tool hanging storage aren't especially well sized for the things I store there. They get crowded and sometimes things that I want to store there don't fit especially well.
- I think mounting the chargers as an integral part of the unit would be good. I have another one, so having two chargers would be good too. Perhaps with more brackets to hold spare batteries.
- The hot air gun fits okay, but I have a hot glue gun which I'd like to store there, but it doesn't fit in the slot very well.
- I also have a rechargeable air blower (that replaces canned air) that I'd like to keep here, but it doesn't fit either.
But all in all, I suspect that this has saved me dozens of hours of hunting for lost/mislaid tools over the years. Well worth constructing one.
I should also add that I added a metal box below that is my first aid box. Having a fire extinguisher and a first
aid box is a very good idea. While I've only used the first aid box for an occasional boo-boo, and have not yeat had
a fire, it is vastly better to be prepared for such eventualities than not. The first aid box also has another
good feature: being made of metal means that I can attach magnets to it to hold other vital (or not vital) objects.
I have a bunch of magnetic hooks, as well as a couple of flashlights which can be attached with magnets. When I
trip a fuse or we have a power outage, knowing where to find a flashlight is a good idea. I also have a tape measure
with a magnet attached that is (admittedly not always) available there.
Hope your Monday is going well!