Thread: Organiser trays

I have a Creality Ender 3 V2. It does the basic stuff well enough. Assembly is simple. There is active community of Creality users on the internet that can solve most problems. Not that I've had any.

I have made one change. I bought the magnetic flexible bed. I highly recommend that change and the cost is less than $30. The prints I made on the original glass bed stuck well, but too well in some cases.

For levelling the bed I use an actual feeler gauge. The recommended way using a piece of paper is not accurate enough, in my opinion. Paper is too variable even on the same sheet.

Otherwise it just works.

I bought mine from Banggood. It is usually stocked in the AU warehouse and was delivered inside of a week.

I've just been using the Flashforge PLA sourced from Jaycar. I'm sure there is better stuff out there but it does what I need and I can just nip down to the shop and get it when I need it. Jaycar are not unreasonably priced compared to the dedicated suppliers.

As for printing these trays? Yeah, na! It would take way too long for me.

website provider had a melt down number of years ago, a lot of very useful info went walkabout, maybe the chinese flogged it and now we see Tactix boxes being produced.

Lots of tiny drawers. Making them was quite zen

Sorry blurry photo. Saved it from a chat with a friend. Here's how they're supposed to look



Turn Any Shop Into A Woodworking Sanctuary

Originally Posted by Bernmc

I think is this one: Small parts boxes , but unfortunately I can't see any pictures or the spreadsheet (which may be due to my web filtering and privacy obsessions?)

That's unfortunate, the forum experienced a lot of lost images sometime ago for a reason I can't recall then there was the photoshop debacle as well. I have just spoken to Brett and he will see if he still has the images and spreadsheet which was the cutting list for each size box. Now I recall, the forum had an update and most of the posted image prior to that disappeared. If he can put it together fairly easily he will post it when he gets a chance.

One image survived Small parts boxes

I had the Excel file and I think it might be attached to this post.

Edit, surprisingly that worked, I still think the octagonal/Hexagonal cabinet is the nicest solution.

Was in the big green shed the other day and saw on one of the trolleys a few marked down things.

In there was some of the tactix organiser trays, half price ($8 down from $16) figured for that price i would give them a go. Nothing special about them but i kind of regret not doing it sooner. Especially for some of the mixed driver bits etc.

Basically freed up a tool box drawer for my chisels

Same with all my wall anchors that just sat in a complete mess in a tote box. Now its easy to see whats where. Unsure if i should have grabbed a few more.

Will have to knock up some shelving to store them on and a good excuse for a bit of clean out of stuff i just dont use.

I've been looking at parts storage options, having already got and used everything from the Tactix boxes to "industrial" storage solutions. For storage of small fasteners etc. I have no wish to spends $hundreds, and I'm perfectly happy to repurpose some existing drawers, so I got to wondering how to divide drawers in to compartments. For workshop stuff the compartments don't need to be removable - I can grab a couple of items when I need them, so discrete "bins" aren't required....

Here's my thought. If I buy a 3m length of 100x50mm rectangular PVC "downpipe" from Bunnings ($22), I could simply cut it into 50mm lengths and glue them side to side to create a matrix of 100x50mm "bins" to fit whatever drawers I happen to have available. They'd need to be secured to the drawer base to prevent that "oh cr*p" moment where they lift up and all the contents flow together underneath, but otherwise it seems to be a cheap ($22 for 60 bins) way to repurpose some old drawers for small parts storage. Deeper drawers could have multiple layers on plywood bases, lift the top one out to access the one below and so forth.

Might be worth a try?

I bought some plastic draw sets from an ALDI special. But these are now all fill up and it's not like I can just walk down to ALDI and get some more matching ones. I think I will just live with it this year but I like the 3D printing idea and I have got some very basic Fusion 360 skills.

Originally Posted by Warb

I've been looking at parts storage options, having already got and used everything from the Tactix boxes to "industrial" storage solutions. For storage of small fasteners etc. I have no wish to spends $hundreds, and I'm perfectly happy to repurpose some existing drawers, so I got to wondering how to divide drawers in to compartments. For workshop stuff the compartments don't need to be removable - I can grab a couple of items when I need them, so discrete "bins" aren't required....

Here's my thought. If I buy a 3m length of 100x50mm rectangular PVC "downpipe" from Bunnings ($22), I could simply cut it into 50mm lengths and glue them side to side to create a matrix of 100x50mm "bins" to fit whatever drawers I happen to have available. They'd need to be secured to the drawer base to prevent that "oh cr*p" moment where they lift up and all the contents flow together underneath, but otherwise it seems to be a cheap ($22 for 60 bins) way to repurpose some old drawers for small parts storage. Deeper drawers could have multiple layers on plywood bases, lift the top one out to access the one below and so forth.

Might be worth a try?

I should have posted this before, but why spend $22.00 on something that will half work - (and boxes where the dividers lift up accidentally are a pain!) when you can do it for free?

The attached images are of bins at least 25years or perhaps 30years old. Cut off the bottoms of 2l milk containers to a height to suit yourself - these are a bit ragged because I was going through one of those phases where I truly believed my tablesaw was the only tool I needed! The plastic bins still have their $1.00 price tag (including lids) and I still have half a dozen of them neatly stacked holding treasures that I am not likely to use in the short term. (or quite possibly in this lifetime!)

I have only recently retired a few old drawers which were neatly filled with the bottoms of milk cartons much more neatly cut off - and they served me extremely well until just a few years ago. The benefit of both is that you can take them with you, tip them out and get what you want very easily.

OK so my tactix boxes look terrific take less space for smaller things - but thirty years of service and no cost is very hard to beat. These days you can get milk (or soy) in 90x50 cartons as well as the 70x70's so you've got an infinite supply of possibilities.

21-01- 27 at 15-19-33.jpg21-01- 27 at 15-19-41.jpg

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

The attached images are of bins at least 25years or perhaps 30years old. Cut off the bottoms of 2l milk containers to a height to suit yourself.......

My father simply used to have shelves, vertically spaced about 2.25 glass coffee jars apart. Each shelf was full of (you guessed it) screw-top glass coffee jars, and the shelf above had the same glass jars hanging down from their lids (steel, in those days) which were screwed to the underside of the shelf. Minimal timber shelves and maximum storage through reuse of "disposable" items (no glass recycling in those days!). His "very small items" collection was in stacks of tobacco cans (his own father rolled his own!), and long thin items were in steel pencil cases - my father was a draughtsman by trade, so had lots of old pencil boxes! The boxes were all stacked neatly with a number on each, and there was a "key" with a single item labelled with a number that matched the number on the box of those items. The "war" mentality, and there's much to be said for it.

Sadly the milk of choice in our house comes in round clear plastic bottles that (from experience) go brittle in short order, but otherwise it's a good solution. Currently I have everything from baby formula cans down to the tiny cans that specialist tea comes in (and Altoid mint cans, though they're an oddity in Australia) pressed in to use for storage, though sadly not quite as organised as my fathers!

The reason for my "downpipe" thought is that if the pipe is cut all to the same length, and then attached to plywood bases, it becomes stackable. One deep drawer can hold several layers of small parts bins, easily removed for access. No reason that milk cartons shouldn't be used in the same way, but I'd have to drink more milk or wait a long time for my storage!

Originally Posted by Warb

My father simply used to have shelves, vertically spaced about 2.25 glass coffee jars apart. Each shelf was full of (you guessed it) screw-top glass coffee jars, and the shelf above had the same glass jars hanging down from their lids (steel, in those days) which were screwed to the underside of the shelf. Minimal timber shelves and maximum storage through reuse of "disposable" items (no glass recycling in those days!). His "very small items" collection was in stacks of tobacco cans (his own father rolled his own!), and long thin items were in steel pencil cases - my father was a draughtsman by trade, so had lots of old pencil boxes! The boxes were all stacked neatly with a number on each, and there was a "key" with a single item labelled with a number that matched the number on the box of those items. The "war" mentality, and there's much to be said for it.

Sadly the milk of choice in our house comes in round clear plastic bottles that (from experience) go brittle in short order, but otherwise it's a good solution. Currently I have everything from baby formula cans down to the tiny cans that specialist tea comes in (and Altoid mint cans, though they're an oddity in Australia) pressed in to use for storage, though sadly not quite as organised as my fathers!

The reason for my "downpipe" thought is that if the pipe is cut all to the same length, and then attached to plywood bases, it becomes stackable. One deep drawer can hold several layers of small parts bins, easily removed for access. No reason that milk cartons shouldn't be used in the same way, but I'd have to drink more milk or wait a long time for my storage!

For $22 and a piece of ply i'd give it go. If it doesnt work you're only down $22 and a bit of time.

The only down side i see is that you cant just pick up one container and take it with you if you know you're going to use a bunch of the same screws for a project