Tool Time for Me

If you have read many of my blog posts, you know that I like to do stuff with my hands—build, replace or repair.  To complete many of these projects, I use a number of different hand tools.  In fact, I have had tools for as long as I can remember.  So, it might seem odd that for my birthday this year, I asked for new tools and a toolbox.  But there is a reason.

I have always stored my tools in the garage and over the 25 years we have lived here, some of them have for one reason or another become rusted.  I never use my tools in the rain or get them wet so I can only surmise that the high Memphis humidity has wreaked havoc on them.  Of course, the rust does not make these tools unusable, but who wants to use rusty old tools.

On the day of my birthday, my wife and daughter (who happened to be in town) accompanied me to my favorite big box hardware store.  I had made a list of what I wanted, and they helped me while I picked them out.  I fortunately found exactly what I wanted to replace.

I also wanted to pick out a new toolbox because I wanted to store my tools inside the house to avoid any more rust development but picking one out was a bit more challenging.

When I retired, I received a toolbox as one of my retirement gifts.  It is a typical portable plastic one with a single lift out organizer tray.  The problem is other than what tools are in the tray, you have to rummage through a pile of tools in the bottom of the box to get what you need.  And if you look closely, you can see that even the clasps on this old toolbox have also rusted while sitting in the garage.

To avoid having to dig through a bunch of tools, I put the ones I most frequently used in this bin, which is actually an ice cube holder from an old refrigerator.

So, my ideal toolbox would have shallow pull out drawers.  While these do exist, they are typically only found in heavy metal storage cabinets which due to their size, are not portable.  These cabinets would be ideal for a full-time mechanic who works in his garage but not for me.  I even looked at soft sided tool bags, but these didn’t even come with a lift out tray.  In the end, I got a much nicer version of what I already had.

To make this toolbox more user friendly, I decided to add several removable organizer trays so I would not have to dig through the whole box looking for some tool.  I looked online to buy some but could not find anything that would work or that would fit.  This problem weighed on my mind for a few days until one night when I awoke in the night.  That was when I had one of those aha moments.

I realized that since I had built many dollhouses from kits and dollhouse furniture from scratch, I could design and build my own organizer trays.

The next day, I taped some paper together and figured out what size of a tray bottom would fit inside the toolbox (6 & 9/16” X 16 & 13/16” to be exact).

I then determined that five trays 1-inch deep stacked one on top of the other would fit inside the toolbox.

I then laid out some tools on the paper to get an idea of how to organize the tools.

I decided to make the trays using the same kind of wood that I had been using to build the dollhouse furniture.

For the tray bottoms, I found some 1/8-inch 12 X 18-inch basswood plywood sheets online that I had to cut down to the size I needed.

For the sides, I purchased 1/8 X 1-inch basswood strips that I also cut to size and glued to the tray bottom using clamps to ensure a tight bond.

Once I had all four sides glued in place, I had my first tray.

Using this same approach, I then proceeded to make the four additional trays.

With the trays built, I was now ready to add some additional 1/8 X 1-inch basswood strips to create dividers within each tray.  I thought I should organize the tools with those most frequently used in the upper trays and those less frequently used in the lower trays.  And to keep the trays in the right order so I did not have to remember, I added numbers on the end of each tray.

I first added dividers for the bottom tray to accommodate all my closed and open-end wrenches (which I rarely use).

I then added dividers for the remaining four trays to complete my customization.

As I gazed at my finished organizer trays, I was very pleased with myself for envisioning this solution and then bringing it to fruition to solve my tool dilemma.  I could have searched and searched online and never would I have found trays that just fit my specific tools.  And had I not built these, all of the tools you see in the five wooden trays would just be all dumped together into the bottom of the toolbox such that each time I needed a certain tool, it would be a fishing expedition to dig it out.

With this outcome, I knew I was going to have a much more pleasurable tool time in the future!