Garage clutter / odds and ends

Hi, my name is Matt and I have a problem. For the last 15 years or so, I've collected every grommet, piece of metal scrap, fastener, plastic doohickey, hose, fitting, clip, gasket, spacer, and whatsit from every project on every car that's passed through my garage. You know, "just in case" I need it some day for some project or repair. Well, I've reached the point where I don't know what to do with it all and I desperately need to clean my workbench. It's all relatively small stuff so it doesn't take up that much space but there's lots of variety so there's no easy way to group, find, or remember what all I even have years later. What says the hive mind? Toss it in the trash? Dump it all in one big bin? Sort it into a hundred separate containers?  How do you all keep and organize your fiddlybobs?

I move every ten years or so. Seriously, maintain a baseline fastener bucket and purge the rest.  

If i cant identify it, or a use for it, it hits the trash can 

In reply to Armitage :

I'm the same as you. Actually, I'm probably worse, as I pick up every random faster off the ground that isn't absolute junk. IME, it's not worth trying to sort it, other than by SAE/Metric, if possible. For everything else, your best bet is shallow storage trays/bins/tubs/whatever fits your space, that way you don't have to dig deep to find something, and within a second or two can flip through whatever it contains to see if there's anything that suits your needs.

I always visualise some sort of library card or museum sample chest of drawers when I look at my pile of doodads and contemplate organisation, and do nothing.

Some sort of government surplus auction site is where I never bother looking for something.

My grandfather was one of those guys who screwed the lids for jars to the bottom of shelves so he could see everything and just twist off the jar he needed. I used to love the rows of baby food jars in his garage.

I don't have access to a bunch of jars, so I just use bins.

See y'all and raise you..........currently  saving plastic  'egg drop soup' containers  for all my thingamabobs

That's what parts bins are for. Whenever you and your wife argue go spend a couple hours sorting bolts into organized bins. When you're bored, go sort bolts. When you lose your way on a project, go sort. Etc. before you know it you'll have a nice organized set of parts bins. 

Dr. dculberson what do I owe you for this session?

In reply to 759NRNG :

$2.37!

At around $25, these Akro-Mills hardware cabinets from Amazon have worked great for me:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P2UOCO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sorting is good therapy.

mrap1000 said:

At around $25, these Akro-Mills hardware cabinets from Amazon have worked great for me:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P2UOCO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sorting is good therapy.

 

I used those or similar until I had 10 of them stacked around the shop.  So I got an expensive Christmas present last year.

Used to do that. Especially when I was working on aircraft all the time. Amazing the stuff that ends up in your pocket. Not in hangers anymore so that stuff has run out. Was still keeping anything usable, just in case. Has come in handy once in a while but usually when I need something I know I have someplace I can't find it and end up buying. Trying not to keep as much stuff anymore since I know I'll never find it when I need it. Some time after I bought a replacement I'll run across it.

I have enough stuff to use one of those giant cabinets but don't have the space or money set aside for one. I had a small section of light duty built-in shelves filled with nothing but clutter and did this to them:

Put a light overhead and I have a nice place to store the stuff. You can see I've accumulated some "to sort" fasteners and such. Things aren't sorted 100% but they're grouped by type and I can usually find what I need in under a minute or two. I use stuff from here every few days. Some of it will probably never be used but I'm not going to free up enough space to make it worth the time to go through and throw out those items.

https://www.harborfreight.com/tool-storage/part-storage.html

I started out with a medium storage case to collect leftover hardware from assembly/disassembly of items. The cases are nice because they are portable, I can carry it to somewhere I am working around the house, or to my dad's house, etc.  (Most of what I save/collect are household fastners)

So no one else uses the round, metal holiday cookie containers? I have nuts (the steel ones, mine are in my wife’s purse) in one, bolts in another and the more random stuff in yet another. 

I don't know what to do with brake shoes, wheel bearings, brackets, solenoids and other things from vehicles I no longer own.

(I once almost bought a truck to fit the fiberglass flares I found for free on the side of the road if that gives you an idea of my illness)

As I sit over here chuckling....

mrap1000 said:

 

Sorting is good therapy.

 

Yuck!  I hate sorting, I have several big storage bin/divider racks and the workbench is just a piled mess of nuts and bolts.  I'm ADD and sorting required OCD. 

It occurs I may start using it as punishment for kids who need a nasty chore to contemplate the error of their ways.

What you describe sounds like the bits and pieces are too random to nicely organize into bins or containers, and the quantity isn't all that large...if it were me, I'd just put them all in a big coffee can or bucket or something like that.   It minimizes the amount of storage space required for parts that won't be used often, and when you do need something out of the bucket just dump it out, sort through it to find what you're looking for, and then put everything back in the bucket. 

This is Grassroots Motorsports after all..besides using the minimum amount of storage space this method also costs the least amount of money. 

mrap1000 said:

At around $25, these Akro-Mills hardware cabinets from Amazon have worked great for me:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P2UOCO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sorting is good therapy.

 

+1, although we bought cheaper version from Harbor Freight. Three of them: SAE, Metric, & misc screws. I then went on BoltDepot.com and made a list of just about every size of metric and SAE size they sell.  Then labeled all of the bins with a P-touch labeler.   Then it was about 2 weeks of sitting in front of the tube watching TV in front of the wood stove over the winter.  

Seriously, it was soooooo worth the time investment.  If I needed a bolt size, I went to the bin and knew if I needed to go buy it. If I had extras, they went into the appropriate bin.  

Of course... this was all at HER garage... now I need to do it all over again at my house.