The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest How to organize body hammers and dollies

Here's an idea I had this past weekend on how to organize body hammers and dollies and reduce the clutter on the workbench. It was aggravating having 3 or 5 different hammers I needed but in the way laying on the table. Also gives a place to store dollies.

It's 8" wide, 19" tall, the slots for the handles are about 1.5-1.625" wide.
top is made of 1/4" round, post are 3/8" round, bottom is 16ga sheet with 1/8"x1/2" sides. Length I'd make the tray probably 10" and the rack on top 14 or 15" to have plenty of room... mine's a little smaller (and full) but I sure wouldn't go shorter than an 8" tray and about 11-12" rack.

Before
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2578824430080251109KlFrsk
The solution
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2714539850080251109oAzmzg
After
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2644841830080251109yKuZMa

It's got a handle of sorts on top and is easy to move around, take them to the work.

Grigg

Nice work! I have a dedicated drawer in my tool box. The process usually works by discipline, but that usually fails until I either can't find something or I am tripping over stuff.

Thanks,

I to had everything in a drawer in the tool box but it was to far from the workbench to be handy, after several trips to the box and back a bunch of stuff ended up on the table in the way. This keeps it out of the way and saves trips to the box.

Grigg

I know what you mean. In my little shop I have multiple work stations. The table saw, the work bench, the ice cooler, the wife's washing machine............ Then I have to haul stuff out to the Suburban on the other side of my house.........

Thats a good idea. I have a shelf in my tool room dedicated to body tools and its a mess. And it seems to take almost every tool I own to bump out a dent. If I were to build something like that, I think I would put casters on it. When you get my age, you get lazy and like to roll tools to the job.

Thanks, it has worked great so far. I know what you mean about having all your tools out by the time you're done with a small project...

I thought of casters and decided that's not such a great idea. The rack is not that big or heavy and I wouldn't want it running around the floor or bench. It's not much more than a portable tool box and we don't see those with casters.
Sure a bigger version might need wheels but a small portable one you can pickup the wheels would be unnecessary and problematic.

Grigg

I bought a bunch of Chinese chrome plated shelving at Costco several years ago that came with wheels. I had no use for shelves rolling around the warehouse so I have a bunch of wheels that have brakes on them. The wheels wouldn't stand up to daily use, but they do well on things you move occasionally. When you get my age, you want wheels on everything.