Evergreen storage ideas.

[2002p51]

I've started working on re-organizing and rearranging my work area. First thing I did was construct a new tool rack. A lot of things that are held in here now used to reside all together in a coffee cup and that was getting really annoying.

 

It's made entirely of basswood stock sourced at the local Hobby Lobby. 

But this is the real problem:

Currently all of my Evergreen shapes, rod, and strips hang from nails on the wall. I have packages stacked on top of one another and it's really annoying to find what I want.

I've rejected the obvious idea of placing them in various tubes, while that's great for full length pieces, it doesn't address what to do with all of the shorter scraps.

So, I throw it out to all of you. Don't just tell me what you do, show me with a photo. Explain how your system works (or doesn't work) 

Give me some great ideas!  

 

 

[Dave Van]

All my plastic stock is in one of the plastic  3 drawer cabinets from the big box store. Sheet stock in one drawer, shapes in another and strip and tube in another. I have a LOT of plastic on hand so this may be overkill for you but makes it much simpler to find what I need and keeps everything in good condition.  

[aurfalien]

How about a paint brush rack?

Once I get back up and running, I'll probably do something like that for ease of choosing thickness, shape etc...

https://www.amazon.com/Studio-Pencil-Brush-Stand-Plastic/dp/B001A6EMHA/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1547569169&sr=8-15&keywords=paint+brush+rack

https://www.amazon.com/JackCubeDesign-Rotating-Watercolor-Coloring-Organizer/dp/B07FJPXPGR/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1547569287&sr=8-5&keywords=paint+brush+rack

Just some ideas.

[Ace-Garageguy]

The real long stuff, I still hang on the wall.

But as most of the styrene strip and shape stock I have is shorter lengths, I made up a rack that lays on its side from old paper towel tubes, hot-glued together. I can tell at a glance what I have, and what I'm getting low on.

Mailing tubes, or gift paper tubes, would work equally well, and could accommodate the long length stock too.

[tom q vaxy]

full packages in general order in a kraft paper box from hobby lobby. pieces shorter than 4" go in a plano tackle box. ones in between are getting glued to something.

same with stripwood, tubing, & stiff wire. works for me

 

[stitchdup]

59 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

The real long stuff, I still hang on the wall.

But as most of the styrene strip and shape stock I have is shorter lengths, I made up a rack that lays on its side from old paper towel tubes, hot-glued together. I can tell at a glance what I have, and what I'm getting low on.

Mailing tubes, or gift paper tubes, would work equally well, and could accommodate the long length stock too.

Thats how I store it too, but I have a small tab of masking tape with a little bit of the size of evergreen inside taped on the outside edge of the tubes so I can find it at a glance rather than having to read the sizes, however thats partly due to the sizes being in inches as I'm not very good with turning them to mm

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 minute ago, stitchdup said:

...but I have a small tab of masking tape with a little bit of the size of evergreen inside taped on the outside edge of the tubes so I can find it at a glance rather than having to read the sizes...

Excellent idea !!    I'll do that.  

[cobraman]

I have to do something mine also, mine are just shoved in my work bench drawer.

[Miatatom]

Just wanted to mention a safety tip here. I'd store all those tools with the sharp sides down. I dipped the end of the Xacto handles in different paint to ID the different blades that are attached easier.

[peteski]

9 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

The real long stuff, I still hang on the wall.

But as most of the styrene strip and shape stock I have is shorter lengths, I made up a rack that lays on its side from old paper towel tubes, hot-glued together. I can tell at a glance what I have, and what I'm getting low on.

Mailing tubes, or gift paper tubes, would work equally well, and could accommodate the long length stock too.

I have a similar idea, using vinyl gutter downpipe.  I will cut the downpipe into pieces long enough to hold the Evergreen bags, then glue then together into something like 2 X 4 or 3 x 3 array of "tubes". I will also need to use a flat piece of plastic (or wood) for the bottom. I bought the downpipe few years ago but haven't found the time to actually work on this low-priority project.

[misterNNL]

I have all of mine sorted by shape like hex,tube,strip,etc and minimized the size of the original package by folding it up until it just holds the amount inside and shorten it so that some sticks out of the top slightly. I secure the folded packages together with scotch tape. I store them in 6"' long pieces of 2" OD PVC plastic pipe from the hardware store with like shapes together. I cap the bottoms of the 6" storage tubes with styrene sheet and label each tube with what's in it. I keep the shape I'm using at the moment on my work bench and the rest on a small storage table( also known as a dump zone) behind my stool. This saves a lot of space and sorting through the packages.

[crazyjim]

I made a rack from wood and bought clear plastic tubes.  I cut the labels off the original packs and taped them to the tubes.   I have a pic somewhere.  Ahaa.  Found the pic but it's in Photobucket. Sorry.  The system I have works very well for me.

[NOBLNG]

I don't have a lot of stock yet, but one thing I did do is start a little log of what I have. This way when I need something I don't head off to the hobby shop and wind up with duplicate packages.

[hguenth2003]

May be this link is of interest.

[RAT-T]

I USE EMPTY PRINGLES CANS, PAINTED THEN MARKED.

[Gizzy]

On February 5, 2019 at 1:18 PM, RAT-T said:

I USE EMPTY PRINGLES CANS, PAINTED THEN MARKED.

This is pretty much the way I store mine