Question Of The Week.... ( 2026 Week 40 )

ripjack13

ripjack13

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Welcome back Woodbarter peeps!
For some of the newer members checking in here, This is a weekly series of shenanigans I like to call, the Question of the Week..
Some of the later questions may have a poll, and some will not.
It's time to kick off the new season of Question of the Week!


How do you stay organized in your woodworking workshop?
Do you have any tips or tricks for keeping tools and materials easily accessible?





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**Rules**
There is no minimum post requirement,
Long eared galoots, primates, the new leaner woodtick and leprechauns are welcome to post an answer.
Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts....
 
Same as Mike, I try but it seems like a lost cause. I have a peg board behind my bench and I made racks for screw drivers, chisels, pliers etc. I have drawers for wood storage etc. I clean my bench top, put all the unused pieces of wood away, and within a few days of starting something new my bench top is almost unusable due to clutter.

Guys like @Jonkou who keep such an immaculately clean and organized shop amaze me. And I curse the woodworking TV shows that always show such a clean uncluttered shop. That's one reason I like that Roy Underhill guy - his benches looked like mine.
 
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I gave up on trying to have anything organized about 4-5 years ago. Clean the area, and within 3-5 days, it looks like it's not been cleaned in years. I have a witness on what my area looks like. Ask and I'll have him reply. ............ Nubs
 
Nubsnstubs said:
I gave up on trying to have anything organized about 4-5 years ago. Clean the area, and within 3-5 days, it looks like it's not been cleaned in years. I have a witness on what my area looks like. Ask and I'll have him reply. ............ Nubs
Click to expand...
Yep, quite a few here have stopped by. They will certify i am a genuine shop slob...
 
Im adhd so organization is not a skill, unless you count piling stuff up. I destroy my shop when im working on a project and then when its done I take the time to put it all away before the next disaster/I mean project.
 
Marc, did you really expect a sensible, helpful, “organized” answer from this crowd!?

Here’s my helpful hint, keep the tools and important bits out of the sawdust and shavings. They are then easier to find.
 
ripjack13 said:
Welcome back Woodbarter peeps!
For some of the newer members checking in here, This is a weekly series of shenanigans I like to call, the Question of the Week..
Some of the later questions may have a poll, and some will not.
It's time to kick off the new season of Question of the Week!


How do you stay organized in your woodworking workshop?
Click to expand...

What does that funny word beginning with O mean? Must be technical jargon from some strange woodworking specialty that I've never seen before.

I do try to sort wood scraps into Smokewood (for a friend who loves to smoke meat) and Not Smokewood (for another friend with a woodstove). I give them buckets of scraps when they need them. More recently, I had a customer ask for toy building blocks. I can't cut 2" cubes on my scrollsaw, and I'd avoided trying to duplicate the big fancy block sets you see on Etsy. But she was fine with a bucket of simple geometric shapes cut out of 3/4" to 1" stock, mostly maple and white oak but a few others too. Not all of them are exact multiples of a common size, and there may not be enough to build an exact replica of the Taj Mahal or anything like that. As I told my customer: I am neither Melissa nor Doug, nor am I HABA. But she was just fine with my rather mongrel set of blocks, and I already have an order for another set. So that should use up a fair amount of my scrap and slightly decrease workshop clutter. Although probably not much.
 
Hi, my name is John and I am a recovering shop slob. Organization was something I failed at miserably for many many years. I retired about 2 and a half years ago, so that helps, but the biggest change was, about a year ago I purchased a 3D printer. While I use it for many non shop related things, it has been a game changer for my shop organization. I have printed many different things that allow me to keep the most used items in plain sight and in their respective place. I find it much easier to put something back where I got it when It is not just tossed in a drawer or in a cabinet. I still have clutter here and there, but not nearly as bad as it used to be and makes it more enjoyable working in the shop when I don't have to spend half my time looking for something.
 
Guess I’m the oddball. I keep my shop pretty tidy. Cleanup after each day’s use. There are times I leave stuff out when I’m in the middle of a project, but even keep that area in order. The one pitfall in my shop is flat surfaces. They tend to accumulate projects in progress, of which there are always many, as well as newly acquired tools, supplies, etc., that don’t yet have a proper place. I can say that having a larger shop does not cure disorganization totally, as I have more flat surfaces in my “new” shop of about 3 years, than I did in my prior shop. Chuck
 
I am definitely not the most organized but at some point I have to stop and at least put things up when I finish something. Until then it gets crazy. I have had a space issue like many of us so there is some organizing I have to do to just have room to operate.

As for wood, I have shelves with boxes of Woodbarter sent wood with your names still on them.
 
I try, I really do, or at least I think about it periodically.

At the end of last winter I really gave it a go. I dutifully dug out 3 yards of shavings, compressed shavings and miscellaneous other things off the floor. Now of course, the lathe sits at an operating height about mid chest instead of at elbow height, but that is better than at waist high(which was where it was before digging. That low hurts my back too much when bending over that far, which was the impetus for cleaning in the first place.

I also moved the bench the lathe sits on further away from the wall so I could hang an old kitchen cabinet (to organize things of course). That precipitated the need for a couple more metal sawhorses to support the door my band saw, drill press and belt sander sit on. Which had to be moved before the bench could be moved. I was going to try and level the sawhorses, but the ground was frozen, so couldn't do any digging. I even had delusions of pouring some pads for sawhorse legs to sit on, instead of slowly sinking into the dirt, but why bother when I couldn't dig out enough to level them anyway.

The door is still supporting those tools, but at only a 5° slope or so instead of the 10° it was sitting at.

During the cleanup, I found several things I'd been looking for. A pound or so chunk of beeswax I'd been l searching for two years or more showed up. Several of the old Benjamin's Best tools suddenly appeared as did two gouges (D-Way and TT) that were still unused in original packaging. I know at least one of those was meant to be a new 40/40 gouge, but I don't remember which.

I've got enough 3/4" plywood to build a heavy duty bench/cabinet for the lathe to sit on, but every time I think I have decided on a design, I get too busy with other things, and then think of another design. For now, the lathe works just fine sitting on my Roubo bench, even if it is too high at the moment. This fall/winter I'll cut down another tree or two, spend a week roughing out items, then the height will be tolerable once I scoop all the shavings to stand on.

Like everyone here, life gets in the way, and I'd rather spend 5 minutes searching for something than spend 2 weeks trying to organize and build what I need to organize.
 
Lots of aspiration to be ultra organized that always get lost as the project moves along. I'm currently in the process of moving the shop from the old garage to the new garage so have the opportunity to set it up in a more user-friendly, organized manner.

Giving the work area a good blow with compressed air and sweeping any wood shavings up at the end of the day makes it feel more organized although it isn't really. Having most of the tools on wheels for easy movement allows them to be moved a small amount to get the dust & shavings out from underneath and the walls & corners. It's just a feel good thing.

French cleats on the walls and custom made holders for certain tools help them find their way back to where they belong. There will be more of this as the new garage shop progresses.

More cabinets will take the place of the shelves that I currently have use. Sawdust has a way of getting everywhere & into everything.

Magnetic strips at strategic places hold often used tools. I have a lifetime habit of putting something down and not being able to find it 2 minutes later. If a tool has a convenient place I am more apt to put it there every time, saving myself lots of time looking for it every time it is needed.
 
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