I like my big tool boxes on wheels. My little basement workshop is small, so stuff has to be mobile. Well I scored an unusual steel box from a neighbour, that used to be the base cabinet for an old IBM Office copier. About 4 feet wide, 20 inches inside height, 2.5 inch swivel ball casters (two that lock up as a brake) and 24 inch depth. The doors are removable on slide on welded pins. I needed a place for my portable tools (all in their own plastic boxes) and my big socket set, and so on. Stuff that you need once in a while, that just gets dusty, under your feet, etc. And a fishing tackle box is great for cotter pins and washers and grease nipples or connectors. I still use egg cartons for sheetmetal screws (Star, Hex, panhead, countersunk). You never get enough to justify a separate jar, so this way I can sort them by type and size. Anyone else got some tool handling tricks?
I have screwed the lids to mayo jars to the bottom of my cabinets, then screwed the jars back in. They are off of the workbench, but still visible. I switched to the plastic mayo jars now, due to my increasing clumsiness.
I get those plastic tobacco cans and peanut butter jars for the bigger volume stuff too. Still doing a lot of renos in the house, so nails and wood screws and kitchen cabinet handles, etc. get their own jars. I've got to do one trick on a neighbour who likes snooping around my jars. My grandfather pulled it on my dad. He put paper labels inside of his mayo jars with the name facing out. On one jar, he put the name on the inside and wrapped it all around so you couldn't see inside. Gramps and I were upstairs having a coffee, and my old man was snooping in the basement shop, as usual. All of a sudden, we hear this roar of laughter and a few expletives (SOB, WTF, etc.). He found the jar; pulled out the label and read it, "For Bill. Pieces of String too short to use!" He never went snooping again!
