One thing that constantly frustrates me is not being able to find a tool I need. I live in cramped quarters (no garage and no work area) and don’t really have a “good” place for organizing my tools. All my tools are either in my standard sized toolbox (read small), or in varied boxes that I try, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep organized in a way that will help me remember what tools are where. I am jealous of people like reader Ben, who does have space and sent us this great tutorial on how he organized his tools on the cheap. Take it away Ben . . .   

INTRODUCTION

Recently I started on a job right at the bottom of my ‘to do’ list, sorting out my garage. I consider myself a pretty organized guy but if you’d taken a look at the state of my INSERT WORD you would have taken a lot of convincing!

When it came to sorting out my cycling tools I decided that getting them all hanging up on a kind of shadowboard would be the best way to make them easily accessible.

So off I headed to my local branch of Homebase to set my plan into motion.

MATERIALS/TOOLS

Purchased:

• Chipboard. 1220mm x 610mm x 18mm (2 sheets). £23.92
• ‘Lost Head Nails’. 65mm. £2.94
• 75mm Screws. £3.92
• Washers. £1.39

TOTAL COST: £32.17

Tools Needed:

• Drill
• 10mm drill bit
• 10mm wall plugs
• Spirit level & pencil
• Screwdriver
• Pencil
• Hammer

CONSTRUCTION

1. Drill holes in wood. Ensure you clear off the excess chipboard from the back so it will go flat to the wall.

2. Mark the holes through the wood onto the wall using the spirit level and pencil. I found 6 holes to be best for keeping the chipboard secure.

3. Drill the holes into the wall. Use a piece of electrical tape or similar to mark the depth of the wall plug so you don’t drill too deep.

4. Put the washer on the screws and put the bottom piece of chipboard up. You may need some help to hold this in place whilst you screw it in.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 for the top piece of chipboard.

HANGING UP THE TOOLS

Now you have the Chipboard in place on the wall it is time to start hanging up the tools. This is where the headless nails come into play. If you have anything slightly heavier or that needs a lip to stop it falling forward then use the screws.

You can be as creative as you want with this, but I worked on two principles:

1. Try and group similar tool types together
2. Put the most used tools in the most accessible positions

My finished shadowboard looks like this:

Most of the tools hung up fairly easily. Most have holes built into them for exactly this reason, though in future I will now be ensuring I buy tools that are easy to fit on the board!

There were a couple of unique items that were harder to fit.

The first was the hex key set. Thankfully I bought a set by Silverline which came with a stand. I mounted this onto a small piece of wood and used brackets to attach it to the board. Whilst these are not the sturdiest hex keys in the world for £7 they are worth it for the stand alone. Even if you are planning to upgrade most other sets would not fit this easily onto a shadowboard, so I would certainly recommend these.

The second unique tool to fit was the hex bits for my torque wrench.

Luckily I had kept hold of the box they came in and managed to glue this to the board to make it easy to access them.

They are very snug so do not fall out. If you are interested they are by a company called Bergen and available on Amazon.

CLOSE

I hope you have found this useful. If you have any questions or would like any advice feel free to drop me an e-mail to Ben@CyclingTipsHQ.com and you can check out my web presence here – www.CyclingTipsHQ.com