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QotW: How do you organize/hang/store your ceramic tools in the shop when using them or storing them?


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Hi folks,  no new topics for the QotW in the pool, so I will pose one once again.

I have been renovating the family farmhouse with my sisters and their families. Right now I have a car full of tools that will need to be stored away, but with the rain last night and this morning I am reluctant to get started. However, it got me to thinking about the way I organize tools. I usually have boxes/bags for tools.  Small electrical tools go in a red box with a latch, circular saw is in a bag with blades, wrenches, sockets screw drivers in a trifold box, drills, bits, and impact drivers in a bag and so on.

This got me to thinking about how I store my ceramic tools. I have cups for brushes, my wheel has a silverware wire basket with dividers where everything is arranged from needle tools in a sponge to ribs in  slot, and other tools in slots. This allows me to take all of the tools out and spray them out while still in the container.  . cutting down on dust. I also have magnetic strips I use for trimming tools when trimming mounted on the side of my trim splash pan. I used to hang tools with silhouettes painted where the tool went below the hooks. Some handles had to be drilled for that, but most of the wire end tools or the ribbon end tools would just hang easily. Now I have a cabinet of multiple drawers where the ceramics tools, stamps, and others are stored until use.

QotW: How do you organize/hang/store your ceramic tools in the shop when using them or storing them?

 

best,

Pres  

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Tool organization, well, that's evolving, sure 'nuff ...lifetime struggle.

We've been in our current house just over ten years now. We have pegboard in the car garage and the studio/bikeshop/repairshop for things we want to find easily, also for things we don't want lost. There's a roll around toolbox and many shelves in the car garage, and many many drawers, cabinets, and shelves in the studio. Having places for things helps. Having multiples also helps - there's travelling kit, car garage set, studio set of many basic hand tools. From there, oft used and favorites get a good spots, whilst hardly ever used (but ah'm keepin') go in drawers, top shelf, even storage. Power tools take lots of room - the ones I don't use often are in storage - a few steps and turn of a key away.

Combing through and shuffling the collections, ah, there's the rub! It takes time and effort.
I've three portable toolboxes set to go to our son - I won't use them, all doubles - better now than later.
Just finished a major round o' tool shuffling, late August.
Another couple boxes went to Habitat for Humanity.

Clay tools, I'm using ~one quart size cylinders, one for throwing tools, one for trimming tools. The needle tool, sponges, and metal rib* set aside, I just exchange the container to match the activity. The cylinders set on top of the small set of drawers right by the wheel. There's enough room in the wheel's pan for a one gallon bucket (chamois strip clothespinned on thar) , my array of sponges, and tool cylinder. I really use just a few tools - for throwing, two wood knives, metal ribs*, some sponges - sometimes a wood rib, sometimes the needle tool. For trimming, the needle tool, a small two sided loop, a hack saw blade trimming tool (it's custom!), that metal rib*, a brush, and three chattering tools. Extra/duplicate and not often used tools (e.g. hole drillers) are in a set of small free standing drawers that sit by the wheel. There's also an array of brushes in (yet another) cylinder over by the ware shelves. There might be a box of tools that didn't make the drawers somewhere, which I'd intended to drop off at the local JC ceramic lab. Glaze tools are in a cabinet with the low volume (e.g. cobalt) materials. The cutoff tool hangs in the wedging area, along with the scale, another wood knife for cleaning bats, and a bike spoke for poking feet. By the door is a bucket of clear water, a sponge, and towel; this is for cleaning hands, as throwing water clean up leaves a film o' clay, eh? The bats all stack on top of a small set of freestanding shelves near the wheel.

I can lift out the cylinder o' tools, bucket, the few sponges, the needle and rib, then wipe out the pan. Yah, I leave it like I want to find it - clean.

Maybe I'll get more/different tools, heh, probably not, except when things wear out. This next year I want to play with sprigs, so, time to start making moulds, also past time to make more bats...

*The metal rib used for ribbing the outside of forms, and for burnishing after trimming, a standard kidney shaped cheap-ish model, for the metal wears away to the point that it's dangerous, See? When I'd invested in a more expensive (seven dollars!!!) rib for shaping the inside of bowls, that's when I designated the cheaper kidney for the grunt work. 

 

Edited by Hulk
spring->sprig
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@Hulk, I cut my hands up pretty bad in the very early days, when practice throwing. Took a pug  @3# off of the Walker output, slapped it on the table a few times then started centering it. Big mistake, someone had thrown a metal rib into the slop bucket evidently. Went through the pugmill, and came out in pieces. I had several  cuts that made throwing the next few weeks very painful, but I learned a good lesson. . . .wedge well to remove any gifts from prior clay use and abuse by myself or others.

 

Sounds like you have had a good time organizing things to your liking! 

 

best,

Pres

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I only use like 12 tools so they are not that hard to find when I need them. Throwing tools and sponges live on the wheel and trim/handling live on a small table behind the wheel. Wax and tongs, drill/mixer live on the glaze table, kiln stuff by the kiln

 Having said that, I do have a ton of duplicates, and other tools I rarely (or never) use,  most of them live in a clear plastic gallon bucket and if I need one I can see it, and one other plastic bin filled with useless crap I will never use, but I might, maybe, but I won't, but I might find a use for it.... bah! Need to Marie Kando that ...

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  • Pres unpinned this topic
  • 2 weeks later...

I have a plastic quart jar that I stick the tools I am using at the moment in.  The rest of my tools that I have collected over the last  fifty years are in  trays that are used in mechanic tool boxes.   They are tough but light weight and will stack inside of each other.   They were also very cheap,  the silver rack has inspired me to drill some holes in the bottom to make them and the tools easier to clean.  My cutoff wires are hanging by hooks next to the wheel.    The rest of the studio might get reorganized,  right now it looks like a tornado went through it.   We had to move and pull everything away from the outside wall,  the termite exterminator is starting today.  I don't have to organize electric or bigger tools,  that is my husbands domain.  He has 3000 sq. feet for cars he restores and different work areas,  I have 350 sq. feet.  He has offered to let me have some of his space,  unfortunately I would just fill it with stuff I don't need.   I am going to try to do a deep throw away cleaning this time.  I like my cozy studio but it is a little too cozy right now.   Denice

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