DreamTheaterRules
It's OUR time, Mr. Hand
- Joined
- May 4, 2023
- Messages
- 3,364
You know what they say. If you got it, flaunt it!
How do you store your parts?
- Thread starter Eseffinga
- Start date
theDeepender
Yup…
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2022
- Messages
- 1,036
Do like I did and mount the cheapo plastic drawers on the wall where they can’t get knocked over. I labeled each draws with a sharpie.
My paternal grandfather didn't keep the family car in the garage. He built himself a workbench, painted the floor, and made a bunch of shelves with square compartments that he kept glass bottles with labeled things like nails, screws, and various other parts.
Like, he'd have a bottle of nails labeled 'nails'. You could see it was nails right through the glass bottle, but dammit, he was gonna have labels.
He had his woodworking and other tools hung underneath the lower shelves on hooks.
I won't say it was a thing of beauty, but for its time it was unusually nice and well-organized. He did not want to lose those tools or parts.
I know for a fact he once made a birdhouse in his garage, because he showed it to me with great pride, and hung it on a tree in the back yard. I don't know of anything else he made there, but it's entirely possible that he did and I simply never found out about it.
The car that because of his workbench lived outside the garage was his beloved grey and white two-tone 1956 Chevrolet Bel-Air.
In those days - 1950s and 1960s - cars were very prone to rusting out. Michigan used (and still uses) heavy road salt on the streets (Detroit has a salt mine under the city, for real).
Despite the fact that he had, and loved, his 1956 Chevrolet, he rarely drove it (reminds me of myself, which is scary).
So it sat in the driveway or on the street, and by 1965, had rust holes along the lower body. That's when he got to work with his very creative World War One Aircraft fix.
Remembering that painted cloth covered airplanes were once a thing, he dipped some old undershirts in grey paint and slapped them onto the parts that were grey, to cover the rust holes Same with the white parts. When the paint dried, the holes were covered and the painted undershirts stuck to the outside of the car.
Of course, when they dried, they weren't very shiny and didn't match the hand-rubbed glow of his once-proudly polished Chevy. So he made them shiny with some shellac.
My grandfather was very, very proud of his handiwork. As far as he was concerned, buying a new car would have been a complete waste of money, since his still ran just fine and dandy.
Perhaps his vision was going by then, because he thought it looked great, even though it was the weirdest thing you ever saw.
My family was a tale of two grandfathers who saw the world differently. My maternal grandfather once traded in a brand new Cadillac the day after he bought it because my toddler brother had a pee accident in it and got the back seat wet.
He did not have a workbench, nor did he own any tools that I ever saw, and there were no spare parts or fastener bottles in his life. He was completely free of the need to save things he didn't use, and I'm pretty sure he never made himself a birdhouse.
I'm an admixture of this strange brew.
I have parts baggies that are labeled - not that I know exactly where or what they are - but at least I know what room they're in.
On the other hand, I once had a beautiful, like-new Tom Anderson drop top that a friend put some pick scratches in near the pickup, and I couldn't even bear to look at it. So I traded in the very next day.
"Your time's up, Laz. We'll have to continue our session next week."
"Thanks, Dr. Freud. I really feel better having got that off my chest."
Like, he'd have a bottle of nails labeled 'nails'. You could see it was nails right through the glass bottle, but dammit, he was gonna have labels.
He had his woodworking and other tools hung underneath the lower shelves on hooks.
I won't say it was a thing of beauty, but for its time it was unusually nice and well-organized. He did not want to lose those tools or parts.
I know for a fact he once made a birdhouse in his garage, because he showed it to me with great pride, and hung it on a tree in the back yard. I don't know of anything else he made there, but it's entirely possible that he did and I simply never found out about it.
The car that because of his workbench lived outside the garage was his beloved grey and white two-tone 1956 Chevrolet Bel-Air.
In those days - 1950s and 1960s - cars were very prone to rusting out. Michigan used (and still uses) heavy road salt on the streets (Detroit has a salt mine under the city, for real).
Despite the fact that he had, and loved, his 1956 Chevrolet, he rarely drove it (reminds me of myself, which is scary).
So it sat in the driveway or on the street, and by 1965, had rust holes along the lower body. That's when he got to work with his very creative World War One Aircraft fix.
Remembering that painted cloth covered airplanes were once a thing, he dipped some old undershirts in grey paint and slapped them onto the parts that were grey, to cover the rust holes Same with the white parts. When the paint dried, the holes were covered and the painted undershirts stuck to the outside of the car.
Of course, when they dried, they weren't very shiny and didn't match the hand-rubbed glow of his once-proudly polished Chevy. So he made them shiny with some shellac.
My grandfather was very, very proud of his handiwork. As far as he was concerned, buying a new car would have been a complete waste of money, since his still ran just fine and dandy.
Perhaps his vision was going by then, because he thought it looked great, even though it was the weirdest thing you ever saw.
My family was a tale of two grandfathers who saw the world differently. My maternal grandfather once traded in a brand new Cadillac the day after he bought it because my toddler brother had a pee accident in it and got the back seat wet.
He did not have a workbench, nor did he own any tools that I ever saw, and there were no spare parts or fastener bottles in his life. He was completely free of the need to save things he didn't use, and I'm pretty sure he never made himself a birdhouse.
I'm an admixture of this strange brew.
I have parts baggies that are labeled - not that I know exactly where or what they are - but at least I know what room they're in.
On the other hand, I once had a beautiful, like-new Tom Anderson drop top that a friend put some pick scratches in near the pickup, and I couldn't even bear to look at it. So I traded in the very next day.
"Your time's up, Laz. We'll have to continue our session next week."
"Thanks, Dr. Freud. I really feel better having got that off my chest."
Last edited:
archtop
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2021
- Messages
- 609
Plastic drawers and a Sharpie? I find that far too practical and not enough over-engineering. I've been working on an Appsmith and MySql app that runs in Docker containers to get my parts inventory out of a spreadsheet and into a database with a web app that I can access with my phone/tablet/laptop while working at my bench in the garage. Hourly backups duplicated to another server for data security were finished yesterday. Next? Maybe redundant servers hosting the database & app?
Sure, I could have built an amp or 2, or recorded an album, with the time it took to develop my inventory system, but in my opinion a job isn't done until it's thoroughly over engineered.
I like the cut of your jib.
Wakester
Re Member
Thrown in a tub, in a drawer, in a dresser that I call my work bench.
theDeepender
Yup…
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2022
- Messages
- 1,036
You may have a problem…
If you begin including your undershorts and socks in your inventories, seek professional help.
CandidPicker
Tone Matters. Use It Well.
Various metal ammo boxes and a footlocker. Also a small plastic upright shelf unit for larger things like duct tape, electrical tape, contractor's tape, painting tape, hook/weave velcro, light bulbs, small tools, nameless accessories. And one huge concrete block / wood shelved bookcase that reaches to the ceiling. That thing houses my Brunetti amp, my songbooks, my cookbooks, my instructional books, and several years worth of weekly Bible study notes.
Partially inherited the ammo boxes from my Dad (USAR, retired, d. 1997). Located the footlockers from an Army/Navy Surplus Store mid-state. Addt'l ammo boxes from amazon.
I've considered opting in for it, except its sole use would be for home inventory, likely nothing else. Like yourself, I've also got a current spreadsheet system for delineating current possessions for insurance needs, etc.
Partially inherited the ammo boxes from my Dad (USAR, retired, d. 1997). Located the footlockers from an Army/Navy Surplus Store mid-state. Addt'l ammo boxes from amazon.
Taken tongue in cheek, there is actually a home inventory app now available with the Mac App Store that runs a similar backup/update app via password protected spreadsheet.
I've considered opting in for it, except its sole use would be for home inventory, likely nothing else. Like yourself, I've also got a current spreadsheet system for delineating current possessions for insurance needs, etc.
dogrocketp
I drank the PRS kool aid, and it was tasty!
I made a trip to crate and barrel. There are 4 parts bins sectioned off. 1 for guitar electronic, one for guitar hardware, one for cables, and one for amp footswtches, etc. Within each bin section, there are categories (ie- electronics- pickups, potentiometers, 3 & 5 way switches). Each category is in a labeled zip lock bag, with parts being further wrapped for safety. I can find what I need quite quickly.
Sometimes………
Sometimes………
archtop
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2021
- Messages
- 609
This is why everyone should be inventorying. I've been though a house fire and trying to remember what we had and where was tough after the fact. Luckily we had recently taken videos of the interior (we do so every couple years).
With the new IRS reporting requirements, $600 for personal sales & PalPal, then having an inventory with purchase notes and/or scans of purchase receipts is very helpful. If you can't upload scans to your inventory app then storing a purchase date in the app then having all your receipts scanned and prefixed with a sortable date (in YYYYMMDD format) makes receipts easy to find: i.e. a guitar built in 2021 purchased Jan. 5, 2022 would be "20220105_PRS_2021_McCarty_10Top_WhaleBlue.pdf" another might be "20231215_PRS_Archtop2_10Top_OrangeTiger.pdf" for a 2022 Archtop II purchased 12/15/2023.
Last edited:
Eseffinga
Hermit
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2013
- Messages
- 100
Alnus Rubra
Loving nature’s wonders
Pics, or it didn’t happen!
Everyone knows that Paul has a “Hello Kitty” storage system.
Similar threads
