3D Print Your Way Through the Garage
Get your garage cleaned and organized on the cheap with 3D printing.
Let’s face it, your garage is probably a mess. It started out perfect and clean, but over time tools get scattered and moved around until there is a sort of managed chaos. Those plastic tool kit cases get destroyed and warped, the tool box gets more cramped every week, and it’s just time to step back and get things in order. Fairer weather is coming fast, and you don’t want to spend all day looking for that 10mm socket you need to finish repairing your ride. The quickest way to handle the mess is to spend a few thousand dollars with your local Snap-On dealer buying new tool chests and storage trays, but we found a cheaper way to get the deed done with 3D printing.
Socket storage
Trying to keep track of sockets can be a major hassle and a nightmare. It seems like every week we manage to lose a socket or break a latch on an organizing case. The best solution we have found so far for our uses are the metal trays with the matched socket mount sizes, but with the cost of those things running as high as $15 a tray, you can spend some serious money in a hurry. Thankfully Thinigiverse is loaded with various solutions that allow us to print our own socket trays. We used these models from WoodmanXI, and instead of paying $15 for a socket storage tray, we spent about $1.30 in plastic to print one.
Our only regret is not using two different colors of plastic to differentiate between our metric and standard size sockets. Of course, it was cheap enough to make these that we can reprint a second set for just a few dollars.
Once we get the sockets done, we found some great box wrench storage trays and the perfect bench-top screwdriver holder to print next.
Spare parts trays
It seems that every time we put anything together, fix anything, or take anything apart we end up with a pile of spare screws, nuts and bolts. No, we don’t know why companies just have spare screws hidden inside their products either. But regardless of how those spare nuts, bolts and other pieces made it into your garage, you still need a place to put them. For years we have been using the traditional “mason jar mounted the shelf” method of holding all our spare bits and bobs, but when you have a quart jar full of washers, finding the exact size you need can be a pain.
We were well on the path to blowing a pile of cash on tackle box trays to keep things sorted, but once again 3D printing is here to save our wallets. We found an awesome print file that consists of a 5-inch box with room for five trays. They trays themselves come in five different size configurations from one large tray to one divided into sixteen smaller compartments. We printed out some of the larger trays for all those lag bolts we have laying around, and we printed the smaller divided trays for keeping all those small washers and nuts organized.
We also remembered to split up the print colors to make it look nicer and more professional. The black outer casing and gray trays make for a great contrast that will look great on our workbench. Best of all, despite the fact that we used some really expensive polyester-based plastic for the black shell, the entire project still cost us less than $7.
Get those cans off the shelf
If there is one single thing that seems to take up more shelf space in our garage than anything else, it’s aerosol cans. Between the spray paint, rust preventer, penetrating oils, cleaners and more, there are usually at least two shelves covered in cans in our garage. Once again, we were looking to the internet and found some wall-mounted trays that would help us get those cans off the shelf and free up space for spare parts and general storage, but the cheapest vertical storage tray we found was $15 and only held four cans. Or we can print these wall hooks we found on Thingiverse. Not only are they super simple and cheap to print, less than $.50 per hook, they interlock with each other so they are always spaced properly and it saves the hassle of making sure every hook is plumb and level. As long as your first mount is plumb, the rest should follow. The interlocking design also helps distribute the weight of all the cans across every mount reducing strain on the wall and the mounting screws.
To add an extra touch of organization, we printed the brackets in three colors. Gray for cleaning products, blue for paints, and black for “caustics” like WD-40 and starter fluid. We expect that color coding system to come in extremely handy the next time we need our nephew to find the penetrating oil for us when we are elbow deep into the underside of an old pickup.
Cheap, effective, and revolutionary
We’ve had a passing fascination with 3D printing in the past, but with companies like Ford looking to use the technology for scale production and lots of people using 3D printing to help in car restoration, the 3D printer is becoming a more enticing investment for the enthusiast with each passing day. But with our preferred printer, the Lulzbot TAZ6, ringing in at $2500, it can be hard to justify that kind of expense. With lots of smaller projects like this garage organization, that initial cost can be stretched out pretty quickly. Just compared to the cheapest parts we were able to find on Amazon and at the local hardware store, we managed to save more than $100 by printing these storage items rather than buying. Once we find a home for every socket, wrench, spare bolt, and can of carb cleaner, we will have saved around $400. Makes that original $2500 cost a lot easier to swallow.
That might be the most amazing thing we have learned with this 3D printing project. The amount of uses for this technology seems to be endless.
