Sunday, March 4, 2012

Tool time

As my tool collection has steadily grown, my need to be organized has grown too.  I just received a nice set of ½” drive metric deep sockets for my birthday and there wasn’t any room for them in the tool box.  Since that outcome is totally unacceptable, I started researching socket storage.   It is officially time to reorganize the tool box. 

 I visited garage journal dot com (a great website for home based gear heads) and saw that most people there were buying prefabricated socket racks.  After comparing the racks to my collection of sockets, it was obvious that none of those holders matched up real well with my collection of sockets.  That would leave me with room wasting empty spaces OR I would have to modify the racks to fit my sockets.  In addition to them not being an ideal match for my collection, the racks cost 15-20 bucks each and I would need at least 6 of them.  I’ll give you a second to do that mental math…
I also saw that a few guys on garage journal had built their own custom racks, so I went out to the garage and compared my set up with theirs.   It looked like I could definitely do it myself for way less money, and we all know that  I’m typically in favor of spending less money... unless it is for something cool like that carbon fiber road bike with electronic shifting that I’ve been eyeing in the cycling magazines.  Yes, they are now making bikes with electronic shifting – possibly the coolest advancement in cycling since they started putting disc brakes on mountain bikes.

Karen was busy this weekend grading midterm projects, so I decided to get started on this project.  I calculated the materials I would need and made a trip to Lowes.  $10 later I had everything that I needed (except for the paint to finish it).  I came home and fired up the power tools.  What can I say; I am a sucker for an opportunity to use power tools!

I’m only about halfway through, but here are some progress pictures,  this should definitely make it easier to find the socket I need, when I need it:


In other news, Illinois State University’s men’s basketball team almost won the conference championship game today.  They lost by 4 points in overtime.  It would have been nice to see them win.  I’ve also been working on updating my personal “career” website, www.davidscottdouglas.com.  Feel free to take a look at it and send me any comments that you have.

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