Pliers Organizer

Intro: Pliers Organizer

So if you are like me you have a ton of pliers and the like that are just thrown into a drawer or two. Sure you can try to be organized and lay them flat, but they always seem to shift and waste space. There was a deeper drawer in my bottom cabinet so why not store them on their sides and make use of the deeper drawer?

STEP 1: What You Need

I planned to make two organizers for the front and the back of the drawer. I measured my drawers and got some ballpark figures of what I would need and headed to the store. I chose a 24" x 36" 1/8" HDPE sheet for my divider material due to the cost and it was what they had. For the horizontal bar I went with two 3' sections of 1/4" all thread, because I had nuts at home that would fit. For the spacers between the dividers I chose 2' of 5/16" interior diameter vinyl tubing.

STEP 2: Size Your Material

I chose to rip my sheet of plastic on my neighbors table saw since it would produce consistent 2" cuts. With the size of my sheet I was left with a thicker 3.5" wide piece at the end which I used as the end caps. You could size your goods a number of different ways depending on chosen material and what tools are available to you. From there I cut the strips to length. I went with 6" for the larger tools and end caps and 4" sections for the smaller. Use a stop block to save time and get consistent sized cuts.

STEP 3: Clean Up the Edges

After cutting the dividers on the table saw and a miter saw there were little fingers hanging off the edges. A couple quick light passes on the sander cleaned them up.

STEP 4: Drill the Holes

Chuck up an appropriately sized drill bit for the bar you chose. I used a 1/4" drill bit in my drill press. Set up a jig so you can plow through your stacks of dividers safely.

STEP 5: Cut the Bar Material to Length

Cut your bar material to 1/4" - 1/2" shorter than your drawer is wide. This gives it some wiggle room and you should be able to squeeze an additional pair of pliers or two on the outside of the organizer. After the bar is cut to length, clean the edges up with a file or a bench grinder.

STEP 6: Measure Pliers and Cut Spacer Material

Measure the width of the pliers and mark the tubing to be cut. 1 1/4", 1", and 3/4" worked well for my pliers. It is a good idea to leave some wiggle room so that you can easily get them out.

STEP 7: Assembly Time

Fasten the nut to the end of the bar and start fitting the dividers and spacers. It helps to know what order you want to have the pliers in so the appropriate spacers and dividers are used. Not pictured is heat shrink tubing placed on the ends of the bar to prevent scratching the drawer sides.

STEP 8: Place Organizer and Restock

Place the organizer(s) into the drawer(s) and fill them up. Stand back and admire your work.

STEP 9: Clean Up

Now that you are done admiring your newest creation you should probably clean up that mess of cut plastic.

STEP 10: Things I'd Do Differenly

The square cuts make reaching the smaller pliers a bit awkward. Either making narrower strips of 1"-1 1/2" or rounding the ends out should help with that.

Get or borrow a better camera. Sorry for the potato pictures.

Comments

[pfred2]

I made a rack for some of my junk overflow pliers a while back. It is different than yours is, but the same stand them up idea.

http://i.imgur.com/dmfTy5S.jpg

I made it out of coat hangers. I keep my better pliers in a drawer in my top tool chest I have. You know, the lay them down way. But the stand them up rack is pretty convenient. You can pack a lot of pliers into a short lateral space too. A lot more than laying them down. I used to have those junk plies all tossed into the top well of a homemade toolbox I have. I never could find anything like that either.

So the rack is definitely where it is at. I have a picture of what the old mess used to look like. I was actually taking a picture of a screwdriver rack I made, and captured it in the background accidentally. I think before I made the rack it was actually even worse.

[seamster]

This is a great idea! My drawers are a mess, and this is something I need to make. Thank you very much for sharing this.

[igottatinker]

Thank you, let me know what changes you make for your version!