To cater to the needs of our store, repairs, custom work and my own needs, a large variety of parts had to be stocked, requiring compact, organized storage. With or without dividers, cabinets with drawers or bins can hold almost anything. Smaller sizes can be hung on the wall, medium set on shelves and large with casters set on the floor. In most cases drawers of the same size and unit type can be swapped for reorganization. As sold most do not have enough dividers, but usually extras can be ordered or made. A spare drawer can hold surplus dividers until needed.
Most drawers have stops to prevent falling out when pulled. Some can be juggled to a position for lift-out by tilting front up. If desired, for those that do not, stops can be removed to permit transport to point of use. Some have more bin-like baskets in lieu of drawers.
Sources are hardware, cookware and storage departments or possibly flea markets and garage sales. Occasionally discarded ones are found. Selection depends on space available and need. Beware of economy units; as often drawers must be trimmed to avoid sticking and some cases are out of square, preventing good abutment alignment, when placed side by side. Often tops can be used as shelves.
Although they may be stacked on shelves or benches, smaller cabinets are more conveniently mounted on walls for unobstructed access. They can hold whatever fits, very well organized. To prevent jamming, caution must be exercised when storing bagged, carded or mobile items. Opening a drawer, jammed by a raised item often requires some fancy maneuvering by insertion of a long, very thin strip or knife blade to depress the culprit. Sometimes with luck, a few good shakes may settle contents enough to clear. Most smaller and older drawers are usually clear, brittle styrene, which cracks or breaks easily; while larger sizes are frequently , more flexible, polyethylene. For tighter spaces, more flexible, but expensive, single and double drawer units are available.
Note: Adjust brightness and contrast for optimum viewing.
SMALL DRAWER CABINETS
OVER 30 YEAR OLD CRAFTSMAN
These contain older parts for out of production models, including Varney. Hobby-Line, Penn-Line, Gilbert, AHM and many others.
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NEWER, POOR QUALITY, ECONOMY MODELS
These are devoted to newer parts. The left holds motors and small loco parts. Second contains trucks, wheels, couplers and accessories. Third has larger rolling stock parts and detail parts. Fourth catches electric loco and odd parts. Even the space above is used as a shelf to hold cigar, hosiery and other boxes with small detail parts and odd hardware. Below on a shelf, to the left are the partitioned plastic boxes and the resistance soldering, power unit. At the lower right is a larger bin cabinet that contains expendable , bagged and card mounted stock plus the in-bound drawer.
Always used together, two very old multi-purpose devices have seen extensive use in earlier days, before expansion. Upper unit drawers hold tools like knife and saw blades, carbide drill bits, torches, rotary tool wirebrushes, burrs and routers etc. Shelf and top hold boxes with internal plastic boxes containing trucks, wheels, coupler drawbars and odd parts. Having a tool rack, the lower unit once served the Unimat. Desk drawers rendered tool holding obsolete. Rack and shelf below now serve as catch alls. Plastic boxes on lower shelf hold odd things which do not fit drawers.
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Distortion from Super Wide Angle lens at too short distance ,
OLD TOOL CABINET
Boxes on top.
Boxes on shelf.
Drawers for small tool storage.
Tool rack w/ holes.
Shelf catch-all.
Shelf w/ plastic boxes.
Stackable cabinets with greater depth are better stored on shelves. With drawers of the right depth, plastic units hold carded plastic and brass castings or parts. Unfortunately when additional units were sought, none were to be found. With larger drawers the metal units hold larger cards plus locos etc., waiting for stripping or cleaning in a sonic cleaner, now located on a toilet tank lid, next to a sink. Vacant space at sides holds a variety of boxes with additional locos. Space on top is not wasted.At right, in an awkward corner space, are stacked project trays which hold disassembled parts.
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MEDIUM STACKABLE CABINETS ON SHELF.
4 drawer plastic bin type.
3 drawer discarded automotive parts bins.
Various cardboard boxes on top & along side.
Right: ends of stacked project trays.
Against the wall between door and closet, two floor bins hold turnouts and switch machine prior to fine tuning preparation and other unwieldy items. On top are two stackable, small, 3 drawer (bonus) cabinets, awaiting use and placement. Two stackable, single drawer cabinets, holding small plastic boxes are at right. While on the very top, are crossovers, too long to fit in drawers.
Note: Adjust brightness and contrast for optimum viewing.
FLOOR CABINETS BIN W/ CASTERS.
Tops used as shelves.
To reduce overhead, our store policy has been to stock easily swapped shells, at about 20% of the cost, rather than locos. A large surplus cabinet with twelve, three lift-out drawer wide, tiers held almost every available shell in N and HO. With only one roadname and color scheme of each type on display, customers were encouraged to view and select their own "flavors".
Be sure to measure carefully, both before and during shopping. Sizes can be very deceiving due to curved front and fancy tops. Since the same units may be sold at several stores with widely varying prices, comparison shopping is wise.
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