parts trays?

[Geronimo]

well after the engine building class I am in collection mode. In an effort to stay clean and organized I wanted to pick up some kind of metal trays.

I was thinking some stainless steel drip trays or something would be nice, as they are easy to clean and easy to see parts on.

I know I have seen something like this is build posts so I thought I would ask to see what people have found.


Thanks!!

[fintstone]

The shop I worked in back in the 70's used metal muffin pans for screws, nuts, etc... Now they have mini muffin pans with more but smaller compartments. Pretty cheap (at Target below):

[Geronimo]

Thats NOT a dumb idea

I thought about cookie sheets, but thought stainless steel would be easier to see parts on.

[Dave Colangelo]

I used to work for a food service company and have some of these that work nicely for this. The ones i have are soft flexible rubber and can go right through the dishwasher or just get hosed off. This place also sells some nice ones in two sizes


Regards
Dave

[Geronimo]

I was thinking something like this

[47silver]

had a magnetic tray
and used it when I put a new timing belt/water pump tensioner on a 1.8l audi turbo.
I put everything back together and got a timing code.
Replaced the hydraulic chain adjuster.
changed the belt adjuster I had it apart 4 times thinking i did not do the timing properly

i noticed that the timing cup on the end of the cam shaft was magnetized as a nut attached to it by accident.
Wel I found that this should not be magnetized, I replaced the cup (10 dollars i think) and never got another timing code.

so i threw out all of the magnetic trays for parts and only use plastic.
i realize that the my 75 911 does not have any cam device but if the newer 911's do i would throw the magnetic trays into the garbage.

[Locker537]

I like the drip pan on the bench idea.

For small parts, I use an organizer. I like the Milwaukee ones for $20 because the bins are large enough to hold some decent sized parts. They are also water tight if you find yourself using them to bring stuff to the track, etc.

https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/Storage-Solutions/Plastic-Storage/Organizers/48-22-8030

If use the cheaper ones from Harbor Freight as well.

[pkabush]

I usually have extra fly fishing boxes lying around. The work great because you can remove the dividers as needed.cheap as chips

[Showdown]

I have a bunch of magnetic parts bowls- they have a magnet on the bottom so they stick to the car and keep small parts like nuts and bolts together and off the floor where they’ll either get lost or cause me to trip and end up on my ass.

[cabmandone]

The muffin tins work great. I used them when I had to do head studs. You can mark cylinder number on them and know which parts go back where.

[fanaudical]

I use several inexpensive aluminum muffin trays and ~9x13x2 rectangular baking pans.

[smadsen]

If you want to get the correct fasteners back in the correct holes, nothing beats zip lock bags and a Sharpie.

[Geronimo]

Yea, I plan to use a lot of labeled baggies!

But I thought a few nice trays would help in staging and prep work. Trying to think of everything I can a head of time.

[cabmandone]

Best thing you can do is take A LOT of pictures. Make sure fasteners go with parts as they come off. Labeling and separating with ziplock bags, cupcake tins and even those flat baking tins really helped me and having table space is big too for laying out everything and keeping it all organized.

[Gretz]

My question is: when you remove all the fasteners during a project and send them out to be replated, how do you figure out where they came from?

[thetorch]

Always photos, sometimes videos. And these work best for me:



If you send them out for plating, cleaning, etc., you can take a photo of the lids with labels, then the containers open so you can see all the parts in each compartment.

[cabmandone]

Word of advice... if you've got a Dollar Tree nearby, go there and look for plastic storage bins as well as other types of dividers.

[john walker's workshop]

Baking sheets at cooking stores. Got lots of them.

[Matt Monson]

I got this for my birthday from my FIL. I have no idea if it’s any good, but have a winter project coming and am at least going to try it. I see no advantage to it being flexible (since I’d never set it on my car) but it may be useful to pick everything up and move locations, like going from wheel to wheel on brake work.

[chrisbalich]

Muffin tins.
The non-stick tins cost a few shekels more, but you can wipe them out with a paper towel no matter what evil was in there.
You can sharpie any info on the spaces between the muffins and nothing is magnetized.