Buckets Boxes and Bins

[Jo-JotheSoundDog]

ALways keep an eye out at dollar stores, kMarts, Wally Marts, The Depots, and what not. You never know when you are going to come across a really inexpensive storage unit. And the longer you work in the field the more stuff you collect.. And staying organized is a must. What good is keeping something if you can't find it when you need it.
Coffee cans
altoid tins
shoe boxes
cardboard boxes
are all great at least for a little while.
But if you can find it by Rubbermaid it is even better.
Tackle boxes are another great organizer set-up.
Just a thought

[dvsDave]

what specifically are you organizing? I use legal size hanging files to sort my gel cuts and a tackle box for the assorted screws and spacers that you use for making lighting cables.

[Jo-JotheSoundDog]

What aren't I trying to keep organized. I have three toolkits, One for carpentry one for electrics and sound, and one specifically for microphones. I constantly have hundreds of brand new 9 volts and hundreds of used ones that I gather and then hand off to our ME. I have a box for rigging materials, a box for various assorted connectors, a bin for new XLR connectors and various parts of old ones, another for 1/4", another for RCA, A bucket for screws a bucket for bolts, a box for mic stand pieces and parts, a bin of connectorless cable. Boxes for archived show disks, folders for archived show paperwork. The list goes on...
And then I have boxes and bins for the boxes and bins above.
You can never be too organized. And being able to find exactly what you need as quickly as possible is always key. Having to sift through too much stuff in one place is too time consuming.

[ship]

I use .50cal and 7.62mm Ammo boxes for my drywall screws. Air tight and once you spray them with WD-40 while air tight, it seeps into the screws and protects them well. Plus they can hold a lot of volume and are strong and very portable.

For gel, except for PAR 64 sizes of pre-cut, I use appropriate sized wooden boxes with cardboard dividers between say each 10 of a series of color. That way it's easy to find a gel by indexing them and having the cardboard dividers labeled. It's not very portable, and woe be he who dumps the gel file, but it works well for me. You can also fit the gel frames into the boxes. Perhaps a latching lid for them if I ever get around to traveling with them again. Takes up a lot of bulk but it's a little easier when the box is made to the same size as the gel cut to keep them organized.

For bins, I have a wall of like 10, 30drawer organizer bins for small parts and another wall or two of plastic bin organizers plus old index card file cabinets and other cabinets for parts. The organizers are expensive but worth the money. I hot glue the part to the front of the drawer in additon to P-Touching a label to it.

Than in addition to milk crates, at home I have a large stack of cat litter plastic tubs (Don't ask) that are good for parts in general. They are basically square which while smaller are a bit more useful than 5gal. buckets.

[Jo-JotheSoundDog]

P-touch? I'm sorry never heard of that. Please explain.

[ship]

It's a little hand held tape printer that you make labels with. It's available in 9mm and 12mm tapes for the size I use and other larger sizes for other models of it. Tape comes in different colors but black on white seems to work best. Kind of like having a little key board that prints up a printer tape with what you want. Expensive, one tape roll is like $27.00

[dvsDave]

I use the punch labels... the handheld device that makes raised letters on colored tape.... the tape is a plastic-like material and is adhesive.

Or is that roughly the same thing as a P-Touch?

[ship]

I have not seen one of those since the 70s. How old are you?
No this is kind of like a protable laser printer on a keybard for the same type of tape. Office Max/Depot have them for a bit over a hundred each for the normal model. Ought to check them out. Much easier to read and easier on the hand because it's electronic. Expensive to use but electronic.

I use at least one label per cable I build in marking them.
Mylor stickers or shrink tubing have the company name and phone number, but each cable gets at least the following:

For L6-15 cable for moving lights:
208v.
12/3 SJ x foot

For Stage, Edison or L5-15 cable:
12/3 SJ x foot

For Chain Hoist Cable:
CMC x foot, x serial number
Date of Mfg. and Who

For Socopex Cable:
SOC x foot, x serial number
Date of Mfg. and Who


etc. for other equipment.

Everything gets marked with company, phone number, size and type of wire. Length and serial number where appropriate, and I go thru at least one roll of tape per week in repair or making new cable.

Note also, the adhesive of the tape is good, but not that good. You need to use shrink tube or clear tape over everything you want perminant.

[Jo-JotheSoundDog]

I actually have one of those. Picked it up a couple months ago. Now there are labels on everything. Just ever heard the term p-touch before. I especially like the little borders. I make my interns print with borders so I can tell what stuff I didn't label. Not that I'm calling them incompetent. I just like to keep tabs on that sort of stuff.

[ship]

I have my own little tricks for telling me who did what. Unfortunately by the time much of the stuff breaks such as pins with cold solders, the person is usually long gone.

I started taking a pain marker color and marking part of the inside or non-wear part of the plug with it. Right now I'm on red. By doing this, especially with 16/7 chain hoist cable, I hope to track exactually how often I see the same cable coming back for repair as opposed to when it's time to just throw it out. I'm upgrading to 14/7 SO anyway. Should take a bit more of a tugging to it hopefully. Hmm, 1 to 2 ton chain hoist, 10 year old 16/7 cable, what's going to give way first...