Milk Carton Storage Bins

Inexpensive Storage Bins

Way back when I was a boy in my dad's shop I learned how to cutout milk cartons to use as storage bins. To this day I use these bins throughout my shop.
They are inexpensive, waterproof and the ideal size for storing stuff.
Now days milk mostly comes in plastic but I drink orange juice and almond milk which still come in cartons.
Get a carton, wash and dry is out and then cut out only the top. This leaves a nice storage bin that even has a handle. I also use them to keep all the parts of projects I have in process all in one place. Believe me I have way to many projects in process.

Storage Carton Bins in my work spaces

This is a multi-tier milk carton bin shelf storing a whopping 60 cartons. See video!

An Inexpensive Sorted Storage Bin

I was keeping small parts like resistors and LED's in these cartons but further sorted into pill bottles which were then kept in the carton. That turned out to be a little less organized than I wanted. 

I dawned on me that I could make a pill bottle holder the same size as the cartons, making it easier to see the labels on the pill bottles and retrieve the parts.

The top is 1/8" and the sides are 1/4 both are fiberboard I got at HD.

The sides are glued and clamped to the top after cutting the holes with a Forsner bit.

You can lay out whatever pattern suites the type of parts you are storing. In this case they are resistors sorted by the multiplier band. 

It fits on the shelf next to and in the same space as the other bins.

This method would probably work well for surface mount parts also.

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Donations fund some of the expense of tools and materials for my shop and lab so I can bring you more content like this.

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Enjoy and please comment.

Don

Penguin

Every once in a while you need to do something fun and so simple you can't mess it up!

My wife likes Penguins so I figured that a fun Sunday project would be to turn one. This one is made of rosewood and figured maple.

The maple was sliced off a slab, sanded on the drum sander and laminated to one surface of a block of rosewood.

Very simple to turn and finished with teak oil.


Enjoy and comment,
Don