Power hammer tools- how do you store them?

[jason0012]

I have been fighting to get some order in the new shop and the power hammer tools have been hard to keep track of. In the old shop I had about 200 nails driven into the wall that they hung from. Here that isn't an option. I have two shelves, two tables, an as yet unused coal forge, and various buckets and milk crates. It can be difficult to find what I am looking for when I need it. Picking up today I found about 30 hacks!  I do have a habit of just making more, which doesnt help much with the clutter

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

The main thing is to keep them all together, not scattered all over the shop like mine.

[Frosty]

41 minutes ago, jason0012 said:

Picking up today I found about 30 hacks!  I do have a habit of just making more,

One of the guys in our club can make a set of tongs faster than he can find one. The back wall of his 2 car garage, shop is covered about 4 sets deep from floor to as high as you can reach. 

Hmmmmm. Lots of tools and only a few general shapes. I'd be thinking about racks for each basic shape. I have a tong rack that's a number of horizontal bars between angled uprights. It leans against a wall and the tongs hang past the next row down with the bits are visible. I haven't gotten around to version 2 but V1 works for keeping most of my tongs out from under foot and in sight.

You don't want to be driving nails in the steel walls but you can make a wall rack with pegs. Yes? Heck dress it up like a window grill for show. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Old Crew]

Screw some sheets of plywood to the metal sheets that you can hang things from. simple and effective. my shop is built from metal and thats what i did. It works well.

[Jim Coke]

Greetings Jason,

         Welcome to the crowd. Storage is always a problem. I have a few old hardware rotating shelves that work great. A large diameter pipe works well for tongs. A steel wheel on a stand works great for hammers. When more space is needed a chain and pipe rack hooked to the ceiling with hooks also works well. Lots of options. 
 

Forge on and make beautiful things 

Jim

[ThomasPowers]

Mount a 2x4 horizontally using screws form outside the shop walls. Large washers or a metal strip suggested and put in a bunch of nails or screws to hang all the tools suitable for hanging.

Me, I have several ways of holding stuff up off the floor: Steel cabinet with shelves. Steel cable run between utility pole uprights.  Garden rake heads c-clamped to the cross beam on my steel walls, a set of board and steel milk crate shelves. A test piece where they were dialing in an ironworker to punch c channel for sq tubing----hold hardy tooling; etc and so on.

[swedgemon]

Photos are of the tong and tool "organization" I use.  The tong rack is 20" X 20" X 24" high, mounted on wheels from a defunct 2-ton shop jack.  The top ring is 2" channel, with 1/4" hooks every 1.5" - the 5 tong racks are 1/4" X 1.5" flat bar, welded into the channel, 3.5" apart.  The bench shelves hold punches and chisels on 1" and 1.25" screen deck from a local crushed stone operation (when screen decks get a hole worn thru, usually in the center of the screen section, they are scrapped and can usually be acquired at minimum or no cost by asking at the plant office).  Screen deck shelves are great because they let the dirt and scale sift thru.

The P/H punches are made from shock absorber shaft, the ball punches are various-size bearings, welded to some 1/4 X 1 flat bar.

Jason, you may recognize some of your bolt-jaw tongs and tools.  Any questions, just ask.