Forgive the obvious: I hate losing things. The time and associated frustration of having to look for various tools, wire, etc. is annoying. I found that looking using a step ladder or step stool is very helpful. The advantage of looking down at the layout enables me to see where I put what’s needed. The thing(s) I need are often behind something and gaining the look-down perspective works. Give it a try!
I welcome ways you avoid misplacing things.
See, thats the problem with being organizationally challenged like I am.
I don’t avoid it.
I agree: looking for something leads to finding all sorts of stuff that you thought was lost, and you’ll eventually forget why you were looking for the original item. Don’t worry about it, though, as you’ll find it next time you’re searching for something else.
Wayne
Wife is not allowed in the train room. I caught her one Christmas season out in the yard cutting pine and wire garland with my rail nippers.
I have a folder related to “current items”. It includes a To Do list (problems to address, things to order, etc.) and also a “What’s Where” list. When I remember, I note where odd and/or seldom used things might be located. I can’t say it gets the attention it deserves but it is better than searching. Once I realize I can not find something, it becomes a mission in itself to solve that problem.
Here’s what I do in the real world:
I work construction. When I get to the point where it is obviously taking too long to find a tool out there somewhere, then I (am supposed to) put all the tools away and do a clean-up. Every tool has a place to be, so once they’re put away, I know where they are.
In theory, that would work in the train room. And, if I had stopped buying trains, tools, and parts about 10 years ago, it would. I did not.
Ed
Although I am capable of being very organized, I am frequently very disorganized due to lack of space to properly store stuff. As a result, I find myself often buying stuff because I could not find the one I knew I had somewhere. Recently, I had to cut some copper pipe. I have two cutters but could not find either one. Fortunately my neighbor had one to borrow so I did not go buy another one…this time.
Ouch. Were they damaged?
Oh yes. Close the jaws and hold them up to the light you could several round dots of light where the edges came together. Take Xuron at their word when they say not to cut hard wire.
BTW, I’ve cut 18-28ga solid copper without hurting them.
Or should we say “Ouch. Was she damaged?”
I have known guys who were absolutely of the “A place for everything and everything in its place” mindset; you know, the kind of guys who paint the “shadow” of the correct tool on the pegboard in the workshop, and so on. I assume that at the end of an evening of modeling all tools and other materials were carefully returned to their rightful place. This calls for a strength of will that few of us possess.
The worst is when things occur to interrupt a given project for a long period of time. Like “summer.” This does not help find tools and parts and stuff but I have taken, in my dotage, to writing little notes explaining why a given car or kit is on the workbench: “change duplicate number,” or “needs ACI label decals,” or “install cushion underframe coupler pockets.” Very helpful. Now where did I put the decals and coupler pockets? That is what the notes should tell me but don’t.
Dave Nelson
Here’s a solution: tupaware storage conatiners and drawer sets. I have one of each and they are great. My unwwanted cars are in the fomer and I hve many unused tools, wire, scenery items in the former. Each drawer is designated for a specifc function.
I point that out to my wife, and I say that I really need more room for my stuff to be properly organized. For some reason, she rejects this concept.
If I had a few more bucks in the bank, I’d buy the house next door, throw the old lady out who lives there, tear it down, and put up something actually useful. To me.
Ed
Things have their places beneath the layout, and they go back there when I’m done with them. At this point, there is not much unfinished territory on the layout, so it’s easy to straighten up after each project. There’s a box for tools, a box for scenery and so on.
Since my small layout is complete, except for some details, and some scenery make-over, so I have nothing laying around on the layout.
My 2 work areas, that’s a different story. Everything is where I left it.
Since I recently dismantled my grandson’s O scale layout, and used the 4’x8’ table top and benchwork to repurpose a new work bench for me, that one is getting filled up too.
I haven’t mentioned how much stuff I had accumulated under his layout through the years, as that’s where I stashed it all, way too much to talk about. I will say that I have 3 Walthers city station kits, just to give you an idea. [:O]
Mike.
I’m not following you.
I suppose my wife is quite the opposite. She is very much the organizer and goes out of her way to organize things and spend money (frugally) to do it. She is constantly looking for good ways to organize and store things. She uses the Facebook market place to find cheap prices on shelves of various kinds, for the garage, the basement and the closets and the laundry room.
She has looked at my hobby area in the utility room and has proposed a pegboard and shelves behind my work surfaces. But it’s an unframed part of the basement and there is literally nothing to mount any shelves too. I would have to run some 2x4’s down the wall from the joists above to mount shelves and pegboard on - which some day I may do. The biggest basement priority right now is to get the main room drywalled and finished with a ceiling and floor for a layout.
My wife has also seen to it that I have lots of shelf space for train storage. She found good prices on a couple of 72" book shelves and a wire rack shelf. Bless her!
Rule 1 for my model railroad: Nothing goes on the layout except for scale models. No tools, no building materials, no paint, no drinks, no food, nothing. I find that no matter what stage of construction the layout is in, it always looks better when none of those things are on it. Surprise guests notice too.
As for tools I agree with the statement about that every tool has a place, and when they are not in use they need to be put back in their place.
I remember when I was a kid wasting a whole day looking for a toy, by the time I found it my play time was over. It was a lesson well learned. Ever since then I have been really good at knowing where everything is because if you put things away in the same place then you can always find them.
Now the only things I lose are tiny little parts that fall off of my desk onto the carpet. But most of those I find.
I’ve been very very naughty!
not the layout, the floor
When something falls on the floor and get a lamp and lay it on the floor. even small things cast long shadows. one reason i vacuum often.
Oh yea! I’ve done that alot, with a flshlight. The area under my work area is concrete, so I find just about everything I drop, even when it takes a bounce and hides for a while.
Mike.