Best "Redneck" Fix and How to Create Shop Space Within a Dorm Room 

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My best redneck fix was when my fuel pump went out. Made it 35 miles back home by filling up my windshield washer reservoir with gas, ran a piece of windshield washer tubing to the carburetor and went down the road while pushing the windshield washer button on the dash, squirting gas down the carb throat. Got home but ruined the washer pump.

The hardest part of keeping stuff clean is training yourself to stop working while you still have enough energy that you want to keep working on whatever project you’re working on!

In response to the last question. A recent mantra I've come across is, "Don't put it down, put it away". Repeating this as I work helps motivate me to clean as I go.

You’ve GOT to look up the kid rebuilding an engine that started in his dorm room and the the school found out and he had to remove it. He’s now building it in the back of a small compact car. I will absolutely never complain about work space again

I love how Adam can relate and share about everything "Recently this happened to me" And Adam is like "Oh i know that feeling, did you use this or this method to fix it?" Its just great connection

The fix for my MG was creating a makeshift bracket/spring out of copper. This was needed to hold a temp gauge that used to go to electric fans before they were removed. Cut a small piece, bent it a little past 90 degrees, and attached it underneath a pre existing hose clamp to hold that gauge in the radiator to maintain pressure.

I spent over a decade looking for the right tabletop storage system for my art supplies, and I could never find one. This year I hired a boxmaker to build me my ideal solution, and I'm SO happy.

Savage the Sage…these are now the posts of yours I seek out. Love the joy you express, the self depreciating humor, the delightful memories, the admiration expressed for other makers…you make us feel like we’re hanging out in your shop. Love it. Thank you!

Favorite redneck fix: fixed a friend's glasses (missing a hinge screw) with a staple (insert into hole, bend around on each side). Found out years later that he was still using those glasses with that fix lol.

Often, there are things that you say when giving advise that speaks highly of your wisdom beyond the scope of your technical expertise. I suppose it's as my father use to say, "Just when you think you know everything, there's always something more to learn". Respect.

"Your future self will be so grateful you did this now." This has been my mantra for the last 5 years. It has been absolutely crucial in motivating me in doing stuff I don't feel like doing, but know, will make my future self really happy I did. I have been a chaotic mess for the most part of my life. I am happy to report this is no longer the case. I will repeat this mantra out loud, until I completed the task. Partly for myself, to stop my brain from wandering off, but also for my teenage son to hear. A bit of educating, without teaching, in the hope that at one point he'll remember his mom doing this and implement it himself, because it is gold ! Nice Adam !

Yep, the best motivator for cleaning up at the end of a session is... too many days starting surrounded by yesterday's crap.

My hobby is textiles/sewing, and 20+ years ago when I was living at home my mom gave me a little decorated tin can with a bow on it to put my thread scraps into while sewing. It's still on my desk and I still use it for thread scraps and kleenex and I might keep it forever :) my desk is 2 tables in an L-shape with a general/computer desk on one side and a sewing desk on the other; the scrap tin lives in the corner between the two.

I have ADHD and Autism and so I understand the struggle of not wanting to clean up after a project. The way I motivate myself to clean is I remind myself how good it will feel the next time I come in and my shop is clean and how miserable I’d feel if it wasn’t

My best fix ever was an HT lead broke on a car grabbed a fresh wet twig stuck one end on the plug other on dizzy cap and drove 6 mile home was told no way that worked proved them wrong when they lifted the bonnet and seen it and started up the car running on all four cyls

I totally agree with the tabletop trash receptacle. I have on my sewing desk a small ceramic dish that I throw small bits of fabric and threads onto even though I have a larger trash can under the desk. It just keeps my work surface so much cleaner and having it right there means my work flow is not interrupted by constantly groping around for the big trash can. Thanks for the validation!

I don't rely on a table top 'trash receptacle' per se, but keep a small magnetized steel dish out for all the extra screws, etc. which ALWAYS come out of my pockets or get trapped within cases of other things.About once a week, I re-sort this hardware into their appropriate homes. If you don't deal with the accumulated items regularly, you end up with a HUUUGE pile and typically needless extra purchases of the very hardware that is lying in the bottom of that bucket or box. I recently did a complete reorg of my shop for all hardware, parts and materials (I am a Gen. Contractor with TONS of inventory), and I discovered (after emptying out a dozen big bins) that I had a stash of a couple thousand $ worth of plumbing & electrical parts, plus SCADS of fasteners. I actually employed a baby version of Jamie's old M5 clear bins and shelving to keep the needed supplies, while having a visual of items needing to be restocked.

I love your suggestion of keeping a small trash bin right at your desk. I started keeping small boxes near each of my prominent work surfaces and assembly tables for trash and cut-offs/scraps. It is so much more convenient to have a receptacle within reach that allows you to maintain focus and momentum with your current task. Then just consolidate with the primary means of disposal at the end of the day.

My favorite redneck fix remains when I made an irrigation system out of solo cups and duct tape (sorry Adam!) to catch a linear series of leaks in my dorm room ceiling. I hung it from the ceiling with rubber bands and thumb tacks.

4:23 I had fortunately studied the Haynes manual for my '78 Torana (19 years old at the time) to make this exact fix one night in the middle of nowhere in Northern Queensland. Cannibalised the wipers and washer wires to make the electric fuel pump start working again. Only had to last 250KM to get home and lasted another 5 days after that till pay day to be able to buy parts to be able to fix it properly. Never underestimate the repair manuals and the knowledge on how to use them, and it is something I think modern schools have lost.

That pickup solenoid toggle-switch mod reminds me of a fix my grandpa did. For some reason the key ignition in his car stopped working so he converted it to a push-to-start using an old doorbell. Every time my mother tells this story she goes red in the face and bursts into laughter xD

Thank you Adam, for the "future me" bit, that really clicked something like a new philosophy in my head 😌 also for the aside about thinking about past me, it's comforting to know other people do that too 😌😊

Hah your starter motor story reminded me of being an electrical nerd as a younger fella. I was the go to guy to install car audio systems etc. for all my mates. But the story that came to mind was that I had installed an anti-theft kill switch in my very desirable yellow Datsun 200B by wiring a switch in series with the ignition coil primary and mounting it in the glove box. So, one afternoon a mate and I are driving along, and of all places as we're just driving up a hill, he opens the glove box to take something out, probably a CD, he sees the switch, says "what's this?", and just goes and switches it. Haha who just sees a switch and flicks it gees... anyway I instantly felt the loss of power, barked something like "don't switch that, switch it back!" ... so he did, off we went again and I then proceeded to tell him the story of what that switch does and how it does it, probably, knowing me, how the ignition coil functions, step-up transformers, magnetic inductance blah blah...

I find that music helps me clean. Whether that be super loud rock or just a flow state to help get me up and moving. Music is the key for me.

I LOATH cleaning, always have. I'm going on 28 now, and take a minor amount of pride that my room, my personal space is the cleanest room in the house I share with my family. It's still not clean, most people would call my space messy, but it's at a point where I know where everything is, there is clean clear floor, and nothing is on top of anything else. Except my clothes are on top of each other on a chair because I use my dresser space for storing things I don't want falling, and I have a cat that likes to get into things. So I need that closed space where she can't knock things down more than I need a closed space to keep my clothes. I honestly think I'll always hate cleaning, but that's mostly a product of the environment I grew up in. The house I grew up in was extremely messy, like crap was piled up in every room to roughly the height of a 12 year old's shin, and no one really put an effort into cleaning. My mother had given up after my very sexist "father" declared it was her job to clean up after the 4 of us kids, and convinced my older siblings that they didn't need to clean because of that. Then young me would try to clean, but found it unfair that my older siblings never cleaned.(Like for example rule for me was I had to clean my room to have friends over, my older siblings who at the youngest are 7 years older than me, didn't have to clean their rooms to have friends over) So even I mostly stopped cleaning my room, and stopped having friends over as well until my mother gave in and just let me have friends over like my older siblings anyway. So like it's not that I have my "fathers" view on cleaning, I just hate cleaning because not only did I grow up in basically trash, but also I had to clean to get to do things my older siblings didn't have to clean to do, and that really stuck with me. Though that comes down to how the human brain perceives time. For young me, the time I had to spend cleaning just to have friends over was a lot of my life and free time, because I only had 4 hours a day that I could really use on school days, because school got out at 2:30, I'd be home around 2:45, and my bed time was 7:00pm until I was like 14, when it became... wait for it... 7:30. Wow... At 16 it became 10:00pm, and 17, it was "as long as you sleep before school". But an hour was used by eating, using the washroom and homework with extra time used every few days to shower(when we actually had hot water for me to shower anyway, some times I went months without a shower because we had no hot water). So that left me 4 hours to unwind after school, where I generally had a bad time and needed time to unwind and relax, so spending my time cleaning was the worst way my young brain could use that time. These days, I just have that negative impression of cleaning, as well as always feeling like I could be better spending my time doing something else, or sometimes even cleaning something else. Like for instance instead of cleaning my desk, I'd use that energy to clean my cats litter box. Seeing as I have fairly bad depression, I don't have the most energy to go around so I do have to pick and choose, and I'd rather my cat have a clean litter box, than me have a clean desk that is just going to get cluttered again in a few weeks. Wow this turned into a novel. Imagine how people in my life must feel. I type the way I talk. When no one shuts me up I just talk forever once I actually get talking. I'll stop here though, and say anyone reading this, I hope you have a great day, and remember people care about you!

For my desks, I made small dumpsters out of chipboard, made several for people. Cool green Waste Management style dumpsters with lids proved great for the trash while working at the desk.

big fan of "clean as you go" mixed with "clean first in the day, not at the end". Morning dishes waiting for tea water to boil is great. plus it starts my day with an accomplishment.

Tabletop storage for a small space. Get a secondhand auto mechanics tool storage trolly and put a big wood top on it. Put all the high use tools in the top draw.

I don't have a tabletop trash receptacle because my shop is equipped with both gravity and a broom.

Best one I've seen was in college, a friend of mine and I were driving from Tucson to Phoenix in his old VW Rabbit diesel. He blew a fan belt, and the car obviously overheated. We were sitting in the desert heat when a young couple stopped to help us. My friend asked if they had a pair of pantyhose handy, since they obviously didn't have a fan belt for his Rabbit. She looked suspicious, but gave him an old pair she found in her luggage. He cut the leg off and gave them back, then measured the rough size needed to cover the same size as the belt. There's a certain flexibility in the fabric, so he tied it slightly smaller than the belt was, stretched it over the pulleys, and it worked! We made it the 40 miles to Phoenix and an auto parts store and swapped in a regular fan belt in about 10 minutes.

Those whole tidying up and desk storage bits are gold, but I can't overemphasize how much the desktop rubbish (trash?) bin has helped my flow too. Furthermore, as a fellow ADHDer, I use "project boxes", storable containers with all the bits I'm working on and using for a given build, plus a tools tray for whichever tools, brushes, adhesives etc needed for that project and loaded into the tray from my stash for the time I'm working on it. I always forget about storing long stuff vertically, though, and the shelf advice is golden as well.

Well, this is both an observation about my own ability to be distracted and a compliment to Adam's power of concentration. At 1:57 in this video (and then a second time a bit later), someone walking thru the room is reflected in a small mirror over Adam's left shoulder. I could not sit and do to-camera pieces with people walking about behind the camera. I would constantly be having those "squirrel" moments. Kudos Adam! 🙂

My red neck fix of the years. I was helping a friend with his race car. On the way back from a good night of Saturday night racing, his tow vehicle, chevy van, blew the water pump in the middle of nowhere on a dark night. No cellphone back then, we took the water pump off the race car and installed it in the chevy van.

Surprised, but perhaps not surprised, to hear Survival Research Labs mentioned!

I loved SRL shows in, I think, the early 90s.

Mentioning roll-starting the truck reminds me of a story: my dad was teaching me to drive a stick in a newer truck, and he explained how to roll start, and I couldn’t make it work. So we swapped so he could show me, and he couldn’t do it, either. We later figured out that the computer in the truck was programmed to prevent roll starts as an anti-theft measure.

Even in my 20s are still love everything you do especially the tool vodeos since I'm a mechanic lol

I too am a "completist" and I spend far too much time and energy (and money) acquiring tools I could usually do without, but I have them for the one in fifty times when they make the job a little easier than it would be otherwise. As far as cleanliness goes, I do tend to leave my workshop (a lock up unit ten minutes from my house) in a mess at the end of the day, because of two reasons. One, I actually find it easier to start tidying up when I fresh in the morning, Two, when I was growing up, and learning to work with my hands from dearly missed father, we usually had to work in the kitchen, so we always had to stop what we were doing and tidy up, so mum could cook dinner. Because of that, the luxury of just being able to stop work, lock the door, and walk away is a great luxury.

I'm about to move into a studio apartment, this is very timely advice, thank you sir

The one that got me the "McGuyver" moniker was jump starting a '68 Camaro with a '65 Mustang using a beer can.

that truck may have been a Datsun (did not change the name to Nissan until about 1982). just an FYI, I love Redneck fix stories. I have used a nylon for a fan belt, and had a small squareback with cracks in the frame, it went around corners in pieces almost. We did a lot of duct tape repair on that.

As an AuDHDer, I'm able to keep my space clean using it as a way of winding down from doing the work. I get to a point where my attention just can't anymore and so I put things away. It's a new activity so the novelty of such can be easier than carrying on. Another way is using it as a procrastination. Like, say I have to do something, well if I tidy up it feels productive while also feeling like it's not the thing I'm meant to be doing and it's always easier to do the thing I'm not meant to be doing. BUT, it still *is* productive, as I find it's far easier to concentrate on what I need to do if things are all tidied. Otherwise the things around are all distractions to do something else, or just looking around thinking 'that shouldn't be there'. The most important thing is to make sure that things have a place to go. I can easily tidy away my tools because they go on that one shelf in that cupboard, the compressed air goes on that other shelf, mugs go in the dishwasher etc. If you have to think about it then it's a completely different task and so much more work.

9:44 I never thought I was a mantra man but I actually have one. “The more you do now the less you have to do later” I use this often while working in landscaping. So I use it much more in a short term sense, but it works. My favorite one, which I don’t use is “if you had time to do it twice you had time to do it right the first time”

The most redneck fix I've ever done also involved a car. The fuel rail on my aveo had popped off, two clips were missing. It was squirting fuel everywhere! I had the original owners license plate and a roll of duct tape. Bent the license plate until it was a rectangle, wrapped it in duct tape, shoved it in between the fuel rail and upper manifold. Stopped the squirting and I think I ran on that field repair for months before I got the proper clips.

Couldn’t find the wheel lock key for my Nissan Altima back when I still had it, welded a flat bar onto the nut and kicked it loose to change the flat out for the donut spare, drove it all the way to the tire shop with the flat bar still on, tire shop guys loved it.

While my trash bin isn't on my model making bench top, I did recently raise it to level with the bench. Made it much better to use. When I built the bench, I made sure to put a piece across the back edge to keep stuff from falling off. Really helped.

Survival Research Labs mentioned! I use their videos as backing video for my goth/industrial dj sets. There is literally nothing better for that.

Every time I hear Adam's doorbell I think of Wing's (Paul McCartney) song 'Let Em In' which brings back fond memories of my childhood, thanks.❤

I sent Mark bail $$ a couple times. Lol!! Needed a funny memory today

I did a pretty red neck fix Saturday after some one hit my car and ra. Off. The structural part of the engine bay that the fender is bolted to was folded around my tire. I took a floor jack and wedged it between the tire and the bent metal and used the jack to straiten it out while keeping the jack straight and level with my knee 😆

LOVE the table top mini trash idea. as soon as you introduced the idea, immediately made sense, but i appreciated the pantomime of throwing out the small piece of whatever

Survival research! Excellent!!!! Blast from the past, dead rabbits!

Not cleaning up at the end of the day is not acceptable, it is 100% part of my process, no matter what, that everything gets cleaned up. Now, with my garage, I have to park in there each night...so that REALLY motivates me to clean it up, I can't leave my vehicle outside. With other spaces, having ingrained the habit of cleaning up my garage, it just feels natural to clean other spaces up too, it's ingrained in me, but I've also been doing this for nearly 20 years.

🤠👍 Your redneck story reminds of one. Many years ago I had a truck and the fuel pump broke. Called my father in law who owned a mechanic shop in Pasadena. He sent one of his mechanics to help me. He put a container on top of the roll bar poked a hole in the bottom, inserted some tubing and ran it into the carburetor and I would pinch the tube to stop giving it gas. Made it to the shop. Crazy

Great job. Thank you 😊

A small fab and machine shop I used to work at had the opposite philosophy to cleaning. At the end of your day don't clean just go home. Clean in the morning. The first 30 minutes of the day just clean. No one wants to stop and clean and stay late if they can't get it done by the time they should be leaving. Cleaning in the morning gave you time for the mornings coffee to kick in while you pushed a broom, think about the stuff you want to accomplish/the tasks for the day while you are cleaning up the parts you were working on and organized your workspace. The only times we would break from that is when a client would be showing up in the morning. It was nice to work till the bell and just leave.

I like to rinse out and reuse plastic peanut butter jars for small parts for projects. One jar can hold pretty much everything for one guitar. I have an old mayo jar that holds all the nuts and bolts for a 6 layer seedling shelf that only comes out in the spring, but otherwise flat-packs in the shed.

when i was a kid, we got stuck way out in the woods cause the fuel pump quit working, it was an old chevy truck, my dad took the windshield wiper hoses and stuck them both into the carburetor, filled the reservoir with gasoline, and used it to start it, until the fuel pump started working again, thank God... cause usually when old chevy p/u fuel pumps go out, they're out...

RE: cleaning the spaces you work in - it’s part of what Stephen Covey called “sharpening the saw” - whether it’s prepping your work space for tomorrow, or restocking supplies before they’re needed, or training for a future task, or even just sticking to planned breaks - replenish your resources while you are not in a rush, and you will constantly reap rewards for it later.

When I go into my shop the next day and it's clean, it's such a nice refreshing nice thing

Cubbyhole desks are great table top storage systems. I worked in an office where my coworkers were puzzled that I chose to keep an ancient solid wooden desk because it had a cubbyhole system over buying a new, fancy desk for which I had the budget.

My best redneck fix ... I got a broken VCR working again with a tiny piece of cardboard and a metal frog.

Roll start! Takes me back to my own 70's datsun pickup

The most redneck thing I heard someone say was “I,mo take the axles off my house and build me a trailer”

OMG! I had a Ford Taurus with a bad starter solenoid. I ran wires to it from inside the cabin, and connected them to a light switch for the toggle, and a doorbell button to complete the circuit thus creating my own push start ignition in the late 1990's. 😅

Great video sir 😊

Once stranded 20 miles out in the boonies, tied a battery cable back on the battery of an 'acquaintances' junk pickup. We had zero tools... looked around & found a skanky piece of plastic monofilament line. Tied it on with a constrictor knot pulled taut with a couple of marlinspike hitches; with sticks used as 'marlinspikes'. It got us home... later heard he drove it some months like that. A good 'vocabulary' of knots is a valuable asset to both obtain & maintain.

Thank you for mentioning Survival Research Laboratories

Improvisational Engineering is always fun.

This sounds simplistic but it is how our brains work; decide to clean at the end of the day. When we shower or brush our teeth we don’t have an internal argument about it. We have decided to brush or shower since we have made it part of our routine. Decide to do it and when we fail to do it, remind ourselves that we decided to do it and without any condemnation proceed to clean up. Before long it will be part of our routine.

I have, on multiple occasions, disassembled USB powerbanks, rewired the internal cells in series, and used them to recharge a car battery enough to allow it to start. In the dark.

Organizing your space with a 3d printer is super easy now that people like Zach freedman have made purpose built open source storage systems ex. Gridfinity.

love the new angle gives a whole different vibe almost feels like a library idk lol

My tabletop storage for my desk is drill bit orginizer drawers with most of the dividers removed. It is really just a little toolbox with everything that i need

In highschool my best friend and I were canoeing in an aluminum canoe. We noticed during our time outdoors a river popped out and water was pouring into the canoe. We took a plastic fishing grub and threaded it through and used a lighter melt it at both ends. It held for the entire trip and a couple trips after.

I have 2 things that may help someone. Going off his trash can idea, I put a 5gal bucket beside the lathe. It's a great way to get rid of unusable parts or chips. It helps be want to keep my lathe clean because I want to see how fast i can fill it. I just bought a Bridgeport mill. I'm still working out the vfd for it. I've also been collecting the parts to make a flood cooling system for the lathe scavenged from the old bandsaw. I've set the mill at the end of the lathe so I can T off the cooling system and run it on both machines to save money on cooling and tooling.

Peach Snapple ✔️💯

My shift linkage pin broke on an 86 Golf while driving it. I used to have a paperclip clipped onto my hat at the time. I was able to use the paperclip in place of the pin to get through all the gears and get home. I actually drove it that way for a few days till I was able to get a pin.

Redneck fix 101: I drove about 45 mins to/from college. It was 1983 I’m driving a ‘74 AMC Gremlin and was feeling good, full tank of gas and it was Friday. Then noticed I had almost no gas when I arrived at school. My carburetor basically fell off! The hold down bolts were missing and it was just flopping around on top of the engine block! I went to class and thought how am I going to fix it out here in nowhere?! Bookstore to the rescue! The carburetor was now secure in place by the use of some apoxy glue! It lasted long enough for me to get home and repair it over the weekend!

The part you are describing is the bendix, the solenoid is what powers the bendix to extend and spin.

Have you seen the Walpiri Media Association series Bush Mechanics? Bits of mulga wood stuck into broken leaf springs, manual fuel pump, cross member replaced with a bit of driftwood wired on, and lead melted out of an old battery used to repair a radiator crack.

I always clean up after myself, because I remember all too well the feeling of "ugh" when I see the mess I left behind the last time and it's never a great way to start the day

im kinda known as the king of the cob among some friends, pretty good about cobbing together something to work. for instance, i made a fuel pump for my generator by adding a little air compressor to an old evinrude tank that would pressurize the tank and cause the gas to come up. i used a little air bleed to adjust the pressure. it worked til it didnt. i repaired the exhaust on a car by taking a soup can, cutting it lengthwise and wrapping the exhaust with hose clamps, not even exhaust clamps, hose clamps. when youre broke, you have to get creative

my favorite car repair (I'm not a mechanic) was when I noticed the cool turbo sound on my Chrysler Laser XE stopped, and the car seemed to be sluggish. so I popped open the hood, and looked for what might be wrong (mainly what looks different) I noticed a broken wire piece that seemed to be going nowhere so I got a coat hanger cut it to size and replaced the broken part. the turbo immediately started up.

I had a coworker who nneded a turn signal handle so his truck would pass inspection. We took the steering wheel apart and saw what the handle mounted onto the switch. I grabbed a large nail, ppoinded the pointed end flat, and then drilled holes to fit the switch. Worked perfectly.

1973 Opel Manta stopped running in the middle of the night around 1979 or 1980. It would try to start, sputter, pop, and stop. Went about diagnosing the distributor and carburetor and couldn't find anything wrong. We were getting spark and fuel. Eventually we found the inside of the distributor cap had feint black traces in it and we deduced that the spark was arcing to other plugs occasionally and messing up the timing. We applied nail polish to the inside of the cap and were able to drive 2 and a half hours home to San Jose. I think I didn't replace the cap for about a month of regular use.

Enjoy the video and your insight. You should pin this video, so it's easy to reference as needed. I would like to see a follow-up video showcasing some of those cheap solution systems you allude to earlier. Like if you built storage solutions or space, saving things for different size Ikea living spaces that someone could work in a dorm room, a really small apartment or your office as an example.

My warehouse manager used to say that I had a degree in Appalachian engineering

No back on a shelf? Where's the fun in that? Having the one vital thing roll off behind, crawl around finding it and learning new swear words is half the fun! :P

the ABC method="Always Be Cleaning" AKA "Clean As You Go"... fits in with the storage concept of everything having its home. at my job I have to transport a lot of different equipment around, the job would give me a laptop bag, 2 sizes of equipment bags, and a printer bag. I would end up with this big long train of bags stacked and daisy chained together through their straps and carry handles, or sometimes having to make multiple trips from the parking lot, through a mall, or very large store which is a pain in the ass. one day at inventory I saw a DeWalt the modular storage & carrier system... it has a custom heavy duty carrier that can be used as a movers dolly. it has these arms that swing out and you can slide tool boxes on to it, and you can also get them to attach to a wall of the building or the inside of a van. this means you can set up different boxes for different tasks, keep it on the wall of your shop, load them onto the carrier to take out to the van, store them on the walls of the van, then load the carrier to take it into the workspace... or what I do: just take the tool boxes and put them in the van and put the carrier in separately, or if I'm strapped for space, I pack the carrier vertically, and transport the tool boxes mounted on it. with this I don't need to use any of the work provided bags, and I can use the whole carrier with the boxes on it as a portable workstation. I zip tied a power strip (the switch lights to indicate energized) vertically, wrap my 12ft heavy duty leadcord around the handle for transport, my laptop goes on the shallow box, mounted way up near the handle, which I use to store small items, like stapler, tape, mouse, other small desktop items. my larger, heavier, work equipment goes in the deeper box mounted at the bottom, this includes handheld computers, tablets, chargers filled with spare batteries for the hand helds, and the laptop gets stored on top for transport. if I have a large enough crew then sometimes I have to put the handhelds for the chargers in their own bag but for a small crew this is plenty. I can fit enough equipment for a 12-person crew without having to take a second bag, for transport the printer and a spare ream of paper fits stacked between the large and the small box, because of the wheels on the printer bag when I put the small box on its mount it also kind of "locks in" the printer. my Wi-Fi access point and the power transformer for the laptop is stored in a little bag which straps to the back of the carrier. these stay plugged into the power strip all the time. when I get where I'm setting up, I just plug in the lead, plug in the laptop, and off we go! once the crew has their handhelds, I can close the lid of the large box and plug the printer in on top of it. it takes me a very short period of time to get set up, where before I had this I would need to be at least an hour ahead of the crew to get set up, because it would take at least 30 minutes just to get everything schlepped in and another 20 out of the bags and plugged in. now I just roll in to where I'm going to get power and I only have to plug in one lead-cord. anything I need I don't have to dig through bags, it all has its place, as long as nobody else has been digging through it trying to find something. handheld needs new fingers straps? I've got some in there. tape dispenser ran out of tape? I've got some in there. a screw coming loose on the handheld? my small screwdriver set is right there. oh yes and I also use a tool belt, with a combination of electricians and framing pouches on it. I don't need a hammer loop and very rarely need a tape measure. but the large pouch is great for carrying a tablet and the electrician's badge is great for small tools, tape dispenser, wallet, sharpies, and my employee badge essentially almost everything I need for the day ends up on the tool belt if it doesn't stay there permanently, anything that I don't need to carry around for the day, or that needs to stay at the workstation stays in the small tool box. for example the stapler typically comes out when I start printing final reports. I might use the tiny screwdrivers once or twice in a year, but if I need them I have them. sometimes we get a new manager and they go on a spree of cleaning, throw out all kinds of useful stuff that they're not even aware of the use until we need it and don't have it 🙄 we had like 20 pill counting trays. went to do a pharmacy inventory, there were six of us, but the pharmacy only had two trays. if they hadn't been thrown out I could have brought some. we had a couple of spare keyboards and we could plug those into our handhelds for typing, well we could have but they got thrown out! do you know how hard it is to try and type long sentences on a tiny touchscreen keyboard with a stylus? however they don't go into my boxes, so there's things I have in there that survived various cleaning sessions.

On small table top shop stuff… think 3D, you sit at the main tabletop but if you stand you can have a whole other secondary shelf.As an example, a spray both and airbrush stuff all setup and ready for a quick spray. stay realist and keep only to the most used items around your main surface and make modular tool kit that complement it that can be store on shelf over. Also if you have a corner to set-up you can use this at your advantage to specialize every side for specific purpose. You have to think about what are your need for the type of built that will be done in that space. And keep the other tools and consumable that will mostly be use out side, on the floor or kitchen table or once in a few moon in clear bins under or over. Lastly.. your computer desk is not a workshop!

I absolutely need to find room at/near my desk for a mini wastebasket! Currently I get up and walk across the house far too often when the bits of thread/wire/paper/trimmings/gluing applicators start getting in the way.

5:51 This may be the ONLY reason I could possibly miss being a smoker, because when I was a smoker there'd always be an astray/minor garbage bin at the ready. It's upgrade in my shop is to a steel coffee can that doesn't get emptied near as often(or as often as it should!)

Red neck fixes, back in the 80's I had a beater of a car that I was working on the dashboard wiring of. On a weekend trip out of town it would not start - period. Completely dead. Turns out that I had somehow loosened or bumped a wire in my working that was the ground for the entire deshboard or at least for the electrical circuitry in the dash. The fix was a bit of zipcord running from the battery terminal, out the hood, in the drivers door window, and wrapped around the cigarette lighter body to provide ground for the dash.

Back in the Eighties I had a Bond Bug.🚀.It had the same chassis as Luke Skywalker's land speeder. It was a three wheeler..turned over and jammed the starter cog in the crown wheel..Had to unbolt🔩 the starter motor and put it back in again.All this with rush hour traffic whistling by😮

Don't do today what you can put off until tomorrow. It's been my lifelong mantra, usually to my own detriment. Still practice it, though.

Sheriff R2, at the ready to clean up that one horse town!

I'm swapping out my wooden 4 x 6 shed, that can only be used for storing my tools, to a 4 x 10 metal shed (which will take up just under a quarter of my garden) that I am hoping will be big enough to allow me to both store materials and equipment and have permanent tool station set-ups. Will be nice to be able to just "step in" to the shed rather than have to open the door, excavate, and then begin an attempt at entry. I truly need lessons on keeping small spaces tidy.

Tabletop storage - Gridfinity!