I’m getting my new shop up and running this week which is super exciting! It’s giving me a chance to invest more in initial setup and organization. One thing I struggled with at my past shop was tube storage. They’re pretty awkward sizes for most bins and I don’t have much in the way of woodworking equipment to whip up anything custom.
I’d love to see what y’all are using!
Some ideas I had:
How many tubes are we talking here?
Hmmm good question! I would say in the 30-50 range?
I am using a very high tech system of recycle cardboard boxes and under bed storage bins.
If you have a Santa Cruz / Cervelo dealer near by, those bikes come with the perfect box for tubes up to 780mm. I had a collection of those going at my last shop, but they all had to be thrown out (mold) when I moved.
That’s pretty similar to the system I was using at my previous spot 
hoping to find something a little less… biodegradable this time around.
I found a flat file, probably for posters or blueprints. It’ll fit 850mm tubes
I am having a wood working friend make me some long wooded boxes.
Will post them up once they are ready. It’s ski season so his weekends are busy.
Trade for some welding i am doing for him for a coffee table.
Total or each size?
I’ve looked at this before and not really come up with anything that I liked. I’ve ended up with the ends of bike boxes cut off about 8 inches deep as an interim, which has been about 4 years now. Some of them are falling apart though. I did get my dad to make up some boxes using thin ply as job boxes for each customer.
You can see them in teh back ground here…
Has anyone considered getting some custom corrugated plastic boxes made? I am also looking for some good storage solutions…
This design could work for tubes. Its designed for… drill cores?
If people are interested, I can throw out some RFQs (request for quote) tomorrow to see what that looks like.
The boxes the tubes ship in work pretty well.
-Walt
I just finally graduated from Various Cardboard Boxes GangTM to a dedicated 42” flat drawer tool cabinet. I wanted the 7 drawer version but unfortunately it’s been out of stock for ~6 months and I got tired of waiting and settled for the 5 drawer. Interior drawer length is 39” so it fits just about everything. It’s full already and since I only got 5 drawers braze ons etc still have to live elsewhere, but it feels pretty good to have mostly everything in one spot.
Drawers are organized by tube type/size and it’s so much nicer having a visual on everything categorically laid out.
I just did a rough count and there’s easily 100 tubes plus accoutrements.
This is also just a “cheap” (was still 1k 
) import brand and it feels decently robust given how much weight is in it. I’ll see how it holds up over time. Bougie me wants Lista cabinet everything but they are approximately 5x the price for a similar format so this will have to do.
I’ve never ordered enough tubes at one time to get an original tube box. 
Maybe one day. 
Cabinets like that here in Australia are crazy expensive, even for the cheap ones. That would be my plan to use though if I need to keep more than I do now.
I just retired the one and only branded Columbus box I ever got a tube shipment in 
it was covered in flux and held together with packing tape and I kept a flap from it bc for some reason I’m sentimental about cardboard.
https://shopnewage.com/products/pro-series-3-0-42-in-tool-cabinet-52633
This is the product page for anyone interested. It’s just some generic garage storage brand, it was all I could find that fit the specs under/at 1k that I figured would hold up to the weight.
Another reason I went with this over a flat file or blueprint type unit is the drawers are deep enough I can stack tubes two high with room to spare.
I have a hoarding disorder so even though I hardly bother to build bikes anymore I must have at least 1000 tubes sitting around. Back in the day a couple of times I got pallets of tubes shipped via Yellow direct from True Temper.
I actually got in a big stupid argument with E-Richie once about it where I said something along the lines of, “If I buy a box of 40 I get them for half price and I use them in a year so it’s worth it” and he was making some sort of bizarre claim about just in time manufacturing being the way to go and how your spare cash could be making money in a savings account while you ordered individual tubes every week.
-Walt
I can relate to that. I’ve kept a couple fork boxes for the same sentimental reason. Actually they make good tube boxes except that cardboard is temporary.
I found balcony plant pots, not really pots . Not really pots but long narrow bins to put plants in for on your balcony
That’s funny since Richard is also a hoarder! Ask him about his lug collection some time.
