X-Carve: Organizing Before Assembling

For the last few big projects I’ve built, I’ve started using the Harbor Freight Parts Storage Cases to keep all the small components and tools organized. Rather than try to locate small bags of hardware packed in bigger bags like most kits come with, I find that having them all in a bin that I can close and move around keeps me on task better. I spend more time building and less time searching for parts.

So now I keep a few of the parts storage cases empty on standby, and when I start to unpack a project I’m going to assemble, I grab a box and start putting the small parts bags right in the storage case. The first time I use a part from a particular bag, I’ll dump all the parts out of the bag into the bin, but I’ll still keep the bag if it’s well labeled until I’m familiar enough with that type of part to recognize it and know where I put it.

Once I do dump the parts from the bag into the bins, I also find it’s much easier to grab the parts from a removable bin than mucking about in a small ziplock bag.