A Top-Rated Harbor Freight Find That'll Help Organize Small Nuts And Bolts

When it comes to storing random nuts, bolts, and screws, the average home garage or workshop has an extremely low bar to clear: Your storage solution must be better than an ordinary coffee can, or you might as well use an ordinary coffee can. And while coffee-and-grease-scented hex nuts are a time-honored tradition among DIYers, it's incredible how easily — and cheaply — you can up your garage game these days, especially when you bring Harbor Freight into the mix.

In typical Harbor Freight fashion, the bargain retailer offers solutions that, if not always quite perfect, are at least so affordable they can't be wrong. When it comes to keeping pointy screws off the floor, though, the company's Storehouse brand offers solutions for everyone from the all-tools-in-a-kitchen-drawer set to small-time home-based manufacturers. One of the best, Storehouse open-front 74- and 40-bin sets are just right for crafters and craftspeople who need to put their wares together fast and repeatedly. They also do a creditable job for those who need to store and occasionally dig through a few decades of saved bolts and bobs to find just the right thing.

The top of the Harbor Freight parts bin line is the Storehouse 74-Bin Mobile Double-Sided Floor Rack ($149.99). It's a rolling repository of reach-and-retrieve repeatability. The two-sided rack is perfect if you have identical parts you use frequently and store in bulk. For example, a woodworker might use many otherwise identical wood screws in different sizes. This rack lets you grab what you want from the right open-front pick rack and get back to gluing and screwing. The unit has 37 bins on each side, for a ridiculous total capacity of 530 pounds. With their front-cutout design and huge capacity, they're meant for quickly accessing identical parts rather than random screws or bolts. Smaller, easier-to-peruse solutions like the Storehouse 40-bin organizer with full-length drawer ($19.99) might work better if you're trying to manage a massive variety of screw types used for DIY projects.

The premise of this rack's mobility is that the entire selection of parts should be portable within your workspace, since you're unlikely to take the rack to a jobsite. The idea, for example, is to face the 10mm bolt side toward the Honda you're working on, then spin it around when you get to the part where you need all the Honda trim clips for securing the body panels and bumper covers. Of course, this might be overkill for you. Maybe you're happy to keep your garage neat and tidy with old peanut butter jars, coffee cans, or magnetized jars for storing small screws. Alas, if so, you're left to figure out how to store all your cans and jars.