Like many, many of you, I struggle (and generally fail) at keeping a clean organized workbench. As I have started and worked through projects over the years, I've tried just about everything to keep my projects organized - butter tubs, old greeting card boxes, even discarded instrument packages from scientific instruments! See, I like to keep all the detail parts, replacement couplers, etc together in a single place while I work on a model, so I can just pick it up, work on it, and then set it down without spending time trying to hunt everything out of my on bench storage (ask me why I own 6 Xacto knives some time); And did I mention I tend to not want to spend a ton of money on stuff either (I have 4 kids to eventually put through college).
While on a recent visit to Target to stock up on non-grocery family needs, I ran across these:
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Sold for a single, American Dollar Bill in the Dollar Bins when you first go into Target (behind the shopping car corral) I think they are marketing these as lunch carriers for Back to School; The come with three compartments and the grey lid all shrink wrapped together.
But pull apart the segments, and you get perfect storage for N Scale locomotive and rolling stock projects
So, by thinking outside the box (!) you can get 3 storage bins, in a nice, stackable package, for a mere dollar; What's more, I think if you did it right you could pack a stack per project with many of the tools you'd need to finish the work, and take it on vacation. Just don't try getting those Xacto knives through TSA!
