Workshop Upgrade: Painting Supplies Toolbox

Project parts

     After using the electronics project for a couple months, I decided it was time for my expanding collection of paints to find a new home, thus the newest addition to my toolbox collection. My main objectives were to have somewhere to keep the paints that was away from dust and random workshop debris, and have the ability to just open the case and have all the available colours right there with brushes, ready to use.

Outer shell panels laid out for assembly

    Some math and digital mockups quickly narrowed the final design down to a pair of shallow trays facing each other vertically with a joint in the middle of one to serve as the opening, basically a custom mini-cabinet with storage on the doors. Printed parts are mostly custom aside from the hinges (thing:1396038) and latches (thing:2425378), handle is the same one as the electronics box project. Once all the printed parts were ready it was time for assembly.

Assembled case with partially installed paint racks

    Assembly was simple, just an exercise in box building, complex bit was figuring out how to keep the paint tubes from falling out of the upper row if the case got inverted somehow. My solution was a simple piece of dowling bolted in at the right height. The rest of the assembly was just measuring the vertical offset with one of the paint tubes as a spacer, then screwing them all down.

Inside of completed case

Outside of completed case

     With the racks installed it was time to load the paint tubes and sort out the brush storage. The holders for each paint tube are designed to hold the tube upside down, this prevents the annoyance of shaking a tube to get the paint out after long storage, but does create an interesting problem for storing brushes. After fiddling around with a bunch of ideas I ultimately went with custom brush pots that are essentially dummy paint tubes with half the body cut off and left open.

Paint brush holders

    It's already been used on a couple of minor projects and works quite well, only thing I'm going to add to it eventually is storage for a mixing pallet and something to put water in for washing brushes or watering down paints.