Customized Parts Storage With Harbor Freight Bins & 3D Printing

You don't have to accept the standard arrangement of Harbor Freight bins

Harbor Freight: The hardware and tool store that some love, some love to hate, and still others… love and hate it at the same time. Like an electron suspended between two locations in space, or the u-shaped political theory where left and right come together to agree on certain things for very different reasons, Harbor Freight exists in mental space that few understand.¹

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To appreciate “The Harbor²” one has to go in with the right expectations. No, their tools don’t live up to the quality Milwaukee or even more recent Ryobi implements, but sometimes low-price, low-to-medium quality is OK. E.g. 👉³

And sometimes quality has very little effect on performance — i.e. molded plastic from a lower-tier vendor is mostly as good as from anywhere else. Yes, Harbor Freight’ bins are awesome for the price, and they may be the #1 reason to go there. They may even come with a free flashlight if you have the app.⁴

Plunk your items in the little removable bins, take them out as needed. Then put them back in and repeat. The problem that you’ll eventually run into, however, is that sometimes these little bins don’t quite fit your use case. There is a solution!

3D-Print Harbor Freight case enhancements

With thousands (millions?) of these modular storage cases on the loose, and with a customer base that is largely compelled to build things, it should come as no surprise that people have come up with a plethora of 3D-printed bins to spruce up their storage.

Venn diagram of HF case customers - could probably add in cheapskates and/or value-driven consumers depending on the desired connotation without much effect

Some of my favorite bins come from a creator who goes by armourcraft or Thingiverse. Strong and simple, these bins — in the standard HF formats + two different sizes — are excellent. For even more options, I modded two of them to add central dividers, along with another larbe, extra long version, all available here.⁵

With the ability to print more small bins than come with the cases, plus other custom sizes, these bins have become my go-to storage method for electronics and hardware (e.g. bolts/nuts). In fact, while I’ve been a fan of Akro-bins in the past for easy assembly picking, it’s hard to beat these bins as kits that can be stored away until they’re needed:

I make these keyboard control boards once a month or so. This kit puts parts at-the-ready, but takes up relatively little space.

As far as I know, HF doesn’t actually sell bins individually, which I suppose is a business decision that may make sense for them. At the same time, I bet they could sell a lot of small bins sans case. Certainly there is a demand.

Other awesome bins

Yes, if I may be so bold, I have made some cool and useful bins. At the same time, one might argue that they’re boring and still rather generalized. Some have taken this concept and run much further with it. Examples below:

Millenium Falcon model storage: If you any models of this strangely-shaped spacecraft lying around, you too can store them in a Harbor Freight box. Actually, there are a LOT of Star Wars Harbor Freight bin models available, apparently for a tabletop X-Wing game that I’ve yet to play.

Bottle opener and mounting screws: Moving on the the practical, but still niche, if you install and/or repair bottle openers on a regular basis, this bin could be for you!

Kreg Jig: While I use my bins mostly for parts, there’s no reason why you couldn’t store small tools or implements. I have a similar jig that I keep in my workbench, but to each his own!

While these individual bins are probably not for you, I’d invite you to treat them as inspiration for developing your own niche holders to keep YOUR things organized. While cuboid-ish designs (+ labels via my Brother P-Touch label maker) work well for me, don’t be afraid to get creative!

More case benefits

Besides forming an organized and space-efficient way to store your parts, consider the other benefits of these cases:

• Portable and divisible⁶ - need to take your case somewhere else? Just grab the handle and go. Do you only need parts/implements from that one little bin? Take it out and set it where needed on your workbench.

• Secure against drops (maybe) - I wouldn’t test this necessarily, but if you drop a closed case, there’s at least a chance that it will stay closed and all your parts won’t spill onto the floor.

• See-through top - This is perhaps under-appreciated until you start using it, but it’s very nice to be able to get even a blurry view of what’s in the case before opening it up.

The big annoyance with HF bins (that I wish they’d fix)

As soon as you read this, some of you immediately knew exactly what I was talking about. Yes, even though these cases are covered in plastic, HF in their infinite wisdom insists on sticking advertising stickers on the cases themselves, which you have to tediously remove or just live with lowered visibility.

My solution is to douse it with goo remover Goof Off, wipe vigorously with whatever towel I can abscond with from our kitchen area, then repeat with isopropyl alcohol to finish the job. Or perhaps an additional dousing in isopropyl alcohol first. I still don’t have the procedure down to a science, but what I do know is these stickers seem like rather user-hostile behavior… that I’ll admittedly put up with if they don’t change it.

Bottom line: buy/mod some cases!

At the end of the day, these cases good/inexpensive/standardized enough to put up with the above annoyance. So I suppose if I’m still buying, HF doesn’t have much of a reason to change. Note that HF isn’t paying me for this post. I’m just an observer/customer.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Go buy some HF cases and print doo-dads for them if you want. But don’t say I didn’t warn you about the stickers!

And if you’re wondering about 3D-printed tool storage, see footnote⁷ -JC

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Big thanks to our newest sponsor, SmallRun. I talked about them as an option on my recent Where to Sell post. Since then, I’ve had real, actual sales there on my JC Devices store and gotten paid for it. So be sure to check them out if you’re looking to sell or buy small run electro-mechanical things.

And if you’re looking for a good place to advertise your business, I’d love to add your name to the list!

Also, you may have noticed that I’ve missed a Wednesday or two recently. Between general summer stuff and other business that has kept me quite busy, my article queue has dwindled, and I’ve had to cut down on publishing a bit. Hopefully this biweekly-ish arrangement still gives you enough to read for the time being — I certainly enjoy writing here when I can!

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Addendum/Footnotes:

1. I’m not sure if that’s how superposition works exactly. Here’s an article that may explain it, based on my skimming of a few lines.

E.g. U-shaped politics: USA lefties don’t like mass surveillance because they feel it oppresses certain people groups disproportionately, while righties/libertarians/other people that like their privacy just don’t appreciate being filmed all the time and just want to do whatever they want at all times.

I try to keep my politics to myself online. However, to quote Eric Cartman:

Butters, you gotta learn to chill. Life goes by pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while - and do whatever you want all the time - you can miss it.

And how are you supposed to do that if you’re being constantly filmed? Maybe I should go into politics, but that seems like a lot of trouble to a foreign botnet from watching me at the neighborhood pool, oversized-against-HOA-regulations floatie or not!

2. OK, awesome is a bit of an exaggeration. They’re good at their price point, and they’ve been mostly standardized for years. Thus, people, including myself, have created a sort of organizational ecosystem around them.

On a related note, my kids sometimes call this store “The Harbor” or “Safety Harbor,” confusing a nearby town name with this tool store. I’ve also heard it referred to as “China Freight,” which, while accurate, would also likely apply to Lowe’s Depot in some degree.

3. Reasons to buy low-quality tools:

• You just need to make a quick repair and don’t think you’ll use the tool again. If you find yourself needing it on a more regular basis, you can always pay 3x the price for something more durable at LowesDepot.

• You’re on vacation and need to knock out a wall at your Airbnb for that crazy party tonight, but you really don’t want to worry about having to check a sledgehammer and drywall saw at the airport. The owners will surely accept your tool-gifts in exchange for any inadvertent damage.

4. I don’t have the app. I wish they still sent out the paper ads, but that’s the way of the world these days I suppose.

5. The small version is my most popular design/remix, while the small-long hasn’t registered a single download (it’s quite new). As most people don’t publish their native CAD files, it’s kind of tricky to modify the STL format that most things come in. If you want to make mods yourself in Autodesk Fusion, this video (not mine) does a great job of explaining the preliminary steps to set things up.

6. One might call it a federal system of bins.

7.