Entropy. If it is high, there’s comments from the management (the better half) and I cannot find anything. Low entropy means the floor is swept and the chaos is maintained. Or we could say that having two kids aged 7 and 9 (2025) is guaranteed to increase the entropy at home. At least if we follow the evidence where it leads.

The kids do not, however, play in my shop (yet). No escaping the responsibility there.

Through experience I have come to the realization that even in the shop, the law of entropy abides all our efforts to reverse it. I start out with a clean, tidy shop and an empty work bench. Not ten minutes into a project, and the level of entropy has gone up exponentially. No matter how hard I try to work neatly and tidy, I cannot escape the fact that entropy will always increase

That’s not just a statement, it is The Law!

I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.

Neil Gaiman

Fighting the rise of entropy

An easy way to bring down the shop entropy level is, from time to time, spending a few minutes tidying up. To make it a successful endeavor it behooves the shop owner to allocate fixed places for the various tools.

So let’s talk about tool storage. A few essentials should live right on the bench, others can hang on the wall behind it, and the rest can go in drawers. The rule of thumb is simple: the more often you use a tool, the closer it should be at hand. Adam Savage once went on a rant in a YouTube video about “first-order retrievability”—the idea that some tools should always be immediately accessible, while others can live a little farther away. It’s not a bad way to think about it, really.

I have written blog posts about tool storage before, and here is a list of them:

	Link
	The clamp rack – storage for my long sash clamps. Placed in a corner that was not suitable for much else. These take up a lot of space vertically.
	The holdfast holder – a rack for my holdfasts. Placed just behind me when at the workbench, easy to reach when needed.
	The planing stop holders – A place for my planing stops from Veritas, next to the holdfast holder. These are also among my most used tools, so I keep them close by.
	The support table part 1, part 2, part 3. A place for my sharpening station and where I’ll put tools and stuff during a project. Drawers for storage below. It has proven its worth almost every time I am in the shop.
	A shop phone holder / charging thingababob. Keep the secondary palm of your hand up on the wall and away from danger while you charge it. It is also easy to skip to the next song on the playlist if need be.
	A spokeshave rack. A compact, easy-to-make holder for my spokeshaves, beading tool and cabinet scraper. It makes the tools easily accessible, and it protects the sharp edges from damage.
	A miter gauge holder. My band saw came with a mitre gauge. I do not use it all that much, but it sure is handy sometimes – so I need to keep it nearby. And why not go way overboard and make it in a complicated way? Why? Because I can.
	The saw till. It seems to be to-do list time in the shop, and the next item is a long overdue saw till. I want a simple design without many bells and whistles – just a rack for my hand saws, nothing more. Kind of…
	The butt chisel tray. My chisels have been living in a roll-up fabric pouch, which I have to unroll and place somewhere whenever I need a chisel. Not a very elegant solution, to be honest. Time for a chisel rack!
	The big chisel tray. The quest for a well organized shop continues, and this time I’m making a rack for the big chisels; my collection of Ashley Iles Bench Chisel MKII.

I also made a small rack that can hold a few clamps – having some clamps an arm length away can be very practical. The majority of clamps are stored elsewhere, out of the way and where I can go get them when needed. Here’s how:

F-style clamp rack (small)

I made a rack for my F-style clamps from some gash – oak for the front and back, pine spacers. They are glued together, but the fastening screws goes through the pine blocks and secures the front rail which actually holds the clamps. The back piece is larger so that the clamps rests on it, rather than the wall.

The rack is mounted on the wall behind me when I stand at the workbench. Easy (-ish) to reach while performing the level E routine for hard glue-ups near the end of the open time stated on the glue bottle…

I’ve loaded the thing up with metal F-clamps, and it holds up just fine – even though the piece of oak is rather thin! It goes to show how strong wood really is.

For my larger F-style clamps, I went with another design. Next page!