My lego storage and organization

 Cleaning storage cabinets for lego organization 

 I liked the metal ones as the plastic ones can be blown over just walking by. I found a small flea market where they often have these old metal cabinets filled with hardware...

I have bought some that are so rusty that I cannot "save" them, but I try.  Heaven forbid my beautiful lego touch a rusty drawer.  Thats why I use drawer liner from dollar general even in the ones I clean because sometimes even with a clean appearance and washing, there can still be grease.

here's some of my attempts to rescue cabinets

Plastic and steel akro mills drawer cabinets 

A lot of cabinets have labels, I now use razor blades to get them off, goo gone sometimes helps

Here above are some old plastic and metal cabinets that I cleaned. But haven't put liners into...

Rescued steel akro mills containers

Every once in a while I could find several in 1 week. I had to empty the hardware (and spiders/dead beetles) out of the drawers in the garage.  I always have to be careful about sharp rusty metal tacks or razor blades!  Also there are tubes if chemicals and grease and rust that are insalvagable 

Portable fatmax containers (black)

This is one of the the better find, 2 small containers on top and 3 "fatmax" storage drawers..3 for a total of $26!  Easy to clean except for the plastic lids on the top of the small carriers

Different types of cabinets 

These are examples of great cabinets with labels...now I get them off easy but I haven't gotten back to these yet.  Soaking in Dawn and then a razor blade works perfect.  The labels from older label makes peel off usually without residue...like below

Below: These 3 cabinets were at the flea market and full of ho train parts

Below: 

There were 2 of the gray cabinets so full of hardware that they were shifted to the side.  Board on the back was used for support because I dont think I could lift them without the cabinets. falling apart.  The woman wanted $60 for each cabinet 

Overpriced and in poor shape behind the blue one

I always wanted a rotating tray as the first lego room pic I saw had 2 of them.  This solid lazy Susan was only $20. I've cleaned the trays 4 times but it has a white residue with a grainy feel so I just need to line it with liner, then I can sit and spin...Literally, it was going to be awesome for sitting and sorting legos, but the steel base and core make it too heavy to move plus there's no good place to grab it at the top

Rotation tray

Above: These were specimens that were in my car and I was too lazy to take into the garage.  It did produce good braking and turning or I'd have hardware all over...literally screwed.

The unpainted cabinets of steel just are hard to clean rust from as washing in water and drying by leaving out just makes more rust.

In the pic below you can see how scratched the drawers are from age

Below: These are cabinets and drawers I couldnt save.  I finally gave up and pitched after trying to clean twice.

Below is where I clean dry my cabinets...and get the racks and bolts that fall to the bottom

I try to turn over after 2 days to prevent pooling and then finish drying after 4 total days!

The final product looks pretty good I think! Quite a few hours of work..

Looks pretty nice to me, it feels good to see final results

My left corner at the entrance to my lego room

How I avoided getting "hosed"

 Every hose has its thorns

I think some tubing and hosing replacements are so hard to find or buy due to expense.  The first type of hosing I wanted was the classic space type as seen in this truck from the alpha 1 base from about 1979

Another example is from the set below

So I took a piece to a local O'Reilly auto part store.  I was afraid the 2 clerks would laugh at my lack of a true masculine car project but these guys were incredibly nice. I took a piece that the hose should fit and we eventually found black tubing the right size.  Needless to say I will definitely go back there; the only problem was a small amount of black residue and the small piece I bought made the car smell like a tire when I mistakenly left in a hot car!  But the size was perfect and will help create new little space vehicles!

I also bought gas trimmer fuel line tubing with a nice yellow tint that I had read will work!

This is the reference from bricklink

I have a few original hoses and they were kept in a cool damp environment which likely helped preserve them as I would think dry and heat storage would dry and crack the rubber material.

The second type of hose seems more common on the internet...the hydraulic hoses for technic models

The inner diameter appears to vary 1.5 to 2.5mm, some appear to be available for order in the UK.  Hope this helps others, I'm trying to get more info and may update the info in this post!

ADDITIONAL INFO FROM BRICKLINK

Favorite adventure cars

I never had any of the jungle theme, jurassic park scene, Egypt sets but they had some of the coolest cars.  I often took pictures of the set numbers and cars, unfortunately some of the cars have such unique pieces and colors

The color of this car is so neat!!

Similar to the above red car, this car has cool hubcaps And love the rounded hood and grill piece!

This car had a neat round inverted piece for the side door

A little better view 

This roadster had a mix of colors and a extra tire on the back!!  Also love the hubcaps with spokes

Love the curve from the back coming to the open door area

Love the roll cage bar piece, also the exhaust tube

I don't know how anyone can make an old fuel truck any more cool.  The thin tire treads and cab are fantastic.

Like 

I like this car that could be amphibious and the tilted unique window 

Nice jeep above for escaping from dinosaurs!

Great sand mobility and new style of grill in front.

This isn't lego brand but still a cool design for a scooter

Good truck for fire response above

Like the dark green color!

I like the dune buggy appearance...would be fun on sand!

Building this car was really nearby, love the use of clips for fenders

Like the design but I hate green legos!  In gray and blue this would be more amazing!

missiles! If I like the pink, but still a cool car!

Who couldn't love A speeding car shooting misssiles!

This is by far the neatest car, the color scheme and design!! 

Well there are many more but these were so neat that I hope to build these eventually!!  Have my own version of Jay lenos garage (probably about the same cost legos are so expensive!

Giving my wheel opinion

 Lego has made some improvements to their wheel choices over the years.  Recently I referenced sets 383 and 115 and the hubcaps are so much fancier and more realistic in the 383 set (I don't know much about earlier wheels)

Koop

Above wheels vs set 115 wheels below

Although the wheels above were not developed, they were better than the huge wheels in this set...

The wheel below was never practical except for a train creation i saw on the internet...it does look perfect for a locomotive wheel..not much else in my opinion!

Another initial piece when I was little...

My skills of building my own creation came from placing 4 of these together on a 2x8 plate...I tried to fashion the car after my favorite book at the time...Go Dog Go!

Then lego made another leap forward in wheel history, TREAD

Then the next revolution in wheels...flat plates!

Then these came with more treads

Then the tread tires got bigger as below; I didn't know at the time that these bigger tread tire existed til ebay in 2004!

Then I thought the wheels below came and I never liked them, I thought they looked dumb (and still think so!)

Finally, this wheel came back for the mobile rocket transport...it had been in one of the older universal sets!

From that point on, 1984ish I lost track of all the different types of wheels!!!

All this writing has tired me out.