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Part of Maker tool systems compared: price is the wrong place to start
Storing a maker tool system safely: batteries, blades, and gas
Storing tool system consumables safely: battery packs away from combustibles, blades and bits protected, and gas cylinders secured upright with caps on.
What to take away
- Battery storage is a fire question. Keep packs away from combustible material and out of extreme heat and cold.
- A damaged, swollen or dropped pack is not a storage problem. Take it out of service and dispose of it properly.
- Blades and bits are ruined by contact, not by age. Separate them physically rather than stacking them in a drawer.
- If your shop holds gas cylinders for a torch, they have their own storage rules and they are worth following.
Because they are small and numerous, consumables get stored in any gap. Two categories can start a fire, which is reason enough to give them a plan rather than a drawer.
The rest cost money when damaged in storage, a slower and equally avoidable loss.
Batteries first
Lithium-ion packs fail rarely and dramatically. The most detailed public record of how those failures behave comes from a neighboring product category: the Consumer Product Safety Commission publishes micromobility fire reports covering incidents involving e-bikes, scooters and similar devices.
Tool packs are smaller and differently protected, so the comparison is imperfect. The handling lessons still carry:
- Store packs on a hard, non-combustible surface, not in a drawer full of rags or offcuts.
- Keep them away from heat sources and out of a car in summer.
- Store at a moderate charge rather than fully charged or fully flat for long periods.
- Keep terminals from touching metal. The original case or a fitted cap is there for that.
- Remove any pack that is swollen, damaged, unusually hot or has been dropped hard, and dispose of it through a proper collection point.
Do not put lithium packs in household waste. Damaged cells cause fires in bins and collection vehicles.
Blades, bits and cutters
These are destroyed by touching each other. Store each in its own slot, sleeve or case:
- Saw blades flat, separated, with a card or a purpose-made blade case between them.
- Router bits standing in a drilled block, not loose in a tin.
- Drill bits in an index, so a missing size is visible.
- Abrasives flat and dry, because damp backing paper delaminates.
Label the block or index with the sizes. A bit you cannot identify is a bit you will not use.
Gas cylinders, if you have them
Many maker shops keep a small propane or fuel gas cylinder for a torch, and those have specific storage rules.
The federal standard for oxygen-fuel gas welding and cutting requires cylinders stored upright and secured, valve caps on when not in use, fuel gas separated from oxygen, and cylinders kept from heat and ignition sources.
Those requirements govern workplaces rather than a home garage. They describe the right practice anywhere: upright, secured so it cannot fall, capped, and not next to the heater.
Cases and racks
Store cases on a rack rather than stacked on the floor, front labels outward, heaviest at the bottom. A stack you have to dismantle to reach the third case is a stack you will stop using.
Our tool system comparison covers the systems these consumables belong to, and our guide to storing materials in a garage covers the rest of the room.
