tube storage?

[Ralph S]

Like many of you who have restored sets, I've accumulated a lot of tubes as stock for current and upcoming projects. In my case the number probably approaches or exceeds 2000. The question I've got is: what are you doing to alphabetize and store your collection in order? I'm getting tired of going through a lot of serviceman's boxes full of out of order tubes every time I need a specific tube. Help!

[Electronic M]

I use to put the tubes in individual labeled boxes and alphabetize all the boxes with in the service caddies I store them, but lately I've acquired too many new unboxed tubes tubes to find boxes for so my system has begun to discend in to chaos.

[miniman82]

Find a bare wall, put shelving on it. Then you can organize by type, put common ones into large bins. Twin triodes like 6SN7, 12A(U/X/Y/Z)7, ect. Horizontal tubes in the next bin: 6DQ5, 6BQ6, 6CD6, 6BG6, 6CB5, 6AX4. 6AU4, 3A2, 3A3, 1X2, ect. Doing it by type saves a ton of room, though you will still have to search through them when you need something.

[marty59]

I can never keep any types together as every time I've organized them, more tubes seem to find me. So lately I've been testing, boxing, sorting into lots (for the large quantities) and starting an inventory sheet which I hope to someday have in an Excel spreadsheet format.

Gotta' get my tubes under control. You know more will find you so prepare yourself for any expansion/changes. Ask me about a year from now how I'm doing!

[AUdubon5425]

I have them in soft drink flats inside of large boxes in my shed. I labeled the boxes A-G and tried to keep some numerical order in the flats. So if I need a 6AY3 and the spreadsheet says "box D" it isn't too difficult to locate it.

[ohohyodafarted]

I use the small cardboard box and ziplock baggie method. I use small cardboard boxes 6"x6"x4". You can buy stock corregated boxes or parts bins at most any supplier of cardboard boxes. They are inexpensive and can serve you to organize all sorts of different parts.

I cut the top box flaps off. I label the front of the boxes with a sharpie felt tip pen with the tube numbers. I organize by "voltage" and then by the "first letter or two". Then within each box the tubes are grouped in labeled ziplock bags of all one tube number. The boxes are organized on shelving by ascending tube numbers writen on the front of each box. Some boxes will have only 1 tube type in it, some boxes will have as many as 6 to 10 tube types in it depending on how many of a given tube number I have collected.

This method works well for me and I can always go right to the tube I need. I have always been real anal about keeping things well organized.

IF you ever go to a flee market and find commercial steel drawer parts cabinets, they are very worth while investments. I probably have cabinets with a couple hundred drawers for organizing all my spare parts. But then I also have been acquiring spare parts for about 40 years so I have a lot of stuff that needs organizing.

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by marty59

starting an inventory sheet which I hope to someday have in an Excel spreadsheet format.

Been there, done that. I tried using a spreadsheet years ago, and it was a waste of time. Forgetting about lists for a moment, your tubes have to be organized and labeled so that you can find Tube X when you want it.

Before long, I stopped updating the spreadsheet because it was time-wasting duplication. In less time than it took to fire up Excel and find something in the list, I could simply walk into the workshop, see at a glance what was there, and grab what I needed. The list added nothing, since after looking up a tube on the list, I still had to walk into the workshop and find that tube in the physical world.

If you own many thousands of tubes and constantly buy/sell, a spreadsheet might be handy for inventory control. I'm not in that category.

Just my $0.02.

Phil Nelson

[bandersen]

I picked up a few tube caddies and populated them with the most often tubes cherry picked from stash. 5U4, 6AL5, 6AU6, 12AU7, etc. I keep those caddies near my workbench.

The rest are packed in boxes loosely organized by era 30s, 40s, 50s and base type. For example all my 6SN7, 6SL7 and 6V6s are in one box. All my compactrons in another.

It's working out well so far

[kvflyer]

I do have an Excel spreadsheet of my tubes. It needs to be seriously updated. But I don't use the spreadsheet to find tubes... I use it to see if I have a particular number.

Presently I have tubes in various boxes and tube caddies. But when I finally get to Florida, I intend to organize better.

Now, they are in boxes and I have four general categories:

TV
Radio
Special
Audio

[bgadow]

I built shelves that run the perimeter of my TV room, up high above the door/window frames. They are all boxed and arranged in alphanumeric order. A lot of work but once it's done, it's done. If I need a tube I just grab my stepstool, I can look and see if I have it in stock without having to dig through a list or bunch of boxes.

[leadlike]

Our house has very little room, so all the tubes must stay packed away pretty tightly. As a result, I keep them all on a spreadsheet (I probably have a couple of thousand tubes) listing that tube's location. I have seen people go into spreadsheet overload, listing the tube brand, black plates, date purchased, etc.

I had a lot of loose tubes until last year, when I bought several hundred tube boxes and got them all stored away. THAT was a rewarding project!

edit: Thought I'd mention:I keep a copy of my spreadsheet in my email account, so I can easily check if I have a particular tube from a remote location. This has been very handy in the past!

[Glenz75]

I have a spreadsheet database on an old PC and have valves sorted by pin base/type in plastic bins. It does work but I'm finding of late that any valve needed, I end up going out to the garage and rummaging through boxes and boxes of unsorted/untested valves to find it - Murphys Law! I keep meaning to sort all my valves out, but its so time consuming. I will get there, one day

Cheers
Glen

[6GH8cowboy]

Faced with the same dilema. Resorted to zip-loc gallon bags Use the dissimilar type method. 6SN7 and such in with 6K6. Sweep with damper. 6V6 with 6H6. Big writing at the top of the bag and carefuly laid in medium sized carboard boxes.
Oh and a garage sale this weekend will thin the herd also. Come on down to S. Florida and get some!

[Chad Hauris]

I have all my unboxed tubes in multi-drawer parts cabinets (the either plastic or metal type with little plastic drawers) and labeled with the tube types contained on the front of each drawer. The small drawers might contain maybe 5 small tubes and larger drawers with 2 6L6's, 6JE6's etc.
This method keeps the tubes from banging around in a larger container and it is easy to look at the whole cabinet to see what tube types are there.

[peverett]

I used Microsoft Works to catalog the tubes that are in my attic. I also labeled the storage boxes in the attic. This has helped me find a tube from time to time. However, I have to move my 1963 Falcon out of the garage to get to the attic, and in Texas you avoid the attic if at all possible in summer. Because of this, I ususally end of searching the tubes not in the attic and not in the Microsoft Works database. I also end up geting TV tubes given to me by the local antique radio club, so any excel sheet I would do now will be constantly obsolete.

For those who wonder why I used Microsoft Works, I did not have Excel at the time I cataloged the attic tubes!