Pen turning bushing storage and organization

So I'm setting off on a bit of a pen project. Going to be making over a dozen of them, all different. I know for some of you a dozen is just a days work, but I really only ever do a couple at a time. Anyway, I wanted them to be varied, so I bought some new kits to try and noted that my bushing stock is going to grow quite a bit. I've only got about 8 sets now, but I'm adding 5 more, and expect I'll add more to that as well. I like building storage solutions for the shop as projects, so I started to noodle about how to store these bushing sets. I know I could have just kept them in baggies in a box, or even little compartments of a larger box, but that seemed underwhelming (albeit maybe more practical, but who cares, right?). So I saw a storage idea online that have them held on these rods, suspended in a rack. Seemed like an ok way to go, but I wanted the rack to be able to stand on it's own and be able to be put away with out catastrophe. What I came up with was this...

I started with a walnut cutoff I had lying about and resawed it. The bottom piece is slightly thicker than the top, which allows for drilled out 'receiver' pockets to catch the ends of the bushing holder (I'm calling them 'trees', even though they don't really look like trees...). I'd like to say that was entirely intentional, but the reality is my fence was off a little bit and that's what I ended up with. It made my design easier, with more meat available for the pockets, but it wasn't really my doing!

I did some basic math and calcs and figured 1 sq inch of overall space would allow what I needed for each tree to live in the rack. I marked out and drilled 5/8" through holes for the top of the rack, and 3/16" stopped holes (pockets) on the bottom. Both go counter sunk just to take the edges off.

I built a test tree to hold a set of bushings, then refined it a bit and got measurements to finish the rack. I drilled through 1/4" holes on each corner for 1/4" dowel 'stilts'. A quick pre-finishing of the soon-to-be-hard-to-reach places with danish oil, then I glued up the stilts into the rack. I used scraps to create proper depth based on the test tree and fitted it all together. After it was dry, I flushed the ends of the stilts and did some finish sanding, then Danish oil.

The trees were a different process. I knew I wanted easier identification for the bushing sets, and I wanted them to look like they were intentional. I had some 3mm craft ply that was veneered with walnut, so I laid out a grid of squares, 7/8" per side. I figured that would give me a little room between tress when stored, so I might be able to more easily get a hold of them. Fired up the laser and made some smoke. Afterwards, I laid out a quick template and taped it to the spoil board, then proceeded to use the laser to mark the middle of each square (for later drilling), then lasered the name of the associated pen kit and the bushing number on the top. I then used a brad point to drill out just about a 1.5mm deep pocket in the middle of the bottom of the square. Using 3/16" dowels cut to length, I glued them into the pocket on the back of the square to make a tree. I used a brad point for a couple reasons. I knew it would poke through the top of the square, but I wanted that. I had a sneaking suspicion that these trees were going to be a bit hard to grab without a handle of some sort. I've got some neuro problems in my right hand, and the fingers don't have great sensation, so I wanted a backup in case it became an issue to grab the squares. The brad point hole poking through gives me an easy place to tap in a brad nail or maybe a small screw (Spoiler alert: I'm gonna end up needing those little handles!). The brad point also made it much easier to find center of the small squares, keeping everything my symmetrical. 

Lastly, the magic of the tree: So, it’s easy enough to slide the bushings onto the tree, but when you lift the tree up they would obviously slide right off. I got a package of 3mm ID silicon o-rings, then chucked up each tree stem in a drill and used a triangular file to cut a small recess into the stem while it was spinning in the drill. The bushings slide on the stem in order (I labeled the end of each stem 'TIP' to help keep this clear), then the silicon o-ring slips over the end and into the recess, holding the bushings in place. 

When setting in the rack, the bottom of the stem press fits into the drilled out pockets on the bottom portion of the rack, keeping things mostly in place. The oversized holes on the top portion of the rack do allow for the tree to sway a bit, but that's not a big deal...and you've gotta have an oversized hole to get the bushings through anyway. Anyway, the whole kit is pretty stable overall and the tress seem to stay in place just fine so far. I've got more bushings coming, so I pre-cut a bunch of extra pieces and will build those up as needed! 

Gotta love me some organization!