The Sort Anything Box

As an huge adult fan of LEGO Bricks, and I am constantly sorting through mountains of bricks and needed a quick way to sort color, mini figures, pieces and parts into separate bins.

I also wanted it to be something cheep, quick and easy to build using stuff I already had on hand. I also was excited that my sorter reuses plastic containers!

It can be used to sort all kinds of items, metal screws, nails and other small hardware. Because it also has a large area to pour stuff onto, it can be very helpful when search for the elusive one item in the bottom of a container!

This project uses only a few items:

Four or more used and emptied Plastic nut containers with lids, I peeled off the labels

Hot glue gun

A drill with a hole saw kit, or a jig saw if you do not have a hole saw kit

A marker draw the hole marks

A wood drawer with any slides or hardware removed (I got mine from a thrift store that has a hardware section) You might be able to build a simple wooden box with four sides and a bottom sheet.

I washed out my plastic containers and peeled the labels off of them so I can easily see the contents. My reused containers had peanuts and cashews so, I wanted to make sure to remove all the salt from the bottom of them!

Remove the lids from your plastic containers. I wanted my sorter to have a bin in each corner so I also made sure to use the same plastic containers so that the sorter would use each container as a leg, and the surface would be level.

Mark the bottom of the wood box and make sure they are not too close to the edge... as you are going to be cutting through the bottom and don't want to hit any of the edges on the walls.

Using the hole saw mounted in the drill, cut the holes into the tops of the plastic lids. Be very careful, take your time. I cut mine outside and then used a vacuum to clean up the plastic bits.

Note: the order of the hardware for the hole saw is shown in the photo. Your hole saw might be different so be sure to read your instructions for a safe operation of cutting the holes into the lids.

Note: If you don't have a hole saw use a drill bit to poke a hole and then use a jig saw to cut a hole around the lid but leave enough room of an edge so you can glue the lid to the bottom of the wood box.

Next use the marker with the cut lids and mark the hole onto the bottom of the box.

If you are going to have more than four sorting containers, be sure to have the containers far enough apart so you can turn them to remove them from the wooden box. Ample space between each container is required to put them on and take them off.

Use the same method use above in step 3, to cut the holes in the bottom of the wood box.

Glue each plastic lid ring onto the bottom of the wood box, make sure to line them up with the hole you drilled.

I put a bead of glue on the top of the lid and then after placement on the bottom of the wood box i then added a bead around the lid on the edge next to the wood box.

Now you can screw on each container. They will act like legs to make your sorting table level.

It also allows you to easily remove each container after sorting your items.

Pour out you bricks or the items you want to sort and now you have four bins to collect the pieces!

The edges of the box keeps your items from rolling off and the four holes allows you to drop the items you want to sort quickly and without having to pick them up as you can just push the brick into the hole and watch it drop into the plastic container.

If four containers is not enough, you can always add more bins on the edge of the wooden box to allow more things to be sorted. Just remember to keep your center area large so you can pour out items to be sorted in the center of your box.