Furniture Hardware. Keeping track.

When restoring furniture often this means taking pieces apart. But like taking a car engine apart, I am not just going to do grab all the hardware and put them in a box or a glass jar. Instead I am going to have holder laying out exactly where each piece of hardware came from. Often I use a piece of cardboard and just make a series of holes with a knife or an awl. Than I place the screws, nails, escutcheon pins, locks, handles, hinges, or whatever in a sequence that allows me the reassurance that everything goes back exactly where they came from. The holder can be made from cardboard or plywood or even hardwood. Lastly I make notations on the holders so that not only I can I install the hardware exactly, but that my subs can too. For example I will label a series of screws with the word left (L) and right (R) to make certain I don't flip the screws around. If L & R isn't enough I even label from what position I am looking at the piece when I wrote L & R. 

While this may be a simple tip it is amazing how useful it can be in the shop or onsite. 

Cheers.