The choices we make for workshop tool organization is interesting to me. I like seeing how people organize their shop, and what led them to their decisions. For my workshop, there are two cabinets I want to mount on the walls, and at some point I want to hang my most commonly used tools as well. I hate burning bridges and so I wanted a system that would allow me the flexibility to move things around as easily as possible. At one point, after looking at pictures of Shaker rooms and workshops, I was considering a Shaker peg based idea, where a row of pegs surround a room and allow the hanging of cabinets and shelves. But I settled on what I felt was a more practical and adaptable design.
French cleats are a way of hanging cabinets I am familiar with. Taking inspiration from the Shaker rooms, my thought was to mount 2 levels of French cleats circling the shop. I could then hang cabinets, shelves, boards, or individual tool holders anywhere I want, and move them around as my work patterns emerge.
French cleats are quite straight forward to make with a table saw. For a hand tool workshop, it required some thought. Ripping an accurate 45º angle cut over 8 feet seemed beyond my current skill set. Even securing the work without a workbench or vise was problematic. I considered planing the bevel but that still left a work holding problem. Eventually I conceded that this was a situation where it made sense to be flexible about proceeding with power tool assistance.
I laid out a sacrificial eight foot board on two workmates. I don’t have a ruler or straight edge that long so I marked the saw cut by snapping a chalk line. The line is offset from centre to accommodate the bevel, and keep both halves the same size. Of course, I learned that after cutting down the centre line first and ending up with different sized cleats.
I proceeded to rip a number of long 1×6 pine boards into 2 French cleats each using a circular saw set to a 45 degree cut.
I later cleaned up the cuts with a block plane.
This gave me a stockpile of French cleat material that I could then cut to size for both the walls and various accessories I plan to make.
blunt irons 