Glenn's Shop Tour - Jan. 2009

[glenn bradley]

Ditto! At what heights are your cleats, and how high is your ceiling?

I have a concrete sill that effects my choice for the lowest cleat. I picked a height that would allow me to hang a standard base cabinet and position the top of that cabinet at about 36" from the floor. Your mileage will definitely vary depending on your floor to wall construction ;-)

The middle cleat is about 5 feet from the floor with the upper cleat again being dictated by the electrical soffit that is just above it. I left just enough room to hang a cleated fixture from the top.

On the opposite wall (he's next in my ongoing upgrade to the shop) I will probably use the same lower and middle heights for conformity of the fixtures. The upper cleat can go a bit higher as there is no soffit on that wall.

Would you change anything about the cleats?

I would have certainly added them sooner rather than later. The move to this system makes reconfiguration a breeze. I now relocate things for convenience that I would never have bothered with before. I would have just "worked around" the situation. Now I just slide things over or grab the whole fixture off the cleat and hang it 'over there' for awhile. After using it for awhile I can see that the smaller or more congested the shop, the greater the benefit of this setup would be.

Things from the DAMHIKT list:

- Walls aren't straight in any direction. Shim your studs so that the wallboard (and therefor the cleats) are flat across the surface before you mount to them and have to take the cleats back down to do it. The fixtures won't slide and relocate easily if the cleats are wavy front to back ;-(

- Wax the mating surfaces of the cleats AND the back of the fixture's cleat where it will contact the wall. Otherwise, the first time you move it, some of your new paint comes along for the ride ;-(


Things from the "that worked great" list:

- If you need longer wall cleats a scarf joint or a pocket holed butt joint work great.

- The pegboard panels are more useful than I ever imagined but get good pegs that stay put.

- Almost anything can be hung from these things. They are really solid if they are made from good plywood (or other quality stock) and screwed to each stud (I used #10 x 3-1/2" McFeely's square drive coarse thread screws).

- Make spare cleat and spacer material and toss them up over the rafters. They'll be ready to go when you suddenly want to add either more cleat or build a new fixture to hang.

[John Sanford]

Looks pretty good there Glenn. One thing you may want to consider is adding fold-down wings to your fliptop to extend your in and outfeed for the planer. I built a planer stand from a Shopnotes (IIRC) issue with a fold-away outfeed support and it makes a substantial difference.

I do like the cleat system, wish I could use it.

[mike johnston]

Everyone loves pictures of shops. It should be manditory for membership.
(no pics of mine)
Mike

[Rick Moyer]

Thaaks for the info, Glenn. Too late for me to shim the studs, but the rest of the info will be thought over before I get much farther. Nothing on my walls right now except the wood rack I'm building, then onto tool placement, then finally the cyclone. This whole process is taking MUCH longer than I anticipated.