Plane & hand tool storage?

[Pat Barry]

Lornie, I plan to make one of these before your patent gets published. Thanks for the brilliant idea. I love the expandability of this concept.

[Harold Burrell]

I use a mechanics chest and every other kind of storage, shelves, drawers, etc....

But with a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood cut into 9 equal pieces, and 9 pair of hinges, I turned 15 square feet of wall space into 64 square feet of hanging storage.

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I did not invent the idea, but it was easily one of the best improvements to my work area.

Lornie

Wow...cool!

So...the panels are around 10 1/2 X 48???

[John W Johnson]

Fwiw Jim Tolpin has an excellent book about toolboxes and storage. I was given the New Traditional Woodowrker as a gift, but felt like I was past the fundamentals of hand tools. So i set it aside, unread. I ran into a problem a year or so later, stumbled over the book, and found a solution. It was great, read the whole thing, and made most of the projects. I also ordered his toolbox book on my own dime, and it, too, was a good read with lots of great ideas for storage.

[Mark Roderick]

My personal opinion is that I do not want to hang anything as valuable as my planes up on a wall, or any other high place. I know, I just know, that if I hung my planes on a wall I would do something stupid and drop one.

Instead, I built some simple cabinets with drawers that sit on the stretchers of my workbench. I keep planes, chisels, etc. in those drawers, where they are immediately available and can't fall.

[ian maybury]

I guess that kicks in the under bench storage or not discussion Mark - but it's a fair point.

To ask another question. I'm keen to keep my planes in a cabinet for security reasons, but a wall panel is potentially very convenient for lots of stuff including chisels. How big a deal is dust and debris build up and the like on a peg board or equivalent wall panel tool rack?

Rust is certainly an issue, but as already will probably be linked to % RH and oiling - and a cabinet is probably not going to prevent it. (?)

ian

[steven c newman]

I have been using an old chest of drawers, or rather, what was left of itSDC14159.jpgSDC14161.jpgSDC14163.jpgSDC14162.jpgof course, there was only three drawers to work with. Dresser came from a trash day pick up. Not sure where the rest of the drawers were. Price was right, though...

[Lornie McCullough]

Wow...cool!

So...the panels are around 10 1/2 X 48???

16 by 32..... the blocks at the top leading edge are to slide past each other, (while not entangling the hanging tools) when you push one sheaf aside. I keep the edges of those blocks waxed as needed.

Lornie

[Harold Burrell]

16 by 32..... the blocks at the top leading edge are to slide past each other, (while not entangling the hanging tools) when you push one sheaf aside. I keep the edges of those blocks waxed as needed.

Lornie

Hey, thanks!

I'm not sure I follow you as to the function of the blocks, though... (You'll have to excuse me...I'm no too bright.)

[Lornie McCullough]

Hey, thanks!

I'm not sure I follow you as to the function of the blocks, though... (You'll have to excuse me...I'm no too bright.)

Hi Harold.... the blocks I'm referring to are the horizontal pieces at the top front of each panel. Without those blocks, pushing one panel aside to get at a tool on a neighboring panel would tangle the tools and perhaps knock them off.

blocks.jpg

The size of the block gives "depth" to each panel, and allows you to move all of the panels aside by pushing on one. I keep the edges of those blocks waxed, and they push against each other nicely.

It added so much 'wall space' that a few of them are still empty....

Lornie

[Jim Matthews]

Low relative humidity in Victoria?

Not for long...

[paul cottingham]

I don't know about the rest of Victoria, but my shop has low RH. My house has a heat pump, so that helps.

[Roger Bell]

My setup involves strategic placement rather than novel, creative or classy storage ideas.

My planes are stored on cheap, ordinary veneered particleboard bookshelves. The shelves are at my back and behind me when planing at my bench. I simply have to turn around to grab one. The shelves have additional shelving or sub-shelving (narrower shelving placed in between shelves) added for smaller planes. The most used planes are directly at my back. The lesser used planes may involve turning and taking a step to grab. I have a one wall of six shelves @ 36" wide x 72" high or 18 lineal feet of storage along that wall with hand tools stored closest to the hand tool bench. At my back. I have a secondary bench located further down the wall for assembly and other work with tools associated with other work more proximate to that bench.

For chisels, they are stored in old dental cabinets having many small drawers. These are located a few (as in three) steps away from the planing and primary work bench and near the end of the primary bench. A variety of other handtools tools are stored in those cabinets as well.

More common tools (hammer, screwdriver, squares, rules, clamps) are stored on the other side of the planing and secondary benches on a wall setup for when more ordinary work is done. Again, to my back when working at the bench and one step max away from the bench.

Just a simple and reasonably organized setup that focuses on placement of benches and tools to each other....like a good kitchen "work triangle" idea.

[Harold Burrell]

Hi Harold.... the blocks I'm referring to are the horizontal pieces at the top front of each panel. Without those blocks, pushing one panel aside to get at a tool on a neighboring panel would tangle the tools and perhaps knock them off.

blocks.jpg

The size of the block gives "depth" to each panel, and allows you to move all of the panels aside by pushing on one. I keep the edges of those blocks waxed, and they push against each other nicely.

It added so much 'wall space' that a few of them are still empty....

Lornie

OK...yeah...I get it.

For some reason, when you mentioned waxing them, I thought that they must slide on the top "rail". I see now that you wax the edges so that they slide against each other.

[Kent A Bathurst]

My version of reality.......the wall over my back bench.

The saw/plane board is walnut + QSWO. Angled at about 8*.




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[John W Johnson]

Very nice Kent, I am stealing your ideas for plane and saw tills.