Plane & hand tool storage?

[ian maybury]

Just interested in hearing some thinking on principles for storing hand tools in the bench area. What in your views works and what doesn't. So far i've used a mechanics tool chest, but want to free up floor space by using a mix of a wall cabinet and wall boards. It won't be fancy - just screwed together ply etc.

Thinking right now it seems to make sense to put easily damaged stuff in the wall cabinet beside the bench - planes, shoulder planes, chisels, dovetail saws and Japanese saws etc. Less sure about marking out and measuring stuff like squares, dovetail markers, marking gauges, scribers, dividers/compasses and the like - certainly the larger items might be better on a board?

Lots of wall cabinets seem to use framed doors of maybe 4in depth with space to hang tools on the inside face - as well as on the back face of the cabinet itself. i.e. they roughly double the storage area. Does this work well? Not sure about having bulky and heavily loaded doors swinging into the work area, but on the other hand....

The classic method of storage using sloped boards to make beds for planes to sit on seems terribly space consuming - think i'll need to find another approach that packs them more tightly while not risking damage.

Another task will be to figure out a format for the holes in some horizontal wall brackets to hold as wide a range of chisels, screwdrivers and the like as possible - something fairly quick to make but secure. I dropped a freshly sharpened chisel once which sliced through the heel of my other hand on its way down - not such a good idea.

Power tools, fasteners, finishing supplies, clamps, machine accessories and the like are in separate wall mounted storage.

Over to you guys...

ian

[Jim Koepke]

Another task will be to figure out a format for the holes in some horizontal wall brackets to hold as wide a range of chisels, screwdrivers and the like as possible - something fairly quick to make but secure.

There are a few ways to do this.

One that I have used is to run a strip on spacers horizontally. The chisels can be placed in the slot formed. Make the slot small enough so the chisel's socket (if you have socket chisels) will not slip through. Then get accustomed to picking up chisels by the socket and not the handle to avoid a chisel slipping off the handle.

If your handles are big, you may want to make this out of two long pieces with multiple spacers to move the slot away from the back board.

jtk

[Mark Dorman]

I kind of like this style of plane storage.

[Matthew Hills]

Chris Gochnour's shop is occasionally profiled in FWW articles.
He hangs his bench planes vertically, with a tether looped over the knob. Not sure how often he checks the integrity of the tether...

You can see his planes hanging in the background here:


and a tour of his workshop:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/works...-workshop.aspx


My impression is that tool cabinets with stuff in the doors are often left open...

Matt

[Jim Belair]

My cabinet has the framed doors about 4" deep. I don't have heavy stuff on the doors but chisels, saws and layout tools. And they are closed except for access as my shop is very small and they're in the way when open.

[Matt Ranum]

I kind of like this style of plane storage.

I thought I had some pics of my setup but can't find them right now. I'm getting too many tools for not enough spots for them so I am thinking of a change, however my current setup is similar to this in that my #8 & #5 are verticle with the same type of mount, then I have shelves that are mounted with pocket screws and my planes lie on their sides on the shelves. My chisels and a couple squares are mounted similar to this as well. Small saws sit in a grooved board in the bottom of the cabinet. Layout tools & misc. small tools are kept in an old small machinist box on my counter along the wall.

[Lornie McCullough]

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.

Wall4.jpg

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

Lornie

[John Sanford]

So much of this depends on how you work, and your tool acquisition habits.

Do you work in such a way that a tool is either in your hand or back in it's place? If so, then you need to make sure that it's VERY easy to grab and replace the tools. On the other hand, if you're the sort who pulls the tool down, uses it, sets it aside, does something else, picks it back up, uses it, and doesnt' put it away until you're DONE with it, then Easy Grab isn't as important.

Another consideration is how clever you want to be with storage options. As an example, you could build a classic sloped vertical plane till while having some means of accessing the space inside the triangle for storage as well. Wait a few weeks and hopefully I'll have an example of what I have in mind.

Finally, there's the matter of acquisition habits. Do you have, or at least know, all the planes, chisels, etc you plan to use? How flexible do you want to be when it comes to adding new acquisitions? Remember, the tradeoff for flexibility is invariably wasted space.

[Jack Curtis]

...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. ...

Now that's the cleverest storage unit I've ever seen. Among other things, it's extensible to the wall space. Consider it stolen.

[Jim Matthews]

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

Lornie

This is an excellent way to do this.
I've similarly hung my most commonly used tools along the wall immediately behind me, when facing my bench.

That way, if I need something, I just turn around.

The advantage to Lornie's solution is that there are no shelves for things like woodscraps to gather.

Clutter in my shop has been moved from my bench top, to the cheapo shelves I installed.

I don't like the idea of having planes on a moving door, I'm too clumsy to trust that.
I put my handplanes in the drawers beneath my bench. Longer items are in a deep cabinet, next to the wall shelves.

If you're shop is like mine, cast iron and steel need to be oiled EVERY time you put away a tool.

[Bob Jones]

Please excuse my laziness, but I have written a bit about tool cabinets on my blog. The address is in my signiture. Feel free to look around the sight.

[ian maybury]

Ta guys, lots of inspiration there.

The spacer and strips method for chisels sounds practical - nicely machined cut outs are fine but seem likely to be labour intensive and less able to handle differing sizes.
Planes it seems are just 'plane' awkward. Tempting to drill holes in the soles for hangers, but a big step....
Think will have to find a way to use the doors (but not for planes), space is tight - but don't think i can fit in your very effective layout Lornie.

I've been a deep litter style worker, but have hopes of maybe moving to a become a replace after use worker with better storage.

Thanks for it all guys, feel free to keep it coming. Off to play with some layouts now

ian

[Don Kingston]

I have been thinking of something like this lately. I had thought of thesheets hanging and rolling on track like a garage door. Do you have pictures of different angles of this system?
Thanks
Don

[paul cottingham]

After trying a bunch of different types of storage, I have settled on a cabinet just for my planes, and a hanging tool rack for chisels, rasps, screwdrivers, and the like. Both are located above my bench. I placed the rack across my window, so it acts a little like window bars, to boot. I have a very small shop, so this works very well, as it has the smallest footprint. I am fortunate, the RH in my shop is low, so rust is not a problem. I am going to eventually build a toolchest, as I think that is the best way to store tools.

[Todd Burch]

I have a perfect storage solution.

DSC_6646.jpg

Oh, but you probably want to have access to yours!

Todd (in the process of moving...)