French Cleat questions

[TonyV]

I'm going to be rearranging my shop & redesigning my storage. Everything's a mess & it isn't working for me. I've got about 6 long shelves on two walls & I just know I can do better.

First, some facts: my shop is a 10' x 25' one car garage with an 8' 6" high ceiling. My woodworking machines include:

• A Craftsman 22124 "Zipcode" hybrid table saw,
  
• A Grizzly G0555 14" bandsaw with riser,
  
• A Grizzly 6" G1182ZHW jointer,
  
• A Delta TP400 12.5" lunchbox thickness planer
  
• A Craftsman 12" benchtop Drill Press
  
  
  The DP is currently in my shed; I intend to bring it into the garage, as I'm tired of having to walk around the outside of the house to the shed to use the DP. And my wife wants the shed back, as I have tne entire garage.
  
  My plan is to first build a Schwarz style Roubo bench. I have a rolling tool box I built from plans I bought from Woodsmith. It has a base cabinet on casters and an upper removable toolbox. I'm probably going to ditch the upper toolbox & replace it and the shelves with french cleats along two of the walls, where the shelves are now (the back wall and the long wall opposite the door into the garage from my family room). The bench will go on the back wall and I will make a number of holders to put all of the hand tools up on the wall. The DP will go on the lower cabinet & a bunch of accessories into its drawers.
  
  I will also make a number of cabinets that will hang on the cleats on the side wall, along with things like a sharpening station, my mini lathe, and a new router table. I can reuse a lot of the lumber for the shelves, and I'm going to use #2 pine for the rest, as well as apple ply.
  
  My questions are:
  
  

1. 
   
2. How many cleats do I mount on the wall?
   
3. How far apart should I mount them?
   

Thanks

Tony

[Bhelart]

Hi Tony,

I also have a small shop, about single car garage size although it's a trapezoid, nine foot wide at one end and 13 at the other. I have my 6 foot workbench at the narrow end and the doors as well as my lathe are at the other wider end. In between I have a router table, my tool cabinet and a drill press, on the other wall a Minimax bandsaw and my sharpening bench. My portable planer is stored near the sharpening bench and my jointer lives next to the drill press in front of the clamp rack. Everything except the lathe and workbench is on wheels.

In a space that small I needed flexibility. I've been in that space for over 6 years and about a year ago I decided to re-arrange it for better flexibility and workability. One solution I implemented was a string of french cleats. I have two rows of french cleats running around the entire perimeter of the shop, one at about 40 inches and another at about 7 feet. A lot of my storage units (shelves) and cabinets hang on these cleats By running the cleats around the entire perimeter I am able to re-organize when/if necessary. It gives me the flexibility to move any cabinet or shelf to any spot I want.

I've also made various fixtures that also hang on the cleat system, sand paper organizers (two of them), my shooting boards hang on there, some portable tool racks (such as for small lathe accessories), a peg board panel that holds band saw blades and accessories. All of these things are hanging on the french cleats in addition to some shelves and cabinets.

I used pine 1x4 to make the cleats and hanger boards and I just mount a small piece of 1x stock toward the bottom if I need a spacer block. So far I love it, it gives me the flexibility to move things around as the shop evolves or as I move from task to task.

[rmac]

Here's one guy's opinion about how to make them and where to hang them on the wall:

http://www.benchmark.20m.com/plans/FrenchCleat.pdf

I did about the same thing on every free wall in my shop. My ceiling is lower, though, so I wound up with only three rows instead of four like he shows in his drawing. I made the cleats themselves out of 3/4" plywood, and I make tool holders from whatever is lying around.

-- Russ

[Vic]

Tony, I have a 4 inch wide main cleat on the perimeter of half the shop @ about 77'. I have the majority of my stuff hung on it (Bandsaw Caddy, Stereo, Mag Racks, Task Lighting, Clamps, etc) Then I have my desk and drafting table on French cleats, to. They are fitted cleats.

Just be sure to hang your top/main cleat high enough to give you the freedom of a lower cleat and low enough to easily remove caddies. For instance, I'm working on a sanding paper caddy that I'll be able to remove from the wall and take where it's needed. That is the beauty of a cleat system. You get to make individual units you can take off the wall and to the work.

[TonyV]

Thanks for the replies. I'm working on a redesign of the shop using SketchUp. I may post some screen shots from the model in a few days. Gotta think about this some.

Tony

[jon003]

One thing to check first is where your studs are. Older 2x4 construction will probably be 16" on center, but some newer 2x6 stuff has studs 24" on center.

So keep in mind, length wise, you probably want to make sure you're an even increment of the above, plus some overhang on each end.

I recommend 4/4 stock, a 45 degree angle, at least a 3" wide board. I went for 18" height clearance between the tops of the cleats, but I was planning to mount some larger built platforms to the cleats. Any distance would work, I think, but make it consistent. That way, you can put a bottom block on your cleated mount that "locks" the racked item to the cleat.

Why?

4/4 Stock: I've also tried 8/4 stock, and cheap dimensional 2x4 construction lumber. The 8/4 were very sturdy, but I felt like it was a lot of wasted space behind the shelves. If you have very uneven walls, this might be helpful, as the cleats on the wall and on your work won't mesh perfectly due to the wall imperfections. The 2x4 construction lumber is wet, will warp, is a softwood (not as strong) and is also thicker than it needs to be. Cheap though, so is worth considering...

3"+ wide board: So that you make sure that you give yourself enough room for the holes to be drilled and countersunk in the narrow part of the cleat. (I made some narrow ones out of a 2" wide piece, and regretted it.)

[Vic]

I just use AC Plywood for all my cleat material, fastened to the walls with pan head screws/more like pocket screws. My cleats are 3 1/4" wide and I install two screws 16"O.C.