French Cleat Walls

& My New Shop

French cleats. The modern woodworker’s organizational dream? Or the dust-catching, cumbersome trend popularized by woodworking influencers?

A french cleat wall consists of a series of slats with a 45 degree angle cut on the top edge, that are then mounted on your walls. You then take a tool you want close at hand, make a holder for it, and hang it up on the wall with a cleat with an opposing 45 degree angle. This style has become very popular because it allows you to change and adapt your open tool storage as your woodworking grows and evolves.

Since moving I was in desperate need of more storage. I had boxes and bags of hand tools that used to be on the recessed shelf behind me in my old shop, but now had no place in my new shop.

Ripping 45 Degree Edge

I used cedar fence pickets, which are ⅝” thick–and I’ll explain why later–to rip a 45 degree angle down the middle of the stock to make two cleats out of one board.

It can be a little tricky to make the 45 degree cut that travels down the length of the cleat as clean as possible. I wouldn’t say the accuracy is hyper necessary to the success of the project, but it’s just good practice. So to make this as fool proof as possible, I installed two feather boards, one keeping the stock pushed up against the fence, just ahead of the blade, and one pointing down, keeping the stock pressed down to the table. Any deviation left and right or up and down can cause the cut to go all cattywampus. I applied Danish oil to finish, obviously optional, but it keeps things clean.

Wall Hung Tools Versus Drawers and Cupboards

I’ve said before I prefer to store items in drawers to keep the dust away and because drawers are a great way to efficiently use the volume of a cabinet for storage. But my tune has changed slightly. For the tools you use constantly, it’s much better to have them close at hand so you’re not constantly opening and closing a drawer for the same square you use to measure everything. If you find your tools on the wall are gathering dust from not being used, they’re probably the ones that are better stored in a drawer or cabinet.

Limiting how many tools you keep out on open wall storage will allow you to make a smaller french cleat wall. Having smaller sections of french cleat walls will make it easier to transport if you have to move, and knowing myself, this is certainly not my last shop.

I applied Danish oil to finish, obviously optional, but it keeps things clean.

French Cleats vs Screws, Pegboards, and Wall Control Panels

You can ditch the cleats and screw stuff directly to a panel or even straight into your wall, and I did that at the old shop and it’s fine. But French Cleats allow you to regularly move around and reorganize your tools on the wall. Maybe you tend not to move tools after you get them where you want, unless you’re making room for a new tool or getting rid of old ones, but the having the option is nice. Tools screwed directly on walls Do you need to mount the cleats to a sheet of plywood? No, you could screw them right to a wall. I expect I’ll be moving out of here within a few years though, so it’s better for me to have it as a single unit. Also, if your wall isn’t super flat, a longer tool holder might have some trouble seating into the cleat. For the back panel, I picked up a sheet of ½” plywood. I screwed the cleats from behind the back panel into the cleats purely for aesthetics, so the ¾” material isn’t necessary.

And pegboard? I could definitely use it, but pegboard is limited to a few different sized hooks and a few mounts, like a screwdriver holder. With French cleats, the different kinds of tool holders you can make is only limited by your imagination.

There’s also Wall control panels, which is a brand name that have a proprietary design for panels, and although they do have a much larger selection of tool holders available, you’re still limited to what they have and it’s harder to make something custom for yourself.

Keeping Them Clean

One pet peeve that my friends on Instagram shared with me about French cleats is that dust can accumulate in the crevice between the cleat and the back, and it can be quite annoying to clean. Sure you can blow it out with compressed air, but want to know what’s easier than cleaning it out every time? Not cleaning it at all. I think I’ve come up with a way to prevent dust from settling down there. And all you need are some biscuits.

I used no.20 biscuits as spacers behind each cleat so that it floats off the wall a smidge, hopefully letting the dust just fall through instead of getting trapped in the crevice. Since biscuits are ⅛” thick and I used ⅝” cedar fence pickets, the combined thickness of the two is ¾” thick, which is a common size for french cleats. This allows you to make tool holders with a ¾” cleat, and everything works out nicely.

Easy Tools Holders

For the most part I tried to keep things simple. If a tool can just hang from a hook or a dowel, then I’m going to hang it from a hook or dowel. This works for small things like push sticks as well as big things like my crosscut sled, and using two can suspend things like mallets, spokeshaves, etc.

For the hand planes I use most frequently I wanted to make a plane till. I used scrap plywood that I pocket screwed 45 degree angles to, and used left over cleat stock to make trim that goes around the perimeter to prevent the planes from sliding off and to their demise. It turns out that making these tool holders is a fantastic way to use up scraps.

3D Printed Tool Holders

Narex Richter 6pc 3D Printed Chisel Holder

I’ve recently been getting more into 3D printing, and I designed a chisel holder I’m quite proud of. I measured each chisel so that the bevel sits down in a recess and the ferrule clips in up top. It has raised numbers in white, which look pretty cool, and there’s a 3D printed cleat on the back that allows it to sit perfectly on the wall. Another cool holder I designed is for my sharpening stones. It has a sliding dovetail mechanism that tightens the stones in place with machine screws. The cleat allows it to hang on the wall, but I can snug up the cleat in my vice for when I want to sharpen a tool. This is exactly the kind of thing I need so that I have the path of least resistance for sharpening my tools…because I tend to procrastinate that until things are way beyond dull.

Locking French Cleats with Other Methods

French cleats are great because things can move around, but they’re also a nuisance because things can move around. This isn’t so much of an issue for larger things like my drill charging station, because the weight of it holds it steady, but for smaller holders, like a simple peg to hang my crosscut sled, they can get knocked off while removing the sled.

A good way to lock the tool holder onto the cleat is by placing screws so that they poke out the back of the holder just below the cleat. This prevents the holder from lifting up and off the cleat. This is probably the simplest way, but not exactly the tightest.

Taking the same concept, but instead of using screws, you can screw a block to the tool holder underneath the cleat. When you try and lift the holder off now, the cleat can’t lift up at all, and it feels pretty secure. But when I pull out, it still feels a little wiggly, and although it’s not a huge deal, I think I can improve the idea.

Locking French Cleats with My Method

The idea only works if you make your wall with the float cleats like I did. I grabbed the same biscuits I used as spacers behind the cleats and glued and pinned it to the block that screws behind the tool holder and under the cleat. This grabs the cleat from behind, and it’s a solid fit. If you already have a regular cleat wall that doesn’t float, here’s another idea that worked way better than I expected, and is pretty easy. All you need is a pocket screw jig, and you drill a hole for two pocket screws about two and a half inches up from the bottom of where the cleat will rest. Then ream out the pilot holes more so the screws can wiggle a bit.

Using two inch screws, secure the block behind the holder, underneath the cleat. Because of the angle of the pocket screws, the block pinches the cleat well and is better than the other ways. The caveat is that you need to make sure the pocket screws are always accessible, so you’ll have to design your tool holder around that.

Conclusion

I feel a lot better now that I’m not kicking into my tools every five minutes, and I’m enjoying having everything close at hand. It’s just a little ironic that I put a considerable amount of effort into making the cleats look good only to almost entirely cover them up with tools in the end.