Quick shop rack with dado joints and french cleats

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Organize everything - Now !!


Over time, I had gathered quite a few tools, paints and other consumables / durables that were either stacked around the workbench or on the same. So thought of building a hanging shop rack from 12mm ply to organize the sundry items and test the following things:

  • The Freud undersized plywood router bits
  • How well the said bits perform on the plunge router
  • How well french cleats can hold up weight

As the project was done for the shop and done in a speedy manner, I do not have many WIP photographs. 

Cut the sides and the racks from a sheet of 12mm plywood first. Then with a tape measure and speed square, marked the spots where the shelves were to be placed. 
Made a quick router jig from scrap plywood to do the dados - then set the plunge depth (it is important to measure the length of the shelves before setting the plunge depth) and made short work of the dados. 

 This is the quick dado jig for the plunge router:


The Freud bit was ultra smooth to work with and the 12mm ply shelves fit sung on the dados.
In hindsight, I should have gone for stopped dados instead of through ones.

This is the semi finished rack with shelves already in dado and glued + nailed. The top and bottom are fixed in rabbets. Note the gap in the front - I had initially planned for doors/sliders but abandoned the idea later. Too bad the shelves were already cut from the sheet ply.


Then I realized that the shelves shall bow under weight from the items. Decided to go ahead and glue + nail some plywood support strips at the back.



I had already glued 2x19mm strips of ply together, cut them at 45 degrees on my makeshift table saw and glued+screwed them to bases to form the french cleats. You can see one of the cleats already attached to the shelf in the above image.

This is the other part of the cleat attached to the wall with 3 inch screws.

 


This is the base strip that supports the lower part. Made up by gluing 2x19mm strips of ply and screwed to the wall.




Cleat and base strip together:


With the shelf hung, it rests the upper part on the cleat and the lower part on the base strip.


Fully loaded and holding !



P.S - I placed a spirit level on top of the shelf and left it there for couple of months to notice any sag. There is none whatsoever - the cleat seems to be holding the shelf well from August 2015 till date.

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