Blood, Sweat, and Sawdust

For the past year, my hand planes have sat on a little mobile cabinet near my work bench.  Here, they collected fine dust from my electron powered machines.  It wasn’t until after the weather started getting hot and humid again that I started to notice a few specs of rust here and there.  It was nothing that I couldn’t easily remove, but it got me seriously reconsidering my hand plane storage.

The goal is to create a nice hanging tool cabinet with doors, but it all starts with a plane till.  For now, the till will be hung on the wall using a french cleat.  Later, I will fasten it to the inside of the tool cabinet.  It only took about $25 and a few hours to finish.  It won’t be a huge loss if I decide to redesign it for the finished tool cabinet.

The ramp angle is fairly steep to save depth.  I will better secure the planes before mounting it to the wall.  I’m having a hard time between trying magnets glued to the back to the till ramp, or cleats.  Cleats are more secure, but less attractive.  What do you think?  Any options I haven’t considered?

I’ll detail the tool cabinet in a future series.  Mike Pekovich’s hanging tool cabinet formed the inspiration for this project.

I haven’t finalized the details, but I’m thinking that I will build it out of cherry with mahogany door frames.  Stay tuned.