Shop Work: How to build a French Cleat Lumber Rack

so I've got a problem well let's face it I got lots of problems but this one pertains to lumber I've got a lot of it and it's everywhere it's like one of those TV shows about the hoarders that just can't help themselves when it comes to wood I'm the guy that will embarrass his wife by pulling over and picking up pieces from the curb and because of this I've accrued a bit of a collection and it's spread out all over my basement floor making it hard to get around I got rough sawn lumber cabinet discards a whole variety of plywood my cut-offs from previous projects construction grade lumber I mean even pallet slabs don't unsubscribe for me for that but with no organization it just gets stacked up on the floor making it almost impossible to get from one side to the other without tripping over something so I'd like to build some lumber storage on this wall here in to allow for customization and flexibility I was thinking about doing it using French cleat so as my lumber collection changes I can adjust the brackets as needed to accommodate and then over here I'd like to put that shelving unit to store all my jigs so you're probably thinking French cleats for lumber storage it won't be strong enough well just sit tight and let me show you what I came up with so knowing that one of the strongest joints you can make is a mortise and tenon I designed this in Sketchup I figured it was a good idea to have multiple grain directions for added strength and then I can accomplish both with just three pieces of 2x4 then when it comes to hanging it on the cleat I can make my cutout through all three pieces I just need to make sure that the tip of the cutout is at least an inch or so lower than the top of the horizontal out rigging piece then to make it more aerodynamic and stylish I can round over the sharp corners plus it hurts less when I bump my head into it so basically this is my plan of attack I'll make about 10 of these brackets and be able to put them wherever I need to on the wall of cleats that are positioned nine inches apart so let's see if it'll work the frame in a few houses in my neighborhood so I was lucky enough to find every piece of wood I needed for this project in the dumpster granted it's only like 20 or three bucks and lumber so I'm not exactly sure it was worth being neck deep in trash but nevertheless I found everything I needed including two new studs to beef up the wall just a bit I set the table saw at 45 degrees and ripped down three more two by fours and they call the wall crew if he cut right down the center and can easily get to cleats from a single board then I take each one over the miter saw and clean cut one of the ends measure out and Mark to each of the six pleats and then trim them to fit I transfer the location of the studs onto each cleat and then I mark where I need to drill some pilot holes to mount them then I went ahead and poked a bunch of holes in each of the spot now it's time to start putting them on the wall I'm using two and a half inch screws so that there's plenty of bite into the wall studs and I got all lined up when I'm surprised by this guy did you love anybody I am building the shelves for my would find yourself you need a shelf what for what rock for your stuff hey you want to help Danny can you hand me the level the level is right there thank you and just like that he's gone I guess he doesn't approve of child slave labor but isn't that what having kids is all about I made sure each cleat with level and that each one was faced exactly 9 inches from the next to keep the cleats from twisting on the wall I glued in some torsion blocks that I made from another 45-degree cut off I put in four first leaves and once they were dry I screwed them to this dust as well and this really firmed things up so after sanding the faces the wall cleats are done at this point now it's time to move on making the bracket I start by ripping off one of the rounded edges of a bunch of 2x4 p2 and bracket made from three boards each makes for quite a bit of cutting on the tabletop but once they're all prepped I set the fence to three inches and run them through again to get them to their planet then over on the miter saw I cut all the outriggers to their final length and get them all cleaned up into the same thickness over on the planer [Music] now I can start prepping all the bracket up right so I set up a stop block on my miter saw and proceeded to cut about a billion pieces to length and trim them to width over on the table side and then to square them up I just wanted each one of them across the joint chip I verified the thickness of the ten out Raiders and then divided that number by half except the height on my table saw blade so that I could start to cut out the mortises then using a stop block on my crosscut sled I made the initial cousin all 20 of the bracket up right once that was finished I adjusted the stop block to account for the height of the tenon and then it was just a matter of making the second cut in each piece and hogging out all the material in between before just going ahead and doing all of them I get a test fit on a couple of pieces fits perfectly so I spent the next several years carving out the mortises from all the uprights this was exhausting but having a saw blade with a flat top raking tooth made it much easier otherwise you probably have to spend even more time manually cleaning up in the squaring out each of the cut then in an effort to keep me out of the ER with a gaping head wound I thought it might be a good idea to take care of the sharp corners on the end of the outriggers so it's over to the bandsaw and they call my cups I cleaned things up with a disc sander and then to soften things up even more I went ahead and rounded the edges over on the router to ensure not to mess with the edges of the ten [Music] I gave you to them a real quick sanding and then the outriggers were ready while I had the router table handy I rounded over the front edges of the uprights so that they're just a bit more friendly to the touch now we're ready for glue up I use tight bond three because it has the strongest bonding strength of all the tight bonds and it also allows for a longer set-up time if I need to make any adjustments I smeared a liberal amount all throughout the mortise across one of the interfaces and then all around the tenon then I mashed it all together and I started putting on clamps after doing this ten times over I used almost every single claim that I own I really have too many clamps said no one ever once they were drying out of the clamps arraigned each one over the jointer and made the back of it perfectly flat then was time to make each one look like a lopsided boomerang by drawing an arc on to the bottom of the brackets and then back to the bandsaw to cut out each one of those then I use the belt sander to smooth out the curves then to sand down the sides of each one now that I reintroduce to even more sharp edges I had to finish out the round overs over on the router table I go backwards on the ends just a bit to eliminate any chance of tear-out so I made this hideous looking jig to act as a stencil that will show me where to make all my cuts on each of the brackets i could have just measured for each one but this guarantees that each one will be exactly the same plus it's funny looking then it was fun to put together the last step in making these brackets is to make the cutouts over on the bandsaw to give my blade in there i had to make a handful of cuts and then break them out with a screwdriver then I could get my blade in there perpendicular and finish things out each bracket got a notch cut out on the bottom too so that it can sit flush against the wall supported by the cleat just underneath and then all the brackets found their way onto the wall now normally the only thing I pull up is to the drive-thru window but to prove to any skeptics out there that these things are strong here they are easily holding up a 200 pound bucket a large without even flexing a bit oh then I could finally start putting some of the lumber up onto the wall and here it is all tidied up I played around a bit to find just the right configuration so that I could get the most lumber up onto the racks and that's really the beauty of the system you can change it up however you want until you find what works best for you I've got all my long boards way up top all my cabinet cut offs stack up here my rough sawn blocks in this area with plenty of room to spare and then over here I've got like a mixed bag of wood again with lots of unused space then at the bottom I have some more longer pieces here's all my cut-offs that I use for cutting boards and accents and that sort of thing and I relocated that shelving unit to over here in this corner to store some other things as well as all my table saw jigs all the sheet goods that I just had leaning up against the wall and cluttering up this hallway all got stored over under the staircase over here and I sorted them so I have a nice Baltic birch plywood first and then the mid grade plywood and followed by the crappier stuff and then and then why the heck are you even saving this plywood is on the very end but all in all I'm very happy with the outcome it really opened up this section and I can finally move around in this area again hey if you liked the video please give me a like and a comment and consider subscribing all the cool kids are and I don't think you want to be left out if you want to try building the system for yourself you'll find links to download my plans for free in the video description alright well that's about it for this one take it easy and I'll see you next time [Music] I guess I didn't plan that out too good the board actually pushed the camera out of the way but I wasn't about to stop the cut the cut came out okay all the way to the wall though I guess six and a half feet is my limit who is texting me hey seize him just go bottle open really it's calling me hello it's true hello hello [Music] the way there hello well that was rude

Channel: Fisher's Shop

Views: 518,575

Keywords: woodworking, hobby, shop, craft, diy, how to build, french cleat, lumber, wood, storage, rack, system

Id: RT5oVX_0z8E

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 07 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/diymontreal]

Why do the French always get credit for everything? French cleat, French doors, French fries,... 😉 well done! 👍