Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 21 - Odd-Job Hanger

The Garrett Wade Odd-Job is a measuring device based upon the Stanley original according to their website  "Made from 1888 to the early 1930's, and rediscovered by Garrett Wade, the Odd-Job will provoke admiring glances. It's an inside mitre and try square, a depth gauge, a scribing tool for arcs and circles, a T-square, a depth marking scribe (excellent for marking out mortises), a plumb level, and a rule. Made of solid brass and steel, and carefully machined on all sides. Hardwood Rules are brass-bound and graduated in inches and metric units." - their words not mine.

The Odd-Job fitted with a 12" rule

Well I have one with 12" and 6" rules and use it constantly. It needed a place to rest as throwing it into a drawer is not good as it is liable to dings and scrapes. It is actually a precision instrument and, although intended to be kept in an apron pocket, does need protection.

The Odd-Job is a difficult device to hang as there are many protrusions, angles, screws and knobs to avoid. I came up with an idea to fabricate a hanger from scraps of walnut and shape it to fit the Odd-Job, provide support for it in the cabinet and also make it easy to extract.

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 20 - Mallet Hangers

I wanted the brass mallets to go into the cabinet but rather than the more traditional way of hanging hammers (side on) I still wanted to maximize the usage of space within the cabinet.
So the mallets were to be presented face on. That way I could get them side by side and not use up too much room.

First of all I measured each mallet and spaced them appropriately. Then I drilled holes and opened up slots using the bandsaw to allow them to be extracted. Then I glued this piece onto a cleat drilled with mounting holes. When hung in the cabinet I noticed the radius of the brass strikers was not sitting correctly in the slots at the front edge. So I ripped some 5/16" square walnut strips and glued them into position as shown. This then fully supports the brass hammer heads and still allows the handles to go into the slots - problem solved.

The mallet hanger is mounted on the inner door

They just now need a little bit of sanding to make them look right before applying some finish.

Brass mallets in position

Oneida Dust Deputy Deluxe - Review

I was pleased to see that Rutlands had become the official UK distributor for the Oneida Dust Deputy. This is a cyclone that you can retrofit to any shop vacuum. It must be stressed that this is for a shop vac and not a larger 4" or greater dust or chip extractor. The latter normally run at a lower vacuum but higher flow rate than a shop vac. They are designed to extract large volumes of chips.
A shop vac on the other hand is designed for lower flow rates but higher vacuums and is ideal for smaller particles such as fine dust.
The problem I have found over the years is that a shop vac filter clogs decreasing the efficiency of the unit to such an extent that sometimes it becomes useless. You then have to strip the unit down and clean the filter. It then works better for a short time until inevitably becoming clogged again so you have to repeat the process.

The Oneida Dust Deputy is designed to be used in line between the dust producer and the vacuum. The cyclone essentially swirls the dust and chips around and they drop into a pail underneath the cyclone and never actually reach the vacuum filter. Oneida claim that 99% of the material ends up in the pail with 1% only reaching the vacuum itself.

So reading between the lines the benefit is "most" of the vacuum is available all of the time and no need to constantly clean the filters.

I ordered mine on the Sunday online and it arrived on the Tuesday morning. In the evening I went into the shop to fit it to my aging MacAlister wet and dry 30 litre vacuum cleaner.

What's in the box?

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 19 - Another hanger for a coping saw

I have a coping saw that I very rarely use but it still needs to be stored.
As per part 18 I used a similar design tailored for this Bahco saw to hang it in position again with magnets holding the frame in place.

The hanger is mounted in the top right of the shallow side of the inner door.

Saw hung on a fabricated walnut bracket

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 18 - A simple holder for a jewelers saw

I use a precision jewelers saw to cut out mother of pearl and abalone shell for inlaying items like guitar fretboards etc. As this is an expensive piece of equipment the shallow tray formed in the inner tray is an ideal place to store the tool.

I fabricated a simple hanger from some more scraps of walnut. Using some smaller rare earth magnets, this time 6mm diameter (1/4") x 1mm thick (0.04"), to secure the steel frame of the saw into place.

The hanging bracket was screwed into place and the saw has that satisfying "click" when the magnets engage when hung in place.

Fabricated and shaped hanger.
There are two small rare earth magnets glued in.

Jewelers saw hung in place.

The space inside the saw frame will be used to store a small engineers square.

None of the hangers have yet been finished.
The application of a varnish will be done when I have completed
as many hangers as I can.

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 17 - Specialty spokeshave hangers

I have a couple of spokeshaves, Clifton 500 and 550, which are an unusual shape. They are normally used for to make concave or convex profiles - think the rear of guitar necks.
As they are so unusual in shape they needed hangers which were fit to their shapes. The concave shave was first.

The profile was traced onto a piece of walnut and two pieces were cut together on the bandsaw and oscillating sander. When separated they symmetrically formed a shoe to hold the shave in place. These pieces were glued to a backing board which was cut to size.

Formed shoes glued onto a beech backer

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 16 - Spokeshave rack

Two of my spokeshaves are suitable for hanging using a relatively simple hanging rack.
I made this using some scrap beech. The spokeshaves, a Lie Nielsen Boggs and a Veritas curved sole, were measured and suitable holes bored into each half of the rack. Then the slots were cut on the bandsaw. The LN spokeshave went into place without any more work but the Veritas had to have some carving of the slots done to permit it to go in.

The rack was then mounted on the inside face of the outer door at the top right hand corner

The depth of the slots permits the  shaves to stay in
an upright position.

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 15 - Screwdriver rack

I have a terrific collection of wooden handled screwdrivers, Grace USA, Lie Nielson and Joseph Marples that needed mounting in the cabinet.
I opted on putting the Grace screwdrivers on the inside face of the outdoor door. I cut a piece of birch ply to length and glued on a edge band of walnut to cover the unsightly ply edges. This was in turn glued to a right angled cleat so it could be screwed to the face of the door.
Each screwdriver was measured for diameter around the shaft collar. Holes were then laid out and drilled so each square handle butted against the inside face of the door. This would present the label showing the size of each screwdriver to me.

Then slots were cut with the table saw to enable the screwdriver shafts to be withdrawn easily.
The rack was then mounted with screws to the inside of the door.

Partially filled screwdriver rack

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 14 - Most planes now in place

The inner compartment is just about completed now but there is enough room for future purchases and space is left. As every mounting point is simply screwed into position any future modifications can be made easily.

Empty cabinet ready to apply finish to the mountings

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 13 - Fitting a router plane

I have a little used Stanley router plane from about 1950 in my collection. As far as I can tell it had never, ever, been used before I bought it a couple of years ago. Unfortunately it had been in it's original box since I bought it and I was keen to have it readily available for use.

The shape of the plane necessitated a captive shoe on both edges again with a magnet to hold the plane in place. I simply traced its lower profile onto some walnut and using some double sided tape stuck another piece of walnut underneath. I then cut the profile out on the bandsaw and finished it on the oscillating spindle sander.

After splitting the two pieces I ended up with two symmetrical shoes. I then glued these to some more scraps of sufficient thickness to mount the plane with the blade protruding up to 3/4"

Shoes glued onto some walnut scrap.
You can see the resulting profile emerging

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 12 - Fitting a rabbet (rebate) plane

The Record #778 rabbet fillester plane has it's own challenges to fit snugly into the cabinet.
The best way I worked out of mounting this was to fabricate a mounting that would engage the operating handle of the plane.
I made this again from some scrap walnut. I could have used any other wood but had enough of this on hand to use. As previously stated this gives consistency throughout the project. Other woods that I intended to use were scraps of beech (used as the secondary wood in the drawers).

The fitted block was cut out with a bandsaw and shaped
using a combination of oscillating spindle sander
and hand sanding.

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 11 - Fitting bench planes

I opted to use scraps of walnut or beech in conjunction with screws to mount each tool into the cabinet. This provides consistency throughout the project.

Each and every bench plane I have present a different challenge to mount vertically in the cabinet. As previously stated rare earth magnets would be used where possible. I had a rough idea of the layout having already drawn the outline of the plane till onto a piece of hardboard and played around with the position of each plane.

The first plane to mount was my Veritas bevel up jointer. This is 22" long and made from ductile cast iron. The rear edge of the sole of the plane has a pronounced curve. This edge, of course, will become the lower edge when mounted vertically. The plane would butt against the lefthand inside edge of the carcass and would be around 50mm (2") up from the base.
I had to make matching "shoe" from some scrap walnut to hold the lower edge in place. I used a large Forstner bit to remove most of the waste and finished off with some sanding.

The shoe was mounted to the cabinet and a strip of walnut 8mm square (5/16") was fitted to the hold the outer edge of the sole. I chose this section of walnut strip as it seemed to look right and also small countersunk head screws could be used without much danger of splitting the wood.

Lower shoe for jointer plane

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 10 - Rare earth magnets

I will be using many rare earth magnets in the cabinet as they are relatively cheap and work well. Over the years I have found that magnets of 10mm diameter (3/8") and 3mm thick (1/8") have plenty of pull strength and are easy to mount.
One thing that you really have to watch about these are the dangers of them causing blood blisters when you try to separate them from the pack. Slide them apart and you should be safe.

As the external door had now been fitted I used some blue tape and marked the positions of the holes so two magnets were exactly opposing each other. The holes were drilled with a 10mm bradpoint bit. Then using some CA gel glue and CA accelerator and pressed the magnets into place. The door would then be held closed.

Marking out the positions of the holes for the magnets

The magnets fitted in position

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 9 - French cleat and hanging the cabinet

The methid of hanging the cabinet is to make use of the French cleat system. This is where a board has one edge ripped with a 45 degree angle. This board is fixed to the back of the cabinet and there is another board (again with an opposing 45 degree angle) fitted to the wall. The cabinet cleat then simply locks into the wall cleat.
As the cabinet full of tools could potential weigh 200 to 300 pounds both of the cleats need to be mounted firmly to the both the cabinet and the wall.

The wall in my shop is a combination of brick and concrete blocks. First of all I had to mount a vertical cleat to the brick work to make it up to the same level as the blockwork.
I used Rawlbolts (expanding sleeve wall bolts) to mount to the brickwork.

French cleat mounted to the wall
The lower board is not a cleat but
acts as a spacer for the bottom of the cabinet 

The cleats on the wall are made from 3/4" baltic birch ply.

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 8 - Inner door infill piece

As the inner door has quite a thickness I had to build in a clearance of about 25mm (1") when it was closed. This resulted in a large unsightly gap so I ripped some scrap walnut to around 22mm (7/8") wide and fitted it at the front edge with a slight reveal of about 1/4"

Gluing the infill piece into place

The finished results

I think that the space behind the infill piece could be used to mount steel rules.

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 7 - Drawers grooving and glueup

The next part was to mill a groove into each drawer part to suit the captive plywood drawer bottom.

I set the 1/4" router cutter so it was in the centre of the half blind dovetail socket. This happened to be 1/4" in from the base.

Setting the router cutter with a Trend
setting gauge

A pile of drawer parts ready to be grooved.

Wall mounted Plane and Tool Cabinet - Part 6 - Drawer parts (Pin boards)

The front panels of the drawers will have half blind dovetail sockets. The rear will just be through dovetails. The stock was milled to size and cut to fit the drawer aperture. In my country on drawers of this small size 95 deep x 202 wide (3-3/4" x 8") I am able to have just 1/32" clearance on the top of the drawer and slightly less for the sides. We don't get massive swings of humidity so those clearances are fine.

There are a variety of methods of marking from the tail boards onto the pinboards - balancing the tailboards on bench plane while holding the pin board in a vise, trying to mark them whilst balanced on your knee, getting somebody else to do it for you - to name but a few.

My method of marking

The first thing I do is very lightly mark the end grain with the marking gauge (you remembered not to alter the setting didn't you?) Then I clamp the pin board in the bench vise and have the endgrain end just slightly proud of the vice (only a hair). Then I square the board to the bench top with my engineers square.