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

The first shoe mounted to the cabinet

First plane (the jointer) fitted into place
with a vertical dividing strip.

There is also a 10mm (3/8") rare earth magnet fixed to the cabinet opposite the top edge of the plane (ahead of the blade). This is strong enough to hold the weight of the plane in place. I think it would be strong enough for a heavy cast iron #8 jointer. If not two magnets would definitely be strong enough.

Then it was a simply matter of making corresponding shoes/clips to fit each plane.

A scalloped shoe for a Stanley pattern #4

Jointer, #5 (lower) and #4 (upper)

Jointer, #5 (lower), #4 (upper), #4 (lower) in bronze), #4 (upper),
#3 bevel up with a shoe for a scraper plane above
Two block planes.
The box with the bronze block plane on contains a chisel plane.

The bronze #4 could not be held in place using a magnet so the upper (front) edge has a sliding clip that falls under gravity to hold it in place.

There were many more strips/clips/shoes added after this picture was taken so you will see how it evolves in later posts.

I had taken measurements from the sole to the tip of the handle of the deepest plane long before I had designed the box to get an idea of the depth required. I added about an inch on for future tool expansion - you never know what tools you may need! This figure could then be incorporated as a salient dimension to allow an inner door to NOT foul the planes and still shut. Obviously if you are doing anything like this to maximize the volume in the box measure all your tools and fit each clip/shoe individually to each plane - they don't seem to share many consistent shapes!