What's This For?

A french cleat is a wall-hanging method using beveled strips attached to the wall. It allows the tool hooks to be repositioned without removing fasteners and can hold far more weight than pegboard. I use french cleat boards throughout my shop to allow me to reorganize my tools when I need to.

I use 1x4 pine boards ripped at a 45 degree bevel down the center, giving me two strips of roughly 2" x 3/4" cleats. Then I attach the cleats to a 3/8" ply sheet with screws driven from behind and hang the plywood on the wall into the studs. You can see some of my cleat system in the photos.

I designed this in OpenSCAD so it can be modified to suit. Additionally, I've included STLs of a few example designs.

Design Notes

If possible, I typically use a lower shelf that's even with the end of the back. This allows the tool holder to be taken off the cleat and sit on my workbench, which is useful for bit holders and bottle holders. 6 mm thickness is sufficient for light things. Heavier tools should step up the thickness to 10 mm or more. The Customizer app seems to be unable to deal with the per-column label text vector, but OpenSCAD has no problem with it.

Similar Things

I made a previous thing that was specifically a glue bottle holder.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2362759
That version was designed in Inventor, whereas this new version is OpenSCAD, allowing a wide range of customization.

It's somewhat similar to this, except that one is for pegboard
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:537516

Future Work

• More options for tool holding, such as hammers, pliers, drills
• Generalize the wall attachment by optionally selectable pegboard and screw holes