19 - Clamp Storage System, страница 24

THE SMALL SHOP

Clamp Storage System

Most clamp racks are designed by other ivoodivorkers for their own clamps. This organizer can be customized for your clamps.

One of the problems I've had with clamp racks is they're always designed for someone else's clamps. But not this clamp organizer. It's a modular system that can be customized to store the clamps you have.

The heart of this system is a pegboard frame. It mounts to the wall and accepts custom hangers designed to fit your clamps.

custom hangers. The hangers hold bar clamps, C-clamps,

and spring clamps. There's even a storage box for odd-shaped clamps, glue bottles, and brushes.

l-hooks. Each hanger has L-hooks screwed into the back. The advantage of using L-hooks is they can't fall off or pull out of the pegboard like traditional peg-board hooks, see box below.

CONSTRUCTION

I started on the clamp storage system by building a frame to

Improved Pegboard Hooks

Tilt Hanger. Installing a clamp hanger is easy. First, tilt it so the L-hooks can slide into the holes of the pegboard.

Lock It Then lower the hanger against the pegboard to lock the L-hooks in place. Now the hanger can't fall off or pull out.

hold the pegboard. It consists of identical top (A) and bottom (B) pieces, and two sides (C), see Figs. 1 and 2. (I used "two-by" dimension lumber.)

rabbet. To hold the pegboard, a V^'-deep rabbet is cut along the inside edge of each frame piece, see Figs, la and lb. (I used a dado blade in the table saw.)

joinery. The frame pieces are held together with a simple rabbet joint. The rabbets are cut in the ends of the sides to accept the top and bottom, see Fig. lb. Then the sides are screwed to the ends of the top and bottom.

pegboard. After the frame is assembled, it's ready for the peg-board (D). But before cutting the pegboard to fit, there's one thing to keep in mind.

Since it's easiest to screw through the holes that are already drilled in the pegboard, make sure the holes along the outside edges align with the center of the rabbet in the frame.

To complete the rack, soften the edges by routing a chamfer along the outside edges.

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ShopNotes

No. 19