– The Wood Whisperer is sponsored by Powermatic and Titebond. So I just finished up this
tool cabinet for my workbench and it's a pretty elaborate design. It didn't start that way. I meant for it to be very utilitarian, but it just kind of grew as time went on. And while I was in this
mode of total overkill, I started to think about other things that needed organization. For instance, chisels
inside one of these drawers. You know, spokeshaves on
the wall, my router plane. Just things on the wall that, if I take a little bit more time, a little care and attention, I might be able to come up with a cool custom holder for these things that makes it look really good and it makes it very functional because it's easy to get to the things that I need to get to and
I don't lose anything, like little bits and pieces.
So that's what I did. I had a couple of extra days of free time and some scraps of walnut that
I'd be able to use for this and I just kind of geeked out on it. So let me show you what I made. First thing I wanna make is a drop-in organizer for my chisels. The bottom will be made
from quarter-inch plywood. I then lay out the chisels
and transfer the center points to a strip of wood. Using a Forstner bit,
I drill into the strip leaving about a quarter-inch
of material at the bottom. The strip is then cut in half, making two nice chisel handle holders. I only need one, so maybe give
the extra one to a friend? I sand the strips and
break all the sharp edges.
I can now mark the center of each chisel at the sharp end for
some additional support. Because the chisels are different lengths, I'll make a few different
blocks for each chisel type. Now with the chisel centered, I'll make marks on both
sides of the blades to show where I need to make the dados. At the table saw, I'll
hug away the material. That's looking pretty good. Now I'll start by gluing
the handle strip in place, then I'll glue in the
three support strips. A little bit of oil makes
it look nice and pretty.
As I install the chisels, I realize that we can go one step further to make the chisels even more secure and less prone to moving around. Magnets! Each dado will receive a rare-earth magnet which I'll epoxy into place. On top of that I'll drop in
a layer of rubberized cork. That'll keep the chisels in
place and prevent any marring. The smallest chisel doesn't
have room enough for a magnet, so it just gets the cork. On the left side of the drawer, that's a good spot for my mallet. So I make a small support block using the same drilling technique
that we used previously and install the support
with some double-stick tape to hold it in place. Oh yeah. That makes the OCD side
of my brain very happy. Next up, we'll make a holder for my spokeshaves and cabinet scrapers. I take some time to work out
the spacing on a strip of wood and then drill at each handle location.
At the band saw, then cut into
the holes on a slight angle. Now we can split the piece in two, giving us the two support rails we need. I place the supports onto a plywood backer with the supports at a slight angle. It's not really necessary, but
I think it looks pretty cool. Once the glue is dry, I trim
the excess and flush it up. I'll drive some screws in from the back just to be extra safe. To attach it to the wall, I'll pre-drill and
countersink for two screws. Bada-bing, bada-boom. A nice spokeshave cabinet scraper rack. And yeah, I'm pretty much
screwed if I ever buy that concave spokeshave
that I've been eyeballing. Next is a holder for my router plane. The old holder was nice,
but it didn't really have any room for storing the cutters. I took some inspiration from Little City Workshop on Instagram and decided to make my own version that stores all of the accessories. To be honest, I was pretty
much just winging it.
I'll start by making some
rabbets in a piece of thin stock. The material left over
after making the rabbets should fit into the top
slot on the cutters. I could then cut a few slots for the post of the cutters to fit into. Now we'll glue those onto the
bottom of the holder later on. For the backer piece, I'll trace the shape of the router plane onto some quarter-inch ply. Using that angle, I'll cut
a couple of support blocks out of three-quarter-inch stock. These will support the router plane when it's dropped into the cradle. The top of each piece
needs a little dog-ear in order for it to fit correctly. Now I can cut the backer
piece to my lines. The support blocks are glued in place and a small strip of ply is
then glued to the front face. By the way, if you haven't
tried this thick and quick glue from Titebond, you're missing out. On small projects like this
when I want a quick bond time, it's really convenient. Now I can glue the accessory
pieces to the bottom.
The router plane comes with
a little fence attachment that I actually never use, but I may as well install
a ledge for it to rest on. This piece is installed
just above the accessories and a notch is cut in
the middle for the post. The whole thing is sanded and finished and then screwed to the wall. And here we go. Next up is a very simple
rack for card scrapers. I take a block of wood and
make a bunch of band saw cuts at a slight angle. If you have thicker card scrapers you may need to make two
passes for a double cut. Now I pre-drill, countersink,
sand, and finish. (uptempo R&B music) And just like that, I have a simple, elegant little card scraper holder..