Chisel Rack

[Tattooed and Dusty]

Hi All, I was wondering if anyone has any images of chisels racks you have made and are proud of? I am accumulating more and more chisels and want a better storage system than keeping the original bags and simply hanging them. I made a rack for my set of marples chisels, but they are pretty uniform in length and size. I now want something that will easily grow with my collection, and can house every thing from long thin paring chisels to shorter wider mortise chisels, and some random japanese chisels as well.

I like this one alright, but think a better solution must exist.

might be too much to ask from a single rack, but if I can find a good idea it will make me very happy.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts

Andrew

[CW]

You could always take the same approach as the ones I saw in Krenov's shop. Bent wire loops tacked to the wall. Running the edges against the wire when putting them away should make an impression on the edge.

[BillyBob]

I like the rack you found. You might also check out Charlie B's rack.

[Lew Hodgett]

I can think of at least a half dozen ways of doing something like this; however, can think of at least a dozen questions you must answer first.

Things like:

Do you want all your chisels hanging vertically for easy retrival with the cutting edges protected?

I would.

Do you want to group like function chisels together by size?

I would.

Is ease of expansion a priority?

I'm 50/50 on this one.

Do you want your chisels visible on a workshop wall or maybe hanging on the inside of as cabinet door protected from day to day activity?

Might be a nice feature.

Like buying a pick up truck, you can't just buy a chisel rack, you have to engineer one, then design and build it.

Have fun.

Lew

[charlie b]

My racks fit in the doors of a pair of wall cabinets and, to get the most tools in the space available, they're designed to require minimum vertical clearance above the tools. Though they appear stacked, one on another, they're not. Shelf pins hold each independently so any rack can be removed from the cabinet without having to move anything else. Take one out and to the workbench when needed.

Tool racks are a great opportunity to try different types of joinery, on the cheap since they are made from what would otherwise be scraps. Low risk project since you're playing with scraps.

charlie b

[Andy Dingley]

I've never got on with the things. Too many tools, too little space. Any "rack" is a reduction of storage capacity/space consumed, in favour of better display and access.

So my chisels live in rolls. The cupboard over the bench has four of them in there (about four dozen in total) and when I use one, I simply unroll it out flat on the bench. They're as accessible that way as in any rack and there's simply no way I could rack that many chisels so close to the bench.

Put your chisels in rolls so that they're a sensible set when unrolled together and you can do most sorts of work with just one roll out, not just by putting all the bevels (whatever their size) into one roll.

The perfect chisel roll isn't easy to find either. Mine are home made, from 2' squares of canvas, but it's hard to find the right canvas. It mustn't catch the edges when they're being put away.

[Prometheus]

It's not worth taking a picture of, but I've got something similar to the link above. The pegboard is on a wall with exposed framing, so I mounted some 2x4's between the studs with holes sized for each chisel, and it works really nicely for me. I only mention the slight variation with the studs because it saves on pegboard space.

[Patriarch]

Andy Dingley wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I asked my wife, a quilter with a lot invested in machinery, etc, to make me some chisel rolls, and handed her the Lee Valley catalog for inspiration. The leather ones she ordered do the job quite nicely. :-)

One part of the 'roll' idea which pleases me, is that I can put my 'loanable' tools in one set, and my adult sons can use those, no questions asked, as long as they come home. And the Lie Nielsen set, in its French leather roll, is known to be 'owner's use only'.

Patriarch, who needs to work on a traveling toolchest...

[woodworker88]

Right now my chisels just hang on hooks on a pegboard, but one solution I have been dying to try is one of those reconfigurable drawer divider units. You just snap the pieces together to form compartments of different sizes. They should fit nicely in my bench, considering it is made of used kitchen cabinets. Check out

[Andy Dingley]

I imagine Lee Valley will have used the right stuff, but if you're using leather for any sort of tool sheath like this, make sure it's vegetable tanned rather than chrome tanned. (usually brown rather than grey or blueish). Chrome tanned leather is acidic and will cause rusting problems.

[Ba r r y]

I like rolls for storage and portability.

However, I like having chisels in a wooden stand on the bench or wall, at arms length, during actual use.

Barry

[George]

Always compromises, eh? I ended up with the carving tools in a 3-drawer toolbox, fitted into plastic foam to protect their edges from each other and me from the edges. It lives on a shelf in the workshop when not traveling, right next to the cabinet where the chisels live - in a rack.

Real thing is to have someplace to put them rather than the bench.

[bridger]

mine live flat in drawers. I have too much small stuff and not enough wall space to go hanging chisels out where they'll get dusty.

[Australopithecus scobis]

Leave it at a construction site. It'll travel.