A place for me to display some of the varied projects that come out of my shop, as well as to "talk" about some of my experiences working with wood.

Saturday 15 October 2011

Improving Shop Tool Storage with Mag-Bloks

Organizing tools in the shop is always a challenge for everyone. Using available space to keep every thing you need close at hand without creating clutter is always a balancing act. This post focuses on my bench tools which I like to keep close at hand on my main bench.

A while back I bought a few of the Benchcrafted One-of-a-kind Mag-Bloks. if you are not familiar with these Mag-Bloks, check them out here. I purchased some cherry ones a few years ago and they have very strong holding power, with a nice wood covering. The one-of-a-kind Mag-Bloks are offered from time-to-time on their website and are always made from unique woods - a serious weakness of mine...

Once I received these nice pieces in the mail I set them out on the bench for a few days and noodled on how to best use them. Eventually I settled on attaching them to the back of my bench for rulers, awls, screwdrivers and a few pieces I wanted to keep handy. But for me, just attaching them to the bench was not enough, I needed to upgrade them!! My solution was to insert a piece of wood between the Mag-Blok and the bench back to hold a row of hand tools. This picture shows the layout on a piece of 5/8" tigerwood and some of the tools layed out for the best arrangement.




Once I had a layout I was okay with, over to the tablesaw to dado out the openings to about 3/8" depth, this provided plenty of clearance for all the tools I was planning on storing there. This piece was then attached between the Mag-Blog and Bench using the Mag-Bloks screws and voila lots of storage for my collection of mostly cocobolo handled hand tools - I very nice setup I must say so myself.



Saws and such...




Chisels and Marking tools.

A nice addition to my bench storage without taking up too much space.

RDW

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