Shopsmith Forums

I am working in the basement woodshop some now mostly cleaning stuff up and trying to get stuff out of the shop that doesn't belong there. I am now ready to do something with my hand planes and am looking for ideas to steal.
Right now I have them sitting in a row on a free-standing shelf sitting blade down on a soft rubber matting. It isn't just awful but I want them near the bench on a wall rack instead of having that set of shelves near the bench. I have a row of Shopsmiths sitting along the back wall and I want most of my hand tools mounted on either racks or pegboard hanging on my wall system on the top 4 feet of wall. I can easily reach stuff there over the Shopsmiths. My wall system is similar to the french cleat system but different, still it works much the same way. Any kind of rack I build I can hang on my wall system.
I have around 20 planes with about a third being long ones like jointer, fore, jack etc. About a third are smooth planes and the rest are block planes. While I have a good number of them I don't have a lot of money in them. Most came from yard/garage sales and auctions bought cheap.
I was just wondering if anyone had or have seen a favored storage rack for planes that worked well (and is reasonably simple). Our shops are all different and so are we. Some guys like to consume time in a shop, I like to get something done fairly quickly and move on the something else.
I don't do complex just to be complex...


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Whatever you build I would build it so the plane blade is protected and not bearing the weight of the plane.

I keep mine in old socks laying on their sides in a drawer in my work bench. The socks after time pick up trace amounts of oil, that I believe keep my planes from rusting. I lay them on their sides because I was taught from earliest days of using a plane that it must never sit on it blade.

In fact my old shop teacher would give anyone that set a plane down on the work bench where the plane was resting on the blade two wacks with his paddle. The words that were spoken were, "you sir put that plane on its side and then come here and bend over."

I never forgot. I also never tore up a bench top with a mis handled plane or had a plane blade damaged by mishandling.

Ed in Tampa wrote:Whatever you build I would build it so the plane blade is protected and not bearing the weight of the plane.

I keep mine in old socks laying on their sides in a drawer in my work bench. The socks after time pick up trace amounts of oil, that I believe keep my planes from rusting. I lay them on their sides because I was taught from earliest days of using a plane that it must never sit on it blade.

In fact my old shop teacher would give anyone that set a plane down on the work bench where the plane was resting on the blade two wacks with his paddle. The words that were spoken were, "you sir put that plane on its side and then come here and bend over."

I never forgot. I also never tore up a bench top with a mis handled plane or had a plane blade damaged by mishandling.

I store mine with the blade retracted, sole down.

JPG40504 wrote:I store mine with the blade retracted, sole down.

I couldn't do that. I keep my planes basically set and when I work I want to grab, use and replace... and already have the next tool in my hand.
I love tools and I love working on the shop and I love making sawdust but when I am working on a project the object is to get done and move on. I have 10,000,000 other things to do. My tools live a long life but I work very hard at not assigning them any magical properties.
Besides woodworking I have horses to hug, lumber to saw, firewood to cut, old tractors to work on and play with, a bunch of barns to repair, harness and leather work to do, traveling and camping to do, a motorcycle that needs riding and of course there are a whole herd of things to be done that I have never done yet. I have no idea what they are yet but I know that they are out there.


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Here's an idea, guy has an interesting slide show on plane restoration as well.

http://majorpanic.com/hp_cabinet.htm

Google "Plane Storage" and click on "images." You might be overwhelmed with ideas and suggestions.............

https://www.google.com/search?q=plane+storage&newwindow=1&client=firefox-a&hs=nz4&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=7jjEUqGJMtepsATzp4G4DQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=623

anmius wrote:Google "Plane Storage" and click on "images." You might be overwhelmed with ideas and suggestions.............

https://www.google.com/search?q=plane+storage&newwindow=1&client=firefox-a&hs=nz4&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=7jjEUqGJMtepsATzp4G4DQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=623

Yes, I have been Googling my head off looking at storage ideas for all kinds of tools. As you say, it can be overwhelming.

Actually I made my plane storage decision about 5:30 this morning. After looking at hundreds of ideas (some of which were so complex that it might take me 2 weeks to build them) I was reminded of my fondness for working with-in the parameters of the KISS principal (Keep It Simple Stupid). I looked at what I was using and at my goal and decided that I will just build a simple shelf 3' wide and 2 shelves high to hang on my wall system. The lower shelf will be 12" deep and the upper 8". I toyed with different angles and decided that there was nothing wrong with flat. If you haven't figured it out yet the 12" shelf will hold the larger planes and the 8" shelf will hold the block planes as well as some specialty planes. The 3' length gives me enough room to buy more planes if I find a bargain or two.
Like my current steel shelf these wooden ones will have soft rubber to set the planes on.
I have some more cleaning to do before I make it but I'll get a picture of it when I do.


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robinson46176 wrote:Yes, I have been Googling my head off looking at storage ideas for all kinds of tools. As you say, it can be overwhelming.

Actually I made my plane storage decision about 5:30 this morning. After looking at hundreds of ideas (some of which were so complex that it might take me 2 weeks to build them) I was reminded of my fondness for working with-in the parameters of the KISS principal (Keep It Simple Stupid). I looked at what I was using and at my goal and decided that I will just build a simple shelf 3' wide and 2 shelves high to hang on my wall system. The lower shelf will be 12" deep and the upper 8". I toyed with different angles and decided that there was nothing wrong with flat. If you haven't figured it out yet the 12" shelf will hold the larger planes and the 8" shelf will hold the block planes as well as some specialty planes. The 3' length gives me enough room to buy more planes if I find a bargain or two.
Like my current steel shelf these wooden ones will have soft rubber to set the planes on.
I have some more cleaning to do before I make it but I'll get a picture of it when I do.


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Sounds like a plan and I don't see any problems with the basic idea.
However I do disagree with the soft rubber, better to have the toe of the plane elevated than to set them on anything.

Case in point, you are busy doing something you take out a screw and you lay it on the "soft rubber". Or a piece of metal flies up and lands on the "soft rubber". Then in either case you place the plane heavily on the shelf and the screw or piece of metal ends up right under the blade of the plane. You now have a nick you must work to take out of the blade before the plane can be used again.

I tried the soft rubber and it did two things. First I ended with nicks one of which I did trace to wayward screw. The other thing for some reason either the rubber, oil I sometimes use, the wax I sometimes apply to the plane or something I haven't thought of. caused a reaction between the rubber and plane sole. I ended up with a diamond pattern on all my planes.

Not happy and it took a couple of hours of working on plate glass and sand paper to remove all traces of the diamond pattern, the same pattern the soft rubber had.

None of this may ever happen to you but I just thought I would share my experience.

I think the elevated toe is preferable to setting the entire sole on a surface(allows air to circulate). It is also in tune with KISS!;)