This is the next phase in my French cleat perversionjourney: I proved that I can build an extremely tight piece of furniture with basic tools like a jigsaw and a circular saw! The design is based on a blurry screenshot from perhaps the greatest small workshop tour on YouTube. Read on if you're interested in learning more about my process! 🪚
In the linked video, Stephen briefly showed the holder he made for his jigsaw, which immediately appealed to me. It's a simple box based on the saw's dimensions, so I didn't need any complicated plans. It also has a hole in the top shelf for the saw to fit through, so you can store the jigsaw with the saw attached. I've done a lot of Pinterest sleuthing for French cleat holders, and he's pretty much the only one that does this. I also liked the little shelf underneath where the electrical cord and attachments were stored.
Making tight cuts
After measuring the shoe, I found that I needed to make a box with inner dimensions of 24 cm wide and 10 cm deep. I ripped a 10 cm wide strip of plywood with my circular saw and used a jig for my jigsaw to force it to make a straight 10 cm cut. Unfortunately, this was a mistake. The cuts weren't straight, and I had to redo them with my circular saw anyway. Lesson learned, using a jigsaw is fine for small planks where you don't really care about the finish, but if you're making furniture, straight cuts require a circular saw.
To ensure the box sides were equal, I clamped the wood together and simultaneously made a single cut through both. This works like a dream... if you remember to add the height of the circular saw's guide rails to its depth setting. So I had to make that cut twice, but the result is perfect. I'd be hard-pressed to make a better cut on a table saw!
Clamping
Next, I clamped my box together using cheapo corner clamps. They are slightly finicky to adjust but hold the work together tight. I cleverly added pencil markings beforehand for where the shelves would go, ensuring they were in the right place when I clamped them down. I then drilled pilot holes and screwed in the sides. Protip: Use a drill block to drill straight holes if, like me, you lack access to a drill press!
I made the backplate out of some IKEA scrap instead of the higher-quality plywood I had been using for the sides. Because that's the point of French cleat workshop organization: you gotta use that scrap wood to make something cool.
My final small mistake is that I screwed on the backplate before attaching the cleats on the back. This made it slightly more inconvenient to get it in position, but obviously, I managed. Because this holder is my heaviest yet, I wanted to hang it up on two rows of cleats instead of one. I previously verified that the top of the cleats on my wall are spaced exactly 15 cm apart, so I had to decide whether to align the holder with the top or the bottom of the cleat. Since my jigsaw holder is intended to go up near the ceiling, I decided to align the bottom with the bottom of the second cleat. This should maximize space usage for tool holders on rows underneath, but I'll let you know how that goes.
What's next
Immediately after finishing this holder, I found a YouTube Short with a much more ingenious way of storing the electrical cord. This isn't bad news, though. I will verify if this method works for me too, and then I can optionally convert my shelf into one or two drawers. The space is 10 cm tall, so it feels too big for one drawer but maybe too small for two. Perhaps I should split the difference and make one drawer and a small shelf?
I also want to add a magnetic stripe to the holder's side to store the saws. I suspect that will be a better approach than keeping them loose on a shelf.
In conclusion
I'm ecstatic about this result. Using only basic tools, I managed to create a tool holder that fits my needs exactly, and it's perfectly square to boot! This result has emboldened me to make a holder for my circular saw next. And one for my corded drill, of course. And maybe one for paper towels, with a little shelf for glue bottles on top...