Clamp hangers on French cleats

[Chris E Smith]

I made these clamp hangers recently. They are bolted onto the cleat with T nuts on the far side.
Tig Welded mild steel 3/16"x 1" angle, 3/16" flat bar , Baltic birch, and rattle can paint.
I only needed four for the Bessey clamps and ended up making 14. Now I wish I had made twice as many.
Next project is a few with a 1/4" pin to hang Festool tracks on and a few with steel hose hangers to put
my extra DC hose and heavy duty extension cords on. My first time to use French cleats for anything. I really like them.
Chris


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[Jay Aubuchon]

Nice! Now I wish I could weld.

[Keith Outten]

Nice job Chris,

I make shop hangers all the time, most are similar to your welded design but I haven't mounted any of them to french cleats which is a pretty sweet idea.
I also use a lot of french cleats to hang commercial signs, I never drill through the face of any sign to hang it in place. FWIW you can use both an upper and a lower cleat on many jobs which ends up resembling a sliding dovetail. I have done this many times for signs that I had to hang with adhesive so they couldn't be removed by college students.
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[Rick Potter]

Nice job, I am jealous.

Wish I could still weld, but the Doc said no way with my pacemaker. Had to give my neat wire welder to my son. He does some for me when he has time, but he is self employed and really busy.

[Chris E Smith]

Thanks for the compliments and additional tips. I may very well use the double cleat idea to hang my kitchen cabinets.
I understand the dangers of welding with a pacemaker. These connections could be brazed and be plenty strong enough.
I'll add to this thread as I make more hanger types.
Chris

[Chris E Smith]

I made a few more of the French cleat wall hangers. One type just has a 1/4" steel pin I intend to use for Festool tracks. Because they will be mounted high on the wall, these also have a retainer on the bottom composed of a fender washer screwed into a steel cross dowel so that I can't push the hanger off of it's roost when hanging a track on it.
The other new hanger is just a steel hose hanger from the big box store. This one will be to hang my extra DC hoses and Mr Nozzle hoses as well as a few long heavy gauge extension cords I only use occasionally.
chris

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[glenn bradley]

Aren't they great? So versatile.

[Mike Heaney]

Nice job Chris- now I really need to learn to weld, or braze!

On a slightly different question- what is the specification of the plywood you are using. I mainly use solid wood for my projects, and so my plywood knowledge is really limited- and disappointing. Every time I try an buy better quality plywood, I find stuff with very few plyes and too many voids for my taste. I don't know if my expectations are out of whack, or I keep purchasing the wrong stuff!

Mike

[Chris E Smith]

Mike, I used Baltic Birch for both sides of the cleats and the face piece on the hangers. I buy it at a hardwood and plywood supplier not a big box store. I could use something cheaper, especially since the two pieces are through bolted together to a T nut but the Baltic Birch is so nice to work with because it is void free and I like the way the many plys look on edge. The "cabinet grade" ply I have purchased from Home Depot in the past was very disappointing in quality. I suppose I could have used solid wood for my project but I would have to pay attention to the grain orientation because of the way the load is cantilevered. My second choice might have been Medium Density Overlay which I have used on some jigs and a chop saw cutting station. It is often used for exterior signs and has a resin impregnated paper surface that looks nice. I chose the BB because I'm thinking about using it for kitchen cabinet drawer boxes and had not worked with it before. Note that it comes in 5x5 Ft sheets. MDO comes in 4x8 Ft.
hope that helps.
chris

[Mike Heaney]

Thanks Chris- I gave up long ago on Borg ply- I am still getting problems with local "quality" specialist suppliers. The 5x5 baltic birch I have been finding does not look like this- I will have to keep hunting!

thanks

Mike

[Greg R Bradley]

Borg Ply vs. lumber yard BB
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