Magnet choice for vertical plane storage

[Dan Jansen]

I’ve been building a wall cabinet for keeping my hand planes safe and stored together by my bench. I put a small lip at the bottom of the cabinet to hold the plane bottom in place. My cabinet has an 11 degree angle but it’s not enough to trust the planes to stay. I was playing around with designs for holding the toe in place but didn’t like what I was coming up with. I looked online and saw several guys are using rare earth magnets. I am really thinking that’s the way to go but I don’t know what size to get. I usually overbuild but I don’t want to yank them off the wall either. Let me know if you like the magnet and if so, what size do you recommend?

[William Fretwell]

Angled plane storage in a cabinet is used by many notables in woodworking. However they all use gravity as it is very reliable. Magnets can come loose, planes are not inexpensive, some are made of wood.
Can you add a front extension to the cabinet and increase the angle?
Hi tech solutions are sometimes appealing but not in this case.

[Phil Mueller]

Dan, I used 3/4” rare earth magnets. I used 3 for the block planes, and 4-5 for the longer planes. My most used planes are held vertical with a lip at the bottom. They’ve been hanging like this for several years with no problem. I used 5 min two part epoxy for the magnets.

401886 401887

[Tom Bender]

Hi Dan
I agree with William but you are already there. Still, earthquakes may not be common but they happen. You are wise to be cautious. And anyway, you or someone else may bump the wall.

Phil is using a lot of magnets because he has them on a vertical base. You are just looking to add suspenders so less would be enough. Should only need it at the top.

You might want to add a little to the bottom lip so the plane can't slide straight out but must be lifted a smidge to come out.

Phil
Do you have to yank those planes out or does a rocking them to the side release them.

[Jim Foster]

One of the writers at FWW did an article with a similar plane cabinet that had the back at an angle where the top portions of each frame had a small hole with leather shoestring looped through to hold the plane handles. That's what I did, works well.

[Phil Mueller]

Tom, just takes a bit of a firm pull straight off...not a “yank” by any means. I haven’t had anything occur that makes me the least bit nervous that they will fall. When I put a plane back, it has a definite positive “pull”. You may notice I mounted the rack close to the work surface, just in case. But, given my experience so far, I didn’t need to.

[Charles Guest]

I’ve been building a wall cabinet for keeping my hand planes safe and stored together by my bench. I put a small lip at the bottom of the cabinet to hold the plane bottom in place. My cabinet has an 11 degree angle but it’s not enough to trust the planes to stay. I was playing around with designs for holding the toe in place but didn’t like what I was coming up with. I looked online and saw several guys are using rare earth magnets. I am really thinking that’s the way to go but I don’t know what size to get. I usually overbuild but I don’t want to yank them off the wall either. Let me know if you like the magnet and if so, what size do you recommend?

No tools on walls or in tall cabinets unless the shop floor is wood -- a fall/drop is inevitable! If you have a wood floor then design so that gravity is enough -- sitting flat, hanging, leaning at a sufficient angle, etc.

[lowell holmes]

I stow my planes on a shelf that I can reach. I would not consider hanging them.

[Dan Jansen]

I went with 3/4” x 1/8” with a #8 countersink so I can screw them in place. The 11 degree angle is 3” over 26”. They lean forward ok but the side to side motion was my primary concern. There is a lip at the bottom and I may put 1/2” strips vertically as dividers to help too. The till is inches above a wood topped work bench so it should be ok when I drop the first one and I will. Thanks everyone.

[Mike Brady]

I'm basically opposed to magnetism around hand tools. Here's why: Magnets hold best at 90 degrees from metal surfaces. A plane knocked loose could still slide along the magnet and fall. Also, if your irons become magnetized , sharpening swarf will cling to the sharp edges during honing. These are worst case scenarios, but there are enough ways to use gravity to retain tools that you can get along without magnetism.