What went wrong??

[Jack Hogoboom]

So I was working in my new shop today, trying to start organizing it. I wanted to make a clamp rack for my parallel jaw clamps (Bessey K-bodies and Jorgensen clamps). I was following the plans in the Wood magazine shop tips issue. I used some of my scrap plywood to make it.

I have 24 of these bad boys (apparently, you CAN have too many clamps). I got the rack finished and hung it on the french cleat I had made. I then loaded all of the clamps on the rack (they range in size from 12" to 60"). So far so good.

I go upstairs to have lunch and while I'm eating hear a loud crash. Being the bright boy I am, I figured the new rack had just taken a tumble.:rolleyes:

I went down to the basement and, sure enough, the cleat had pulled right off my plywood wall. Since it was attached with number 8 1" screws, I figured the culprit was not enough gripping power. I replaced the number 8 screws with 2" number 12s. I re-loaded the rack. While I was standing there, I started to hear a sickening creaking sound, which grew progressively louder. Before I could get the clamps off again, the whole thing fell off the wall with a loud bang.:eek: This time, the cleat was still on the wall, but the rack itself had failed with the back (secured with 2" number 8 screws) pulling loose from the clamp holding piece.:( Needless to say, at this point, I just turned around shut the lights off and figured I'd take this up another day.

So, my question is, what went wrong? Was it a mistake to use plywood for the rack? Should I have used hardwood? Did I try to put too many clamps on one rack (I followed the instructions and scaled them as necessary for the additional clamps).

Any insights that you could provide to help me avoid this from happening again would be greatly appreciated.

Jack

[Gary Herrmann]

Silly question, but did you use the same holes that you screwed into with the 1" screws? The holes could have been stripped out.

Did you just screw into ply - no studs at all? If you used ply from the borg (as opposed to say baltic birch) several of the screws could have been in internal voids.

[Rob Bodenschatz]

I haven't seen the plans for the rack you made but did you put a spacer near the bottom the same width as the cleat? I can envision a scenario where not having the spacer would cause the cleat to pull away from the wall. I'm talking about the red cleat in the picture:

60609

I know, not a "french" cleat but you get the idea. This is looking at it from the back.

[Jim Becker]

My one question was one already asked...did the screws go into the studs? If not, you really cannot hang that kind of weight directly to the plywood. There is not enough holding power there for that. I have a LOT of Bessey K-Bodies hanging on the wall and the simple clamp racks I built only have 2" screws holding them up...but they go into the studs.

[Ronald L Cool]

always into as many studs as you can plywood is great lot better than drywall or nothing at all but stud stud as many as you can then plywood if needed