The wall mounted tool cabinet project has reached the stage where it's time to design some chisel racks to mount in one of the doors - it's the fairly classic shelved out unit to the rear (mostly for planes), with half width/half depth doors hinged at the left and right hand sides that swing open against the wall for access. It's all in 18mm (3/4) marine ply - and while fairly carefully and accurately built it's functional rather than cabinet making art.
Blue in the face from looking at designs on the web. It's unlikely that I can predict my population of chisels with any accuracy longer term, with the result that plenty of capacity and the flxibility to handle lots of different types - Japanese (4 - 36mm), Euro pattern with plastic handles (1/4 - 1 1/2in) , gouges with more carving tools to come, long handle paring chisels to come, awls etc. Screwdrivers etc too.
It'd be possible to go overboard designing custom sockets for each tool, but neither practical or flexible enough. A simple blade slot made from just two strips/rails of say 2x1in on edge glued up over spacers is tempting, but lighter bladed tools with relatively heavy handles will tip over in this situation as a result of their CG being too high. Adding a stepped or tapered bore centered over the slot and extending about 50% of the depth of the rail for the lower end of the handle to drop into (using Forstners) should create a socket/nest for each chisel and add some stability - but before i take a flyer on something like this does anybody have a design for a proven 'accepts everything' socket layout?
Thanks