# Wall storage shelves hanging from french-cleat wall slats



## WandrinAndy (17 Jun 2012)

Spent the winter downunder with my girls and grandkids, and organised two new garage workshops for my two SILs (with their buy in) mainly by installing wall storage shelves hanging from french-cleat wall slats...

We cut twenty eight 2400mm french-cleat slats from two 19mm plywood sheets using a table-saw. First cut them square to a width of +-82mm, and then cut the 45degree bevel along one edge.





In the stud-wall garage, the wall slats were secured at top-edge heights of 900, 1200, 1500, 1800, 2100mm using two 65mm square-drive screws per stud which are spaced (mostly) at 600mm centres.

The equipment and tools in this shed are relatively basic, as this SIL's DIY-gene is currently near-enough-as-damnit inactive. :| 







In the brick-wall garage (hardest bricks I have ever encountered ) the wall slats were first secured to two 17mm plywood sheets using 2x35mm screws spaced at 400mm centres. And then these sheets were attached to the brick-wall using twelve 90mm bolts per sheet. The standard width of the plywood sheets resulted in these four wall slats being spaced vertically at 358mm centres.

This shed is better equipped, as this SIL has an active DIY-gene, and he is a gadget/tool man  . So this shed organisation also included: more clamp-storage using the shelf ends; mounting the bench drill press on a wall shelf above and behind left side of bench; a horizontal-timber-storage-off-cut-rack using 19mm dowels set at 5.5degrees from horizontal; a Mobile-Base-Cutting-Bench-with-Hinged-Extension-Wings.







Aaaaah.... those were the days! Back in Blighty without a workshop again... unfortunately still no contract work available... and am yearning to spend more time in one of "my" man-caves... But now that I've found this forum I at least have plenty to drool over. =P~ 

Andy


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## xy mosian (17 Jun 2012)

Hi Andy, welcome to the forum/madhouse. Nice work you've done there. I can see how the cleats in the first picture work. But I thought French cleats were normally used the other way up, is this a variation I know knowt about?

xy


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## WandrinAndy (17 Jun 2012)

xy mosian":1muqwukl said:


> Hi Andy, welcome to the forum/madhouse. Nice work you've done there. I can see how the cleats in the first picture work. But I thought French cleats were normally used the other way up, is this a variation I know knowt about?
> xy



Hi xy, 

Afraid I'm not sure... Still very much a novice and first heard of French cleats only about a year ago. The LHS of the first picture is the kind of "attachment thingy" I made, which slips over the opposing cleat on the RHS wall. I screwed steel shelf brackets to my attachment thingies. Hope this makes sense?

I can only feel at home in a madhouse. :wink:  

Andy


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## xy mosian (17 Jun 2012)

Andy, Ok I was reading the 'photo the wrong way around. That makes sense, hook on the cabinet. I was beginning to think it was an Ausie thing.
xy


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## 9fingers (19 Jun 2012)

Still not clear how shelves are attached with French cleats :?: 
Cupboards yes - that is how I do it in my shop
Bob


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## Harbo (19 Jun 2012)

I think the shelves have backs?

Rod


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## 9fingers (19 Jun 2012)

Harbo":msh8vvue said:


> I think the shelves have backs?
> 
> Rod



OK so they still need some sort of right angle bracing then.

Bob


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## the_g_ster (19 Jun 2012)

Looks good but I would not put anything heavy on them.

The point of a french cleat is surely that it pulls down on to the wall.

That one being upside down (lol, or maybe my laptop is, sorry, predictable dad style joke) means that when it's loaded there will be a risk of a pivot on the lower edge and pulling on the top of the cleat. It could delaminate and you find yourself with a bang. So I would do the other way up.


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## JakeS (19 Jun 2012)

the_g_ster":1xfcnaue said:


> That one being upside down



I'm clearly missing something here - what's upside-down about it? Isn't the right-hand item the wall-mounted bracket, and the left-hand item the shelf/cupboard/whatever-mounted cleat? So when a load is introduced it slides down the bracket, pulling it closer to the wall, therefore as much as possible the load is aligned directly against the (assumed strong) fixings in the wall (perpendicular to the slope of the cleat)? Have I always misunderstood how French cleats are supposed to work, or am I missing something?


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## WandrinAndy (20 Jun 2012)

the_g_ster":3ssy0zpx said:


> Looks good but I would not put anything heavy on them.
> 
> The point of a french cleat is surely that it pulls down on to the wall.
> 
> That one being upside down (lol, or maybe my laptop is, sorry, predictable dad style joke) means that when it's loaded there will be a risk of a pivot on the lower edge and pulling on the top of the cleat. It could delaminate and you find yourself with a bang. So I would do the other way up.



But this was built downunder g_ster.... Things work the opposite way in the "Antipodes". :wink: :lol: 

There is a wee bit of "give" in the shelves, certainly more than if the brackets were screwed directly to the wall, but nothing untoward IMO. I would happily load them to about the same extent that I would load any shelf that is only supported by wall-brackets, which are not intended to hold massive weights.

That said, I had a bodily run-in with gravity today... And gravity won!  

I am taking a crash tutorial in Sketch-Up in order to help resolve any confusion I've caused. :? 

Andy


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