My Workshop

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A couple of years ago we moved from Australia to Florida and purchased a house with a 3 car garage.

Panorama of the workshop I had in Australia.

The Australian shop in a more typical state of cleanliness.

Workshop Details

My workbench has its own page here.

This is my solution to hanging tool storage. There simply wasn't enough wall space above my bench to hang all the tools I wanted in the typical way (e.g. a length of pegboard). So I added two "doors" in front, nearly doubling the amount of space available while only extending out a little further from the wall. The doors don't come down as far as the back board since they need to be able to clear objects on the workbench. There is heaps of space, most of the surfaces are only lightly populated at the moment. So far I like the solution, it keeps all the tools in easy reach without being too awkward.

Some construction notes on the storage:

To form a hinge, I used the furniture screw shown. The screw passes through a hole in a fixed piece of steel, then two plain washers with the shiny convex faces touching each other, then into the door. The top and bottom of the door are braced with a strip of steel. The washers take the downward forces, the smooth shank of the screw takes the horizontal forces. It works well, the door moves smoothly and freely. When the door is heavily loaded it does get a bit stiff, but a bit of oil would probably fix that. If you're able to turn up a bronze bush, all the better.
I placed the hole for the bottom hinge a little further out from the top so there is a tilt back of 1 in 300. The intent was to have a fridge door effect where the door would slowly swing back on either side. It doesn't really work, the slope is too slight to overcome the friction of the hinge. At least the doors don't swing open on their own.
To mount pliers, I made elongated holes in a strip of wood so they mount perpendicular to the wall. This is very space efficient.
I took a similar approach with the chisels. A slot (for the chisel blade pass though) in the orientation shown allows to chisels to be packed closer together and there is no chance of the chisel moving sideways if the door is swung hard. The down side is that if you want to the chisel widths to be displayed, the chisel must be inserted with a "down and twist" motion.
To prevent cutting myself on the chisels, I placed a perspex guard across the front of the blades.
To mount saws, I cut a piece of wood to match the hole in the handle and then a small twisting catch. It is is very quick to make, looks great and works a treat. The open handled saw that can be seen in the top picture still swings quite a bit so I added a couple of blocks to restrain the blade. Similar thought was used when mounting the measuring tools.

A small cabinet for storing metal lathe accessories, or as SWMBO refers to it, my pots and pans drawer.

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