Since we don’t have “shops” to attach things like this to, I’ll just leave this here…
When I put up my French cleats when the shop got build 3+ years ago, I used shorter screws than I should have on one wall that had four six foot sections of cleat on it. And apparently, I missed the studs with a few screws.
Anyway, this evening, I headed to the shop to get some blue gloves to work on my sweetie’s sprayer. Everything was fine. I headed back out there about 20 minutes later and my till of boring tools, my till of saws, two tills of files and rasps, and two tills of planes, and two clamp racks were all either laying on the floor or on the workbench.
Near as I can figure, one six-foot long section of cleat came off the wall. That left half of the boring tools till unsupported, so the next cleat got pulled down while trying to support that.
I started putting up some new sections of cleat, plus added 3 inch deck screws to the existing cleats to make sure nothing more fell down, but I’ve got a lot of work to do to get things back in order. Guess it was time to clean the shop.
As far as I can tell, there’s nothing broken, so that’s something. And nothing fell on me, so that’s good too. And my cabinet of screws and cabinet of nails didn’t fall. If they had, I’d be sorting screws and nails all winter.
Wow, the fact nothing broke is a miracle! I would have been devastated if my hand tools — all vintage and priceless to me — were damaged in a fray like that
Wow, glad to hear that no injuries except maybe your pride. I hear you about the screws and nails, that would take some time to sort out. I keep mine in plastic jars which are stacked in mile creates under the bench.
I have good magnetic stud finders. Part of the issue was that the drywall screws were spaced about 8-12 inches apart, and some were very near the edge of the studs, so even a small miss on my part was enough. The other was that I mathed poorly, and only had about ½” of screw going into the studs for the first batch of screws I put in while I unpacked and tried to find the longer screws. Then I never came back and put in the longer screws. Looking at it afterwards, I’m amazed at how much weight the cleats carried without failing. I had seriously half-assed things, and it bit me.
There may still be some broken tools. I can’t see over half the tools that came down yet because they’re buried under the tills that I haven’t picked up yet. I have seen a couple dents in the flooring though, which probably would’ve been broken tools if I just had a concrete floor, instead of having spent extra for padding and then the fake wood flooring.
That they did, Don. And if you spin it fast enough, I suspect any tool could be used for boring.
Thanks, Pottz.
Could be that too, Splint, but the screws I initially used were definitely not long enough to get a good bite after going through ¾ of pine, and ⅝ or ¾ of drywall. I think they were 2” screws, so it could’ve been worse—I could’ve used 1½ inch screws.
All but one till is now back on the wall. I’ll maybe start on that one this evening or tomorrow.
