the benefit of a french cleat wall is that it's going to be a lot stronger than a lot of your
other options out there like pegboard or slat wall or that kind of thing how's it going guys welcome
back to the patriot diy channel today we're going to be showing you how to build a french cleat wall
so you can hang tool holders cabinets shelves or really anything that you want to put on your shop
wall the french cleat system is a great way to hang things on the wall it's very strong and it's
actually a pretty simple diy project that pretty much anybody could do now we're going to get in
here and we're going to show you exactly how to build this and if you're interested in building
one for yourself i am going to put plans in the description below so you can build it for yourself
and if you haven't done it yet guys make sure you hit that subscribe button down below hit that
notification bell and give us a big old thumbs up we really appreciate that now let's get to it
a french cleat wall is essentially a wall that has a series of slats running along it that are
cut at a 45 degree angle and i'll show you real quick how that works on this sample that i made
up so the slats that you have running along your wall are cut at a 45 degree angle angled upward
and then your tool holders that you build you're going to put a piece on the back side
of that tool holder with the opposite angle and then when you hang that on your wall
those two angles interlock with each other and they create a very very strong connection
the benefit of a french cleat wall is that it's going to be a lot stronger than a lot of your
other options out there like pegboard or slat wall or that kind of thing the other benefit is
that it's completely customizable and you can build your own custom tool holders it's also
a great way to hang upper cabinets and shields and if you stick around to the end of the video
i'll show you an example of a very simple tool holder that i made for this french pleat wall
because my shop has a metal frame but no wood to attach to we're going to be adding 2 by 4 supports
in between the metal studs using l brackets we're attaching these with
self-tapping screws and i'm using a long level to mark the location of each bracket
each 2x4 will get a bracket on the top and bottom to make it good and strong
we're building this french cleat wall 15 foot long the full length of our miter station if
you haven't seen our miter station video i'll put a link to that right here at the top of the screen
since the seam in our plywood is going to land in the middle of the studs
we're going to cut another support and attach that behind that location using pocket holes
since i'm going to be lifting the plywood into place by myself
i'm attaching some blocks for it to sit on until i can get it screwed into place
i'm attaching the plywood sheet to the frame using countersunk screws into the wood
and self-tapping metal screws into the metal studs i will go back later
to cover these with wood filler just to make it look good but that's not necessary
before we put the second sheet in place we need to cut it to size with our track saw add an extension
to our outlet box and cut out a hole in the plywood for our outlet box using our jigsaw
now it's time to cut our french cleats we start by ripping a sheet of plywood into five
inch strips with our table saw i will include links to all these tools in the description below
once these strips are cut we need to adjust the table saw to cut down the middle of those
strips at a 45 degree angle this will make two french cleats out of each strip
once those are cut we spread a layer of wood glue on the back of each cleat
and attach them to the wall using brad nails
to get an even space in between each cleat we use scrap two by fours as spacers
once the first one was attached the rest went into place pretty quickly
i decided to sand down the sharp edge of each cleat to hopefully prevent that thin edge from
eventually breaking or splintering now the glue and brad nails that we used earlier make
a pretty strong bond but just to reinforce these cleats we went ahead and added countersunk screws
now this thing is not only going to be really nice for mountain tools
but i think it looks really cool too
all right guys now that you got your french cleat wall up now you're ready to start building tool
holders and things like that and it's really pretty simple here's an example of something
pretty basic that i just built this is a paper towel rack obviously it has a little shelf
on the top very simple design but really all you need to do is slap a downward facing 45 degree
french cleat on the back of whatever type of box or tool holder that you're building
and then that's just gonna interface
and clamp down in place and you're good to go it's nice and strong it's also great because it's not
permanent you can slide this around anywhere you want to move it around on your french cleat wall
so once you put it on the wall you're not stuck with that position you can move it around
anywhere you want to alright guys now that's it for how to build a french cleat wall in your shop
i hope this video helped you out guys if you have any questions or comments make sure you leave that
down in the comment section below don't forget we do have plans for how to build this in the
description below if you want to pick those up and if you like this kind of video and you want to see
more make sure you hit that subscribe button down below hit that notification bell and give us a
thumbs up thanks for watching guys please like share and subscribe and we'll see you next time
you