Pliers Organizer Thingy

I have a small but mighty shop. It’s taken me years to get it to the point that it is now and it will keep evolving for years to come. My shop is fluid, ever changing depending on new interests or passions. Every once in a while, I will retire a well loved tool or jig or shelf or container but more often I will simply add to the already crowed small area.

Due to the small area I have to work with, organization is key. Some of my greatest shop improvements were not shiny new tools but storage solutions for sand paper or screws or hammers. My pliers organizer is one of my favorites. I stumbled upon the idea somewhere floating around the internet but I could not find the plans anywhere. So iI figured it out I love how it turned out. I have been using this organizer in my shop for about two years and it works fantastic. I thought I would make another one for our orchard shop and share it here. As alway, thanks so much for reading and enjoy my pliers organizer thingy.

Andy

What you need-

These are the supplies I used but all tools and supplies can be substituted.

3/4 or 1/2 hard wood ply

about a 2’ by 4’ should do

1/4 ply

Wood glue

3’ of small diameter rod

Table saw

Sliding miter saw

A lot of pliers

It is a pretty short list

I started out cutting two pieces of ply wood 7” by 15” These will be the sides and the main structure. I then cut a 45 degree angle at the top of the pieces. I started the cut about an inch from the back of the board.

Then I cut the back of the organizer. The back piece was 14.5” by 15”. I wanted the full width to be 16”. When the first three pieces were cut I moved on to cutting the slots for the dividers.

Of course we know that wrenches come in all sorts of shapes and sizes so the so the size of the slots in my pliers organizer can be different as well. I made my slots between 1” and 1.5”. Most regular pliers will fit in an one inch slot but some do call for a little more room. I used my sliding miter saw to cut shallow channels an inch apart. I find that two passes of my saw blade makes a channel wide enough for a 1/4” piece of ply. I cut all my channels and then checked to make sure the plywood would slide into each one. If there was one that was too tight, I went back to the saw and went over it one more time. After the channels were done I made the center piece. This needs to have the channels cut into it as well but it is very important that they line up exactly. To make sure this was the case, I lined the the section that I had just cut as a cutting guide. I went through the same process as before until all the channels lined up.

I used 1/4” hardwood for the dividers. I started out by cutting 11 dividers at 3” by 6”. Then I cut a 45 degree angle at the top of all of them so you could have better access to the tool. Then I took the whole stack to the drill press and drilled a 1/2” hole through the upper part of the dividers. Again it is very important that all of the holes are in the exact same spot so when you run the rod through, it will not get hung up.

I laid down a small line of glue in each channel and placed the dividers in. Then I took the center piece, (make sure that the channels are cut for the opposite side before the glue up) glued that one as well and carefully lined it up at the bottom of the 45 degree cut. I put the sides on to hold it square and tacked it with a couple of Brad nails.

With the second section you just do the same as for the first one. You can play around with the width of the opening depending on the size wrench you want to put in. I did the final glue up and then attached the side with glue and Brad nails.

All of the hole had been drilled and lined up so it was time for the rod. I’m sure a wood dowel would work great but I had a bunch of these steal rods laying around so I went with those. I cut them to 17” and rounded the ends to avoid any cuts.

I pushed the rod through all of the holes I had pre drilled and it fit pretty well. Not perfect but pretty good. Actually the slight offset of the holes put some pressure on the rod so it feels nice and tight. That’s a win.

And that’s really it. This was a pretty straight forward project that really turned out nice in the end. It is very handy for those of us with a large variety of wrenches. It makes them very visible and keeps them compact and organized. I highly suggest you give this project a try. If you have any question please ask.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed my pliers organizer.