How to make a custom tool board organizer

Whether it’s your first time here, or even if you’ve been here before, welcome to garagebible.com. So I had a pegboard up here for years, and in that time I came to realize that, I really don’t like pegboards. It seemed like every time I reached for a tool, I’d either knock another one off, or maybe the little peg that holds the tool would fall out of its slot, and it was just always a pain.

It seemed like the design thinking of a pegboard was to make it easy to rearrange, but not a lot of thought went into making it good at holding the tools. And since I never once rearranged my pegboard in all those years, I decided to build something that was better at its main purpose, which is actually holding the tools.

The first thing I did was measure out the space to help me determine the size I wanted for the board. Then I started marking the stud locations just above and just below where the board was going to go. Using my homemade saw-track, I cut a cheap piece of plywood to act as a sort of a backing board. This is partly because the walls in my garage are pretty uneven, and I wanted to be able to create a flat surface for the tool board. With the piece cut, I determined the curve of the sheet and then flipped it over so that the convex side was facing up. I drilled a pilot hole and a countersink in each of the two upper corners. I then made some extra large marks to help me align the board on the wall.

I got the board aligned as closely as I could with the marks I drew, and then fired a few brad nails to hold it to the wall. I drilled a pilot in the stud directly through one of the holes I pre-drilled, and drove a screw. I checked to see if the board was level, and made adjustments. This works because the brad nails aren’t strong enough to resist the force of the hammer. Once it was level, I added the other screw to the other pre-drilled hole.

I used my straightedge to mark lines along the entire length of the stud locations… and then used the straightedge to identify the high and low spots. I just marked them with a pencil at first, but then came back and marked them with a construction crayon so they’d be easier to see. After that, I drove lots of screws while trying to pull the high spots down until the board’s surface was level. And I just kept this routine going of checking for high spots and driving screws until the board was level, and until I had enough screws to hold the weight of everything.

Using my homemade saw-track once again, I cut a higher quality piece of plywood to match the size of the cheaper piece already on the wall. I created a uniform series of marks, and then pre-drilled pilot and countersink holes, making sure each screw-head would be an appropriate depth. This board was quite a bit heavier than the first one, so I used a couple of clamps to help me hold it up in place. I didn’t want to beat on this one with a hammer, so I checked for level before firing some brads to hold it up. I added a couple of screws just to make sure the weight was supported, then I removed the clamps and drilled the rest of the pilot holes into the studs.

I used short screws anywhere there was a high spot to make sure it couldn’t reach the stud and pull the sheet too close to the wall. Not all the screws need to make to the studs. They just need to make it to the underlaying sheet of plywood, because it has plenty of holding power with all the screws I used on it. I added 6 coats of polyurethane, while being sure to lightly sand in between each coat. And by the way, the board came out nice and flat.

I set out all the tools I hoped to add to the board and starting arranging them in different ways until I had a good idea of how to start. Pretty much all of the tool holders are custom.

I built each one custom because I wanted to make sure they all met a certain criteria. Number one, I wanted them to be secure so that neither the tool or its holder could be knocked off the wall unintentionally. Number two, I wanted the each tool to be easy to remove. Number three, I wanted to make sure each holder was as minimal as possible to make the most efficient use of the space available. And finally, I wanted to be sure there was enough room to remove each tool without bumping into other tools on the wall.

The position of this first tool holder I’m adding may look arbitrary, but it has been carefully measured and takes into account the tool holders that will go around it. I secured most of the tool holders to the wall using just pin nails so they’d be easier to remove. I used magnets for some tools, but the magnets weren’t really strong enough to keep the tools in place. So I created these little grippy discs with hot glue to help provide the friction necessary. I shot the pin nails at opposing angles, which holds very securely, but is still easy to remove. The pin nails also don’t leave much of a blemish, and what is left can be pretty easily filled with some beeswax. At this point, there are at lots of holders on the board, and again most of them are held in with small nails of some kind. So far, the planes have been the only items heavy enough to warrant the use of screws. And each of the plane holders is basically just an L-shaped shelf with a couple of small pegs to help prevent the plane from sliding of the front. The bottom portion of each shelf is secured to the wall-mount portion of each shelf with screws. I used a thicker board as the wall-mount for the heaviest plane so that I could stagger the screws that hold the shelf together. This just helps makes for a stronger joint. And I rounded the front corner of this plane’s shelf so that I could more easily reach in to grab the plane below it. Since my marking tools are somewhat delicate, I paid special attention to their holders. And again, all holders are designed to hold the tool so that it is easy to grab, yet hard to knock off accidentally. This hammer wouldn’t stay flat with angled dowels, so I created dowels that were straight, with more dowels to keep it from falling off. And this hammer was okay with angled dowels, but needed just a little extra block to help it stay flat. Lots of tools are held place just using simple finish nails. But I’ve also come back and added extra nails all over the board to help tools maintain their position. This is really nice because I’ve actually used a leaf blower to blow the dust of the tool board, without having to worry about things flying around or flying off the wall. The tools are much more secure than they ever were with my pegboard, and because this wall isn’t limited to certain holes or peg-shapes, I’ve been able to fit way more stuff on it. It’s also really helped me to identify and prioritize the tools I use the most, and it has already been a major benefit to my workflow in the shop. Hey thanks for watching! I really hope you liked this video. I’d love to hear what you think of this custom tool-board in the comment section below. And until the next time I see you, I hope you have fun building something!

The position of this first tool holder I’m adding may look arbitrary, but it has been carefully measured and takes into account the tool holders that will go around it. I secured most of the tool holders to the wall using just pin nails so they’d be easier to remove. I used magnets for some tools, but the magnets weren’t really strong enough to keep the tools in place. So I created these little grippy discs with hot glue to help provide the friction necessary.

I shot the pin nails at opposing angles, which holds very securely, but is still easy to remove. The pin nails also don’t leave much of a blemish, and what is left can be pretty easily filled with some beeswax. At this point, there are at lots of holders on the board, and again most of them are held in with small nails of some kind. So far, the planes have been the only items heavy enough to warrant the use of screws.

And each of the plane holders is basically just an L-shaped shelf with a couple of small pegs to help prevent the plane from sliding of the front. The bottom portion of each shelf is secured to the wall-mount portion of each shelf with screws. I used a thicker board as the wall-mount for the heaviest plane so that I could stagger the screws that hold the shelf together. This just helps makes for a stronger joint. And I rounded the front corner of this plane’s shelf so that I could more easily reach in to grab the plane below it.

Since my marking tools are somewhat delicate, I paid special attention to their holders. And again, all holders are designed to hold the tool so that it is easy to grab, yet hard to knock off accidentally. This hammer wouldn’t stay flat with angled dowels, so I created dowels that were straight, with more dowels to keep it from falling off. And this hammer was okay with angled dowels, but needed just a little extra block to help it stay flat.

Lots of tools are held place just using simple finish nails. But I’ve also come back and added extra nails all over the board to help tools maintain their position. This is really nice because I’ve actually used a leaf blower to blow the dust of the tool board, without having to worry about things flying around or flying off the wall.

The tools are much more secure than they ever were with my pegboard, and because this wall isn’t limited to certain holes or peg-shapes, I’ve been able to fit way more stuff on it. It’s also really helped me to identify and prioritize the tools I use the most, and it has already been a major benefit to my workflow in the shop.

Hey thanks for watching! I really hope you liked this video. I’d love to hear what you think of this custom tool-board in the comment section below. And until the next time I see you, I hope you have fun building something!