CNC Router Files for Wood French Cleat Wall Ideas

What are the benefits of a French Cleat Wall

French Cleats are a great way to easily mount cabinets to walls. Attach a cleat to the wall and a cleat to the cabinet, and it makes mounting a heavy cabinet a lot easier.

Using French Cleats on a tool organization wall has become more common.

The main benefit of a French Cleat Wall panel is it allows for different French Cleat storage items to be moved around the French Cleat Wall without the need to remove hardware.

As a woodworker working in a small garage woodshop, having the flexibility to move wall storage items around on my French Cleat wall allows the wall to adjust to my current needs.

Every few months my French Cleat wall will look a little different as I add in new French Cleat projects or move different French Cleat items around my wall.

Some of my CNC Router French Cleat items are designed to be removed from the wall and transported to a workbench. The French Cleats make removing items super fast.

french cleat ideas woodshop organization shelf cabinets built with plywood

Current state of the left half of my French Cleat Wall

French Cleat Projects in Photo:

What was one of my first French Cleat projects

Early on I made a 4'x8' French Cleat wall panel from a sheet of plywood with a bunch of cleats. It was my blank canvas.

There were a ton of different french cleat ideas that I had and workshop organization projects I had in mind.

Creating a french cleat circular saw holder was the first place I started.

It was simple enough to be a fast project while still providing an opportunity for exercising a little creativity.

Rather than have the circular saw holder be just a bland design of simple parts with a French Cleat screwed to the back, I took the time to design my integrated French Cleat tabs.

This French Cleat tab allows the sides of the holder to have an integrated tab that would interface with the French Cleats on the wall. This eliminated the need for cutting standard French Cleats and then adding them to each French Cleat project.

As I have a Dewalt 20v circular saw that has a left sided blade and a Flex 24v circular saw with a right sided blade. The French Cleat circular saw rack would need to have the ability to work with both styles.

To accomplish this, I added slots to accept either style. This way I could make multiple circular saw storage shelfs that were nearly universal.

Here is a link to the French Cleat Circular Saw Holder.

cnc files for wood french cleat ideas universal circular saw holder rack

CNC files for wood French Cleat Circular Saw Holder

What French Cleat project works well with limited wall space

With a French Cleat wall filled with larger storage items, inevitably I ran into situations where my French Cleat wall had a 6" or 7" wide space here or there.

Rather than allowing that space to sit wasted, I thought about creating a single slot tool mount that would allow me to store a few of my cordless power tools that could live separate from the rest of my tool collection.

Tools like my Flex 24v Jobsite Blower or my Milwaukee M18 FUEL Hackzall were the ideal tools to fit in these narrower single slot tool mounts.

To accommodate the different widths that each tool would need for a tool mount, I create 3 standard size slots for the single slot tool mounts: a small, medium and large. This way I could have as many tools work with these tool mounts as possible.

Here is a link to the French Cleat Cordless Drill Mount.

cnc files for wood french cleat ideas single slot drill mounts holder

CNC files for wood French Cleat Single Slot Drill Mounts

CNC Router French Cleat Router Bit Holder Overview

Some projects that I design are need based and this French Cleat Router Bit Holder was absolutely a needed storage item in my workshop.

I had endmills, drill bits, router bits and more scattered all over my woodshop. Some bits were in this draw, other bits on that shelf, and some stuffed away in places I had forgotten about.

As I needed to improve my workshop organization, creating a Router Bit Holder for my French Cleat wall was a project I was excited to start.

A few requirements would be:

Need to store a lot of bits, over 200+
Would need to be able to be mounted to my French Cleat Wall
Could be 3D modeled and cut on my CNC Router machine
Have little tool slots for endmills in their plastic cases
Have a sliding tool tray to store endmills, collets and wrenches

With an idea for the design in mind, I started 3D modeling the router bit storage rack in Fusion360 and quickly realized the need for being able to move the router bit holder from my French Cleat wall to my router table or my CNC router machine.

Portability was crucial and that is where the side handles were added.

cnc files for wood french cleat ideas portable router bit holder organizer storage rack with sliding tool tray

CNC files for wood French Cleat Router Bit Holder with Sliding tool tray

What was one of the more complex CNC French Cleat projects

One of my more involved cnc router projects was my French Cleat Saw Blade Holder.

The design was not all that complex but keeping the 3D model organized in Fusion360 was a little more involved. Each tray has different features and sifting through all the sketches and features in the feature tree is what made this one a little more challenging.

This design was created after the French Cleat Router Bit Holder. The router bit storage rack was the first design where I implemented a sliding feature without the use of hardware.

Once I saw how well the sliding tool tray worked, this gave me an idea to use this feature for storing all my spare saw blades.

Each sliding saw blade tray has a different design that allows different sized saw blades to fit in.

There is a saw blade tray for 12in miter saw blades. A saw blade tray for 10in table saw blades. A tray for 8" dado stack blades. A tray for 7.5" circular saw blades. A router bit tray and a few tray designs with different pockets cut out for storing miscellaneous items.

Keeping with the theme from the router bit holder, I added a set of handles to the top of the French Cleat Saw Blade Holder. Even though it is a much heavier and bulkier shop storage cabinet, the handles are definitely helpful for transporting the saw blade holdder.

cnc files for wood french cleat ideas portable saw blade storage cabinet shelf

CNC files for wood French Cleat Saw Blade Holder with Sliding blade trays

What are a few simple and quick French Cleat Ideas

Some French Cleat projects are more complex and others are more simple. Not every project needs to be a complex project.

Having a few quick CNC router projects that provide valuable tool storage on your French Cleat wall can be incredibly valuable.

Here are a few easy French Cleat Ideas

cnc files for wood french cleat ideas disposable glove dispenser

cnc files for wood french cleat ideas router shelf stand holder

cnc files for wood french cleat ideas workshop shop paper towel holder dispenser

cnc files for wood french cleat ideas wooden cube storage shelf

From Left to Right

My top 5 CNC Router Files for Wood French Cleat projects

With the collection of French Cleat cnc router files growing day by day, my top 5 favorite French Cleat projects is ever changing as I create new designs.

There are a few though that have been more enjoyable to design as they've presented new design challenges or have required new 3D modeling techniques in Fusion360.

This list is here to help give you a few French Cleat Wall ideas.

Here is a run down of my top 5 favorite French Cleat CNC router projects: