Compact Plane Till

The tool wall in my shop was due for a re-organization. All of my hand planes were stored on their own little shelves and the smaller block planes were on an angled ramp that really messed with peoples’ “OCD” apparently. So I decided to build a small Compact Plane Till to house my entire plane collection. The design is pretty straightforward, featuring a slanted mounting board and a lower shelf, constructed with dadoes and rabbets reinforced with dowels. The planes are held in place with the help of strong cylindrical magnets and the entire till hangs on the wall via a French cleat.

Keep in mind you’ll want to size this thing to your own plane collection. To do this, lay out your planes on your workbench, roughly in the order you want them. Then cut some 1/2″ thick spacers from scrap and use those as dividers between each plane. To make sure your planes have a little wiggle room, put a single piece of masking tape on each side of the bodies. Once all this is done, press the whole arrangement with your hands from each side being sure none of the planes are skewing and there are no gaps between the parts. The total width of this arrangement is the total width of your plane till’s panel.

Tip: When you cut your actual divider stock, keep it slightly oversized in thickness. Later when you’re dry-fitting everything you can repeat the plane layout process and trim the dividers accordingly for a perfect fit. And keep in mind you can completely skip all of this if you’re confident in your measuring and math skills. I am not, which is why I use the “caveman method.”

In the video you’ll see that I used small cylindrical magnets that I happened to have on-hand at the time. I later ordered larger, more powerful magnets that work better and those are the ones I recommend: 3/8″ Cylindrical Magnets.