I saw an old Popular Mechanics design which was basically a cube. Inside the
bottom of the upper surface of the cube ran a bunch of parallel tracks, on which
hung squares of pegboard. So viewed one way, you'd see the ends of a bunch of
pegboard squares, each slightly smaller than the cube dimension. You could slide
each out on its track, with the nearer track mount coming loose and the rear
track mount staying in. The pegboard square would be slid nearly all the way out
and then slid sideways, where the other track mount would again bear. Each
pegboard was separated by a couple of inches or so, and each had lots of tools
mounted on it.

Tough to describe in words, it's probably in one of my old Shop Notes. I might
see it again someday, but I can't dig it out now. Lots of tool storage in a
small space, though.

Me, I use rollaways and 3x6x18" drawers, lots of 'em, labeled.

GWE

carl mciver wrote:

I've been running out of room for my tools and needing a way to pack a
lot of tools into a small space and have them still easily at hand. I've
been building a tool storage rack the past few days that consists of a 2x4
frame holding up a few 7/16 strandboard panels attached to heavy duty drawer
slides. Slide the panel out and there's a "wall" full of tools, and you can
use both sides if your layout allows. My panels are about 50" x 24" each
and so far are holding more than I expected, but I've run into an issue when
it comes to holding my selection of pliers and similar shaped items.
I purchased some of the magnetic tool strips from HF, which were a major
disappointment for anything but my putty knives. I did some poking around
on the web in search of ideas, and came across a fellow who uses chest
handles mounted upside down to hold his pliers. These are the handles that
flop down out of the way but lift up 90 degrees when you need to lift the
chest. However, they aren't cheap, and continuing on with that thinking I
looked at a bunch of cheap plastic drawer handles, which so far seem to be
about the right size to do the job, but they don't look so incredibly sturdy
to handle long term abuse. I'm not willing to spend more than a dollar to
hang each tool, and believe me there's plenty of ways to store your tools
out there that are expensive! I was willing to settle for plain steel
handles, but I need to find a source that's a bit cheaper than Home Depot,
and the ones they sold were a bit too wide inside.
So I'm on a quest for simple and inexpensive solutions to store pliers
(and my ratchets if you have a good one!) on a wall that doesn't take up
much horizontal space. I'll use nails if I have to, but the wood is a bit
thin (in retrospect, maybe thicker plywood would have been better!) and I'd
like something that will hold many different sizes and kinds without having
them fall off if I bump the rack into something rolling it around.