Woodworking projects for beginners: Make a DIY Chisel Rack

This project uses standard size timber that you can buy from most hardware stores so no milling required. Learn Woodworking and make this easy DIY Chisel Rack, ideal beginners woodworking project and handy for the experienced woodworker to work with their hand tools.

I love this little thing as it allows me to take my favorite chisels to where I am working and not have them rolling around on a bench.

Step 1: Work out the Size of the Chisel Rack

First thing you want to do is layout your woodworking chisels that you want to put in the rack. Have them spaced out a little bit we will probably go about 34cm, you want to allow for space on the end as well so it doesn’t hit the sides.

Layout bench chisels hand tools

Step 2: Cut the Rails, Post and Spacer Blocks

For the rails I use 42mm x 19mm wood from the hardware store. I setup a stop block on my cross cut sled and cut 4 of these out about 35cm long. Remember if you don’t have a table saw or crosscut sled you can just use a mitre box and a hand saw.

In between the chisels I’m going to use like a one inch spacer block so we will just move another stop block on the table saw sled.

When cutting skinny little parts like this i’ll use a little stick to just hold it down so it doesn’t get trapped and come fly out at me.

You need 2 post about 190mm or 7.5 inches long roughly, you can make it longer or shorter depending on the chisels you are using. The width of the pieces can be around 100mm but its not critical just what you can easily source or pull out of the scrap bin.

Table Saw crosscut sled cutting small pieces

Cutting with Cross cut sled on table saw

Hand tools, using Veritas low angle jack plane

Step 3: Make it Smooth

To avoid sanding i used a Veritas low angle Jack Plane to smooth over all the pieces and leave a shiny smooth finish.

Step 4: Glue up the Top and Bottom Rail

Veritas Chisels layout

First i laid out my chisels to roughly how i want them roughly and used a little spacer block in between just to set the distances so there all pretty even.

The Bottom rail just needs on space on either end and the top can be how many you like for your chisels.

I then glued and clamped up the pieces as in the photos been careful to keep everything flush, but it’s not critical as we can clean it up later with the hand plane if you get any movement.

Glueing up top rail of chisel stand

Step 5: Clean up the Top and Bottom Rails

Now I just want to get top surface and bottom surface dead flat so its all nice and clean looking, to do that I’m just going to use the hand plane again which is the Veritas Low Angle Jack Plane which I really love if you don’t have a plane you can just use sandpaper and a sanding block that will do the same thing as well.

Hand Plane top of Chisel Rack with Veritas Low Angle Jack Plane

Step 6: Glue Up

Clamp up DIY Chisel Rack with Bessey Clamps

Because I’m gluing end grain what I’m going to do it rub some glue right into the ends because if you think of end grain like as like straws so it’s going to absorb much more glue than the face grain so we will just work a bit in there but I’ve got a pretty decent surface area for the size of the project so it will hold it no problems at all.

Then i just clamped it up overnight to dry.