Make Your Own Magnet Tool Rack

Anyone who has tools - regardless of what they are for - has probably had times when they sure wished their tools were easy to locate and store. Many times putting them in drawers and boxes will slow us down because we have to look through all of them and, of course, it will be in the last one:). Well, after years of searching I made my own magnetic tool rack. Of course, this will not work on aluminum or wooden or stainless steel tools unless they have some steel somewhere.

This rack handles some of my very heavy tools and lots of screwdrivers, pliers and other common tools. It has been so easy to spot the right tool at a glance and then return it.

I happened to have this small piece of channel left over from a previous project so I just used it but you can find this type of channel at Lowes or Home Depot or other steel supplier. Get it cut to the length you want.

Then as you see in the video I sanded it before applying the primer paint so that I got a nice, smooth surface to work on so I sanded it with auto body sandpaper just enough to remove most of the rust and smooth out the surface. After I was content with the material surface I applied the white primer from Rust-Oleum. After getting a complete coating with the primer I applied the Rust-Oleum high performance spray paint. Black paint seemed the best for the job.

The surface of neodymium magnets can be very hard to adhere to but I have found over the years that the 3M VHB tape really works well for applications like this. You can find small rolls of it like this in hardware stores. It is a good idea to place the magnets in the channel with the flat surface laying on the back part of the channel. I left about an inch in between each magnet so the north-south attraction would increase holding power. After installing the magnets it was time to test it out.:) As you can see in the video, it really holds a lot of tools:). Hope you like this instructable.:)