Need help stabilizing tool rack

I started building a big free standing shelf that will hold 27 gallon HDX totes at my wife's request. I needed extra space for some tool storage so I decided to utilize one side of it with a pegboard and mounted a couple 2x4's to hang some power tools. Altogether it's going well. I had some extra heavy duty hooks, and I found an orbit sander holder on Etsy. Confidence was high (I'll let you guess what color paint I had a surplus of). What I really wanted was a place to hold a circular saw. So I looked at a few tutorials and saw they were mostly French cleat based options which were a bit beyond me. So I took a similar idea, hacked together a couple shelf brackets with scrap 2x4's, secured the brackets to the back of the board, mounted the board to one of the cross bars on the shelf with #10 screws and I'm realizing now why the French cleat would have been the superior option because there's a tiny bit of wiggle when I apply some pressure to the saw shelf. The 2x4 above it is secured with just 2 #10's and it's rock solid. So I'm confident in that much of the method. I've got 5 screws holding this in place and the shelf still has some minor give to it. I've got all the leeway I want to add backing behind it. Is this maybe as simple as just adding a couple L brackets or was this idea just doomed? Any help is appreciated. Do keep in mind please this was a pretty ambitious project by my standards and I'm learning as I go thanks submitted by /u/BURNEDandDIED [link] [comments]

Jun 20, 2025 - 11:42

I started building a big free standing shelf that will hold 27 gallon HDX totes at my wife's request. I needed extra space for some tool storage so I decided to utilize one side of it with a pegboard and mounted a couple 2x4's to hang some power tools. Altogether it's going well. I had some extra heavy duty hooks, and I found an orbit sander holder on Etsy. Confidence was high (I'll let you guess what color paint I had a surplus of).

What I really wanted was a place to hold a circular saw. So I looked at a few tutorials and saw they were mostly French cleat based options which were a bit beyond me. So I took a similar idea, hacked together a couple shelf brackets with scrap 2x4's, secured the brackets to the back of the board, mounted the board to one of the cross bars on the shelf with #10 screws and I'm realizing now why the French cleat would have been the superior option because there's a tiny bit of wiggle when I apply some pressure to the saw shelf.

The 2x4 above it is secured with just 2 #10's and it's rock solid. So I'm confident in that much of the method. I've got 5 screws holding this in place and the shelf still has some minor give to it.

I've got all the leeway I want to add backing behind it. Is this maybe as simple as just adding a couple L brackets or was this idea just doomed?

Any help is appreciated. Do keep in mind please this was a pretty ambitious project by my standards and I'm learning as I go thanks

submitted by /u/BURNEDandDIED
[link] [comments]