As someone with ADHD (recently diagnosed and looking at my whole life with a new lens), I have a lot of interests, even beyond the wide range of stuff done under the ObscurityWorks banner, and that includes playing musical instruments (mostly traditional Irish and other folk styles these days).
I currently play (to one degree or another): piano, guitar, bass, mandolin/mandola/octave mandolin/mandocello, tenor guitar, tenor banjo, ukulele, fiddle, bodhran/spoons/folk percussion and button accordion. That, combined with the aforementioned ADHD has resulted in a fairly large instrument collection. Most of which sit in their case and don't get used because of it. So, I wanted to get them out of the cases and onto the wall.
It also offered an opportunity to pare the collection down a bit to a more essential set.
Anyway, I had been watching a lot of videos of people building French cleat systems for their workshops. Which got me wondering about a hardwood French cleat system that would let me re-arrange the instruments or hang other things (like a shelf with music books) as desired or the collection changes.
Because it's for music, I went with 5 lines in the design. I found some really nice walnut at the lumberyard and cut it down to strips that are about 1.5" or so wide, with a 45 degree bevel to make the cleat. The finish was boiled linseed oil, which really made it pop.
The instrument hangers went through a few iterations. The simplest possible version of just putting a guitar hanger on a little block of walnut cleat, which is an inherently unstable form of cleat. You need a piece below that stabilizes it and keeps it lined up correctly to take the weight.
So, we ended up with a design that's about a 6x6 square of walnut (it was actually whatever width the odd board we used was), with a mounting cleat and locking maple block mechanism on the back and a guitar hanger on the front.
This TikTok video explains how that all works. All in all, I love how this turned out and it makes a great background for Zoom calls as a bonus. Everything's easily accessible and it looks great.
I do still want to add some sort of treble clef to the left side, but haven't come up with a way of making it that I like that keeps the existing design going while also not costing a fortune in wasted hardwood or taking a tremendous amount of effort/planning. So, that's still waiting.
