Description
French cleats can be used to hang mirrors, pictures and TVs. In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to make some French cleats suitable for use with heavy items and then uses them to mount a mirror on drywall. They are a simple and strong solution for hanging or mounting heavy objects, such as mirrors, pictures and TVs, in a way that is easy to move for cleaning but are sturdy for an environment where they may get bumped.For a written transcript, go to How to use French cleats to hang a mirror, picture or TV
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Incidental: “Rocket” by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to go from this... to this.[Intro music]
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to mount this mirror.
It was originally designed to sit on a dresser and so it doesn't have any hanging hardware on it.
Instead of going to a home improvement store and getting picture frame mounting hardware, we're going to use French cleats.
It's in a commercial environment, so that should be a little bit more stable and easier to work with in this environment.
So the thickness of the French cleats needs to be about 7/8" to sit against the wall nicely.
To make the cleats, I’m just going to use a scrap 2x4.
First I planed off an 1/8" to remove the radius from the corners.
Then I marked an inch off to indicate the excess material.
The band saw took off what wasn’t needed.
Now about an 1/8" needs to be removed.
Running it through the planer again.
And it’s right at 7/8".
Next I find the center.
And rip down the center with a 45 degree cut.
Then cut the two pieces into two pair.
A Forstner bit makes a flat bottomed countersink.
And then a hole for the screw goes the rest of the way through.
The other side gets a standard countersink for a flat head screw.
OK, after all those machining operations, I've got two sets of cleats.
These will go on the mirror itself. It's got wood screws in here with a standard countersink.
And I've got... these'll go on the wall and they've got a flat countersink on them with a washer to kind of help distribute the weight.
We'll put drywall mounts on the back that these will screw into.
So these will fit together like this when they're hanging on the wall.
Marking where the pilot holes goes with a couple taps of the hammer.
And then drilling the pilot holes. I used a piece of tape to mark the depth.
And cleats for the mirror are attached.
Again, mark screw locations with a couple hammer taps.
I love these screw-in drywall anchors…
that the wall cleats simply screw into.
I think that's going to work well. It's nice and stable. It's not going anywhere and, yeah, I think it'll be good.
If you are interested in projects like this, or making things out of wood, metal, electronics, other things of that nature, subscribe down below. Or if you're interested in another video right now, YouTube's got something suggested over here to the side.
Until next time, perfection's not required. Fun is!
