What you’re building
A 32-inch rail held 3½ inches off the wall by three short blocks. A hammer hangs with its head sitting on top of the rail and its handle dropping into the gap behind, so the head is what holds it and the claw has room to clear the wall. It works for any hammer whose head is longer than the gap, which is all of them, and for mallets, hatchets, and anything else with a head and a handle. Rounded heads like a ball peen sit fine because the handle, not the head, is what’s in the slot.
The rack is 32 inches for a reason: studs in most walls are 16 inches apart, so a 32-inch rail lands on three of them. Screwed into three studs, it will hold whatever you put on it.
Pick the board
Straight matters here more than pretty. A bowed back rail won’t sit flat on the wall. Sight down the board and choose one that lies flat on the floor.
Cut
Two rails at 32 and three blocks at 3½. Cut the rails first; the blocks come from the remaining piece. The blocks can be a little off; the rails should match.
Mount the back rail
Find three studs and mark them. Hold the back rail against the wall, 3½-inch face flat to the wall, at the height you want; put a level on it. Drive one 3-inch screw through the rail into each stud, countersunk. Do this before anything else goes on, since afterward you can’t get at the back rail.
Add the stand-off blocks
Each block goes on the front of the back rail directly over a stud screw, standing on its 1½-inch edge with its 3½-inch length pointing straight out from the wall. Glue the end of the block and drive two 3-inch screws through the back rail into it from behind, which means the back rail comes off the wall for this step, or, easier, glue and screw the blocks to the back rail on the bench before you mount it and skip ahead. Either way, the blocks end up flush with the top and bottom of the rail.
Screw on the front rail
Hold the front rail across the front of the three blocks, flush at the ends and top, and drive two 3-inch screws through the front rail into the end of each block. The gap between the rails is 3½ inches.
If something goes wrong
- A hammer head falls through. It can’t, unless the head is shorter than 3½ inches. If you’re hanging something small, like a tack hammer, it can lean in the corner of a bay instead.
- The rack sags off the wall. You missed a stud. Pull the screw and find the stud; drywall anchors won’t hold a rack full of hammers.
- Handle rubs the wall. Long-handled tools will. Hang them at the ends where they can lean, or add a fourth block for a deeper stand-off.