French Cleat Exploration
Summer 2024
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What's a French Cleat?
A French Cleat is a commonly used mounting technique often found in woodshops, garages, and other scenarios where flexibility is a consideration in mounting / storing items on a wall. By creating with two objects with opposing 45 degree angles you can create a simple and strong mounting system that is highly functionally and allows for a variety of different objects to hang on a wall.
Here's a short article that details why this technique is commonly used in woodworking and explains an additional benefit of how to use the French Cleat to completely hide the mounting system.
Inspiration for this project
Inspiration for this project
Two of our amazing teachers, Ben Hockenbarron and Abigale Goldberg, designed an outstanding learning experience for their 9th grade Pre-Modern World History students. The concept was that for the entire second semester of the the year-long course, students would apply what they had learned about a variety of civilizations (geography, governing system, financial system, regligion, technology, etc.) and design their own civilization that could have existed somewhere on Earth during the time period they were covering. As part of this project, the students needed to design an artifact that could have been made by someone in their fictional civilization and this object should tell a bit of the story of the people who lived in that society. This ended up being a fabulous collaboration between these teachers, their students, and the faculty in the Dawson Makerspace.
There were many ideas for improvements that came out of reflective conversations after the semester and the final artifacts were showcased to friends, family, and various guests. One idea was to build museum-style cases for these artifacts to be displayed on a longer-term basis. In thinking about how these cases would be designed and equally importantly stored, I thought of the idea of designing the cases to be mounted with a French Cleat. This led to the initial French Cleat exploration as a potential method for hanging many types of projects around our Innovation Center ...
Why a French Cleat for the Museum Cases?
We are constantly looking for ways to hang projects around the Innovation Center. One of the biggest benefits to the French Cleat it the simplicity of the design. As long as an object has the 45 degree mounting piece on the back of the work (in the correct orientation), it can be hung on a French Cleat mount. I am hoping to explore projects where students can design their work to integrate a French Cleat so they can be displayed with this method.
What else could the French Cleat be used for in the Innovation Center?
I am hoping to try to design a variety of projects using this mounting technique. I am considering having students create projects around micro:bit microcontrollers that mount to the prototype French Cleat mount in the Makerspace. Another idea is for students to design frames with integrated French Cleats and create art on the plotter, 3D printer, and laser cutter to go inside the frames.
Fusion - CAD/CAM
Fusion - CAD/CAM
The cleat was modelled in Fusion to be milled from a 2" thick piece of mahogany.
Testing the prototype
Testing the prototype
This first section of the cleat was made to give us a physical enviroment to experiment with how the components would fit and get connected to the micro:bit / translator board.
First project for our micro:bit LED Translator board
First project for our micro:bit LED Translator board
Lotta LEDs
Lotta LEDs
Three separate strands of LEDs being powder with a 5V, 10A power supply.
Makecode
Makecode
Makecode was used to code the prototype for the French Cleat. There are so many programming possibilities for the Cleat and I look forward to working with students as they design code to control the LEDs as they see fit.
Here's my sample code...
Putting it together...
Putting it together...
There were a variety of challenges in installing the LEDs and electronics into the mahogany French Cleat.
Shims to keep LEDs close to the front face of the cleat.
Determining which LED strip should be in the front at various locations.
Bending the LEDs damaged them and they needed to be replaced and re-soldered.
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