Anyone find a good source/solution to mill an french cleat into a wall hanging? Basically have a few wall hangings between 3/4" to 1" of solid hardwood. What I would like to do is install an aluminum angle edge on the wall and then mill the matching edge into the back of the wall hanging. It would be like a chamfer bit but inverted narrow where the cutter meets the shaft and increase in diameter the longer it gets.
edit: The shape would be similar to a dovetail bit but looking for one with a much a greater angle so there is more material to grab in the french cleat application and less likely to get knocked off the wall if bumped.
I would start with a pocket wide enough to accept a dovetail cutter, than cheat some gcode to accept this cutter from Amazon. People cheated with a keyhole cutter, can’t see why you couldn’t do the same.
3/8" shank would require a proper collet.
How about something like this. If you are going to use 3/4 material you will need a Vee Bit that will cut the material thickness (Cutting length).
The design is for a 16 x 7 inch cleat that you make one cut in the center of the stock to stock bottom. you need the extended cut outside of your cleat to make a complete angle cut with no end cuts for the board. You will need to secure both halves before you make the cut.
This option works if the project has not been assembled. If you can attach a file or a picture that would really help.
Thanks for all the feedback all good options. I was looking at the aluminum Z-clips or machining some out of hardwood as mentioned by Anthony but I think these options will offset the wall art by about 1/2" off the wall (at the very least). This is why I was thinking of machining the slot on the back of the board with the cleat on the wall which would allow the board to rest fairly tight against the wall. I do also like the idea of using the reciprocating saw with an angle matching the angle of an angled aluminum bar which would also allow it to rest fairly tight against the wall. What ever option I go with it’ll definitely be a measure 3 times cut once operation as I’d hate to mess up the project at this point, many hours in this one.
This is going to a friend so I’ll ask them which option they prefer.
Just my own opinion here, but I like the stand-off look - it makes the artwork look like it’s floating. Just put a spacer at the bottom so it stands evenly away from the wall.
