Cord Keeper for Woodworking

Cord Keeper

There's nothing more frustrating than having a power cord get jerked out of an electrical outlet in the middle of a job. Especially if I'm working on a project outside, and the power tool is plugged into a long extension cord.

To prevent this, I mount a "cord keeper" to the wall directly below the outlet, see drawing. It squeezes the cord (or cords) between two wood blocks. So even if I tug on the cord, it stays plugged into the wall outlet.

The cords fit into two grooves that are routed in a mounting block. I used a core box bit in a table-mounted router to cut each groove. This creates a curved bottom that allows the cord to nestle into the block. Just be sure the groove is shallow enough to allow the cord to stick up above the mounting block, see Top View. This will allow the wood cover of the cord keeper to exert pressure against it.

To produce this pressure, a long slot in the cover fits over a machine screw that's installed in the mounting block. Tightening a knob on the screw holds the cover in place.

Before screwing the cord keeper to the wall, I glued a short dowel into a hole in the mounting block to help align the cover. Also, gluing a couple of thin rubber strips to the cover will help improve its grip. (I cut scraps of rubber from an old bicycle inner tube.)

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