C&R Storage Rack

The 2nd piece is complete. The Wife says I'm making too much noise, so I have to stop for the night.

My goodness, this wood really pops, and this is just using mineral spirits. The lines are nice and tight. Everything is level. I'd say it's almost flawless, but I'll look over again in the morning when my eyes aren't so tired.

I guess this change of plans is officially a success, and I don't have to delete my account. That said, there's still about a 100 ways I can screw this up in the last few steps, so we'll hope for the best. I'm constantly checking, dry fitting, measuring, etc. just to make sure everything turns out ok.

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I was originally going to use shellac to coat, but now I think I'm going to change that plan to Danish Oil. Based on the wood, and the way it looks when wet, I think it will be pretty awesome when complete.

It's time.

Final assembly starts as soon as I clean my garage enough tor work in.

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Now its time to put everything together.

There's a little bit of a head-scratcher here, but no worries. The top needs to be clamped vertically to keep pressure on the glue holding the dowels in place, but the sides need to be clamped horizontally while the glue holding the bottom shelf dries. What to do?

I've going to finish the bottom of the rack first. I have both an upper and lower rear brace, which I did drill for screws. I'll assemble the bottom, screw in the lower rear brace to lock everything together, then glue in the toe kick. I used a couple brad nails on the toe kick instead of using clamps.

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That should be enough to keep it together. I'll move to the top next.

The bottom is done, and the top is on. There's still another rear brace to attach, but the clamps are in the way right now.

We'll check on it in the morning when the glue dries.

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Now that looks like a gun rack.

Finishing and small parts to come...

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Looks good I like it

Time to start putting some finish on.

First, I'm going to take a hand plane and a card scraper and level off any high spots, low spots, mismatched edges etc. Fortunately, this only took about 5 minutes in this case, as everything was pretty close. I don't think I even used the hand plane after all...

The card scraper is super cool. It's about the width of a credit card, and twice as long. It works like a little plane. You scrape it across the wood, a ton of shavings come off, and magic!

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Once I'm done scraping and planning, then I'll hit everything really quickly with the sander. I'm using 220 grit, so I'm not taking too much off. A tack-cloth cleans everything up afterwards.

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Now everything is ready for the first coat.

For the finish, I'm going to use Danish Oil. I thought about shellac, but I think this will look better. There won't be any durability issues, as this cabinet isn't going outdoors. It also won't be used roughly, so I think I'm good.

To apply Danish Oil, put on a heavy 1st coat, wait 15 minutes; apply a light 2nd coat, wait 15 minutes; then let dry for 8 hours. Here's what the first coat looks like. I may have spilled a little on the bottom shelf (oops), but that's not going to matter.

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Coat number 2. That's all for tonight. We'll see what it looks like in the morning. It's soaking up oil like a sponge, so there may need to be another, 3rd or even 4th, coat applied.

Hopefully, I can start finishing up the little pieces for the bottom shelf, and have this all done by tomorrow.

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