C&R Storage Rack

My C&R collection keeps growing, and once again, I'm out of room. Since I've got some time over the holidays, it's time to build another wood rifle rack.

I was lucky to find some nice cherry wood for sale this weekend, so I've got the wood purchased and ready to go. Previous versions have been using curly maple, so we'll see how this new material turns out.

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As I go along, I'm just going to drop a few posts here on my progress. I've made a couple of these, and each one turns out great. Nothing fancy, no mad skills required; just some shop tools, glue, a few screws and a couple of coats of shellac to finish.

As an aspiring wood worker, I try to keep the number screws to a minimum, using other techniques as much as possible. Since glue is involved, this usually this takes a few days, with shellac as a finish, it takes a few more days.

Stay tuned...

Mine is/was very similar. When I finished the basement a few years ago I included a 11'x6' secure storage. We had a new home built and moved in a few weeks ago, I have the building permit ready to drop off and the new secure storage will be 3 times the square footage, we moved from a 2 story to a ranch as we are getting on in age.

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Pointy things on the opposite wall
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I was able to get the cherry wood from Rockler for $4.99 bd./ft. which is a great price. Rockler is one of my favorite places to shop, but can be expensive at times. In total, I ended up with about 12 bd./ft. total, so my total investment comes to around $60.00 plus tax.

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The only downside here is that these pieces are "shorts" (scraps/leftovers), which means I will have some constraints to work through as I go. The lengths of these pieces can run between 5' and 7', and the width between 3-1/4" and 8". Wood knots and cracks can also be an issue. The thickness of these pieces however, is a uniform 13/16", so that at least makes my life easier.

Shorts aren't necessarily a bad thing, and the quality of this wood is way better than anything the big-box stores have for sale. Also, this wood is surfaced S3S, which means that 3 of the four sides have been surfaced/finished. While I own both a jointer and a planer, I won't need them for this exercise.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to build this as 3'x1'x3' rack. With a 4" spacing between rifles, this is wide enough for even the straight-handle bolt action Mausers. At 3' tall, it is also short enough for my little Carcano and few other cavalry rifles. This will hold eight rifles easily.

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Originally Posted by Sarge1998

ine is/was very similar. When I finished the basement a few years ago I included a 11'x6' secure storage. We had a new home built and moved in a few weeks ago, I have the building permit ready to drop off and the new secure storage will be 3 times the square footage, we moved from a 2 story to a ranch as we are getting on in age.

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OOOOH... That is a really nice room. I may have to up my game here in the future. We built a one story also, for the same reason as yours.

We have two large bedroom walk-in closets, so I may be taking one over to build something similar. I've got multiple gun safes already, but I just keep running out of space. C&Rs can be an addictive hobby, and I've got a few more coming this week.

I usually draw the layout, dimensions, etc. for pieces like this out directly on the top of my workbench, which is why it's covered in butcher paper. I'm going to try to use sketch up today to make a proper drawing, but that might be beyond my current skill level. We'll see. I'll post it here if it works out.

That said, here's my cut list. Since the cherry comes in "shorts" of various lengths and widths, rather than being dimensional lumber, I tried to pick and purchase those pieces that were closest to the dimensions below. Since the cut pieces are all 3' long, I can get two pieces from a 6'-7' short.

13/16" cherry
4 pcs. - 3' x 5-1/2" (top, sides, side wings)
2 pcs. - 3' x 3-1/2" (rear braces)
1 pcs. - 3' x 4" (front kick)

I did decide last minute to use 3/4" plywood as the bottom. In the past I've glued two pieces of 5-1/2" together to make the floor, but that just seems to be too much trouble. This is cheapo "red oak" from HD stores, but you won't ever be able to see it when this is finished.

3/4" plywood
1 pcs. - 3' x 11" (bottom)

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Any leftovers will be used to create the lower frame that will keep the rifles in their correct position. Make sure to cut cherry quickly, or it will burn. Any knots can be filled at this time - I was lucky that I don't have too many.

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Nice gunpile Sarge1998...I'm partial to US issue of course. Love to come over and go through a pot of coffee and discussion...

My first gunrack was almost exactly like this, used a .303 rack I found in an indoor range. It held about ten or twelve and was allowed until we came into safe storage rules here. My kids had come and grown to the point that I'd handed it off before that though.

So I tried sketch up and promptly lost that battle. I may try again later, but the learning curve is pretty steep, and I'm pretty simple. Hopefully, this at least gets the general point across…

Original (real) pic:
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My rendition as a sketch up file. It's clearly not to scale, but that's the least of my worries. Also, there's two rear braces that aren't shown, as I was having enough problems already.
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As a final note, I'm actually going to use a dado to hold the bottom shelf in place, so the 36" inches shown will actually be closer to 35-1/4" when finished. I'll detail this step better as I go along.

My storage is varied but I more or less gave up on vertical racks a long time ago. Both gun cabinets have been converted to shelf display cabinets. I still have one remaining vertical rack in what used to be a window opening. My remaining non-safe, non-hidden case storage is on bicycle hooks on the ceiling. My walls are taken up by either pictures, deer antlers, football jerseys or bookshelves. I do have a large 14 gun cabinet area that is currently stuffed full of other collectibles.

Advantage of the bicycle hooks is they are out of the way, don't take up any wall space, can be easily accessed and I can hang all sort of other things off of them. Each rifle also has at least one, possibly two helmets hanging off them.

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They have also slowly been sneaking into the wife's domain of the living room. There are now three hanging on the walls above openings and two sets of deer antlers mysteriously moved down beside the actual mounted deer in the past couple of weeks.

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I'm following the frog in the pot of cool water on the stove theory. Temperature is rising very slowly. She did notice the deer antlers and objected to the first set but that was going there no matter what, it was the most recent set from this year which I think I posted somewhere here. The second set took her three days to notice but it was the very first buck I shot when I was 12 so she couldn't object to that, I was a mere child. Besides, gives her more places to hang Christmas ornaments.

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I'm having biscuits for dinner tonight.

It's just a coincidence, but I'm also using biscuits to assemble the side panels of this C&R rack. Obviously these aren't the same biscuits; these are little wood footballs that work similar to dowels when joining wood together.

Two 5-1/2" boards will give me the 11" I'm looking for. I call the side pieces "wings", as they only go up about 14-18" from the bottom, mostly to provide an attachment for the bottom and to keep the rack from being top heavy. I'll put a biscuit about every 3"-4" inches and then glue everything together.

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It's both a funny and sad true story, but they couldn't figure out what I was asking for when I asked for "biscuits" at the local HD store. It was like going into a bar and asking for a sarsaparilla. Am I that old?

Anyways, here's a pic of the worlds most expensive biscuit maker, both in its natural habitat and in action. It would be better if this thing was about $150 cheaper, but it's a pretty cool tool. Also makes great sawdust, to mix with glue for touchups or epoxy (I have a collection of different woods).

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It's kind of hard to glue and photograph, so I didn't really get a good photo of this step of the process. Once the glue hits, things begin to swell, and time is critical. It's also important to make sure everything is lined up, top and bottom, left and right, side to side, etc. and things can be a bit fussy. I keep a bowl of water and wet towel close to wipe up any excess.

Lots of glue, lots of clamps. If you're not sure, you're not using enough. Then use lots of more glue, just in case.

I'm using pipe clamps to keep the pieces pressed together. The thin pieces that run across the wood are cauls, and they keep the height of the pieces even. The better these are fit up, the less work has to be done later.

We'll see how this all looks after sitting overnight.

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While I'm watching the glue dry, I guess it's time for a random unrelated topic.

I accidently purchased a pair of VZ.24 rifles (Romanian contract). It must be Christmas, as the barrels are pretty frosty, but overall they're pretty damn cool. I love the red wood with the white metal. I'll post more on these later. Right now I'm in the process of cleaning, and figuring out what I've gotten myself into.

Some people accidently get into car crashes, hit by meteors falling from the sky, scalded with hot coffee, etc. I accidently buy rifles apparently. I've also got an 1891 Argentine Mauser coming soon, which was also an accident. Not sure when that's supposed to arrive, as I understand that the mail is all tied up.

For this cleaning job, I just picked up this ultrasonic cleaner from Amazon (@$100). With some Simple Green and water, the cleaning is first rate. I would definitely recommend. Everything comes out shiny and like new. Will the ultrasonic cleaner last? Who knows...

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I hate to even ask the question, but is there some reason that these floor plates don't release? I can't get either of the two to come apart, and I've gotten pretty violent with them. They don't appear to be soldered closed, they're just stuck together. Yes, I know that button needs to be depressed...

Since I'm doing product reviews while the glue dries, why not another.

I've been trying out different ways to clean wood, and came upon the steam cleaner shown below. It's another Amazon purchase ($35.99). It's good for when you have a stock and/or handguard that needs a light cleaning, but you don't want to get too aggressive. Just steam then wipe down, steam then wipe down, steam then wipe down. When the wood becomes matte and you can see the voids in the wood grain, it's done. I'd say it's good for removing around 50 years of oil, dirt and grime; over that amount use something else.

This cleaner does put out a ton of steam, but the tank is small, so it will take a few refills (or more) for a full rifle. It needs to cool down before you can refill, so that's my only negative (only takes a few minutes). If it's not totally cooled down, it's really easy to get burned (ask me how I know).

I used this on the handguard for one of the VZ.24s. I steamed it, and then oiled it again; the cleaner worked out pretty well. I don't think it took an hour total. You're not submerging the wood in a lot of water (or chemicals), so there's not a lot of drying time, and the wood doesn't seem as prone to shrink, swell or crack.

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I didn't realize my dinner was peeking out in the right corner of the rifle pic. Thumbs up on the Hatch Pepper seasoning. That's the real winner here!

I have one of these also, it's excellent for popping out dents that are present. Some of these dents are NOT small and some have been there for decades I reckon...yet they come out. Just a sideline of removing the crud.

About six months ago I sold off twelve rifles to buy the rifle on the left, so I built this rack for my remaining, humble collection.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aragorn243

They have also slowly been sneaking into the wife's domain of the living room. There are now three hanging on the walls above openings and two sets of deer antlers mysteriously moved down beside the actual mounted deer in the past couple of weeks.

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I really like the bicycle hook idea. I've got an awful lot of empty wall space...

---------- Post added at 02:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:42 PM ----------

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

I have one of these also, it's excellent for popping out dents that are present. Some of these dents are NOT small and some have been there for decades I reckon...yet they come out. Just a sideline of removing the crud.

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I was really happy how things turned out. It was a little work, but it was filthy. I was watching Tucker on TV at the same time, so I didn't really mind the effort. The little dings and dents cleaned up nicely, but it didn't strip all the way down to bare wood.

Whoever designed it so that the safety valve needs to be removed in order to refill it is an a**h*le.

I think these side pieces came out pretty well. One side is already sanded, the other side needed a little more wood filler, so it will have to wait. The seam on the left side is a little more pronounced than I'd like; I may try to mix together a slurry of glue and sawdust, and see if I can fill that in a little bit.

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The top piece is pretty mindless work, so I think I'll start that next.

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Originally Posted by mrandig

slurry of glue and sawdust,

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Standard practice and works well enough.

Making a slurry and then running it down the seam helped somewhat. It already has a strong, solid glue line, so there's not much of a gap to squeeze anything into. I'll probably work with it a little more, but I think it's close to being good enough. I can scratch that glue line with a dental pick and then fill, but that's a major pain.

The right side is almost invisible.

Also seemed to be a good time to finish up with the wood filler.

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Cool targets under the deer heads!

Happy New Year Everybody!

2020 was like a chocolate chip cookie, but once you took a bite, it turned out to be oatmeal raisin. Hopefully 2021 is a little better.

I'm going to let go of my OCD and just live with the glue line. Time for a quick trip to the chop saw to make sure the two sides come out the same size. I'm just going to trim these very slightly (1/16"). I tape both pieces together for this step, so when they're cut, be it oversized, undersized, or the right size, they're the same size. Don't want a crooked rack.

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Perfect. Now on to the top shelf.

With the sides taken care of for now, we'll start with the top shelf.

If you're taking notes, this board is 36" x 5-1/2" x 13/16". A little bit of math may follow over the next few posts. I'll try to explain my figuring the best I can and accept any questions after I post this.

I'm going to space 8 holes 4" apart (center-to-center), spaced 1-1/2" inches from the leading edge. I'm going to cut these holes out on the drill press with a 2" forstner bit.

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The drill press is my Jet, and I'm pretty fond of it. We've been through a lot together. The table on the press is a homebuilt job, so that's not available in stores. The forstner bits I'm using are Ryobi from HD stores - don't buy these; they're pretty terrible.

So, a total of 8 holes are needed, spaced 4" apart.

This is a pure material removal exercise. You'll need to go really slowly to limit binding, burning and the debris building up. I think I'm down around 400rpm. Even then, there's a fair bit of burning, in part due to the cheap bits. I think I mentioned the Ryobi bits were crap...

Once the jig is squared up, and everything is in the right position, it's just a matter of cutting hole after hole after hole. Taking pictures while operating rotating equipment is generally a bad idea, so I don't have many action shots of this step.

The amount of material taken out is immense, so you'll need some way to remove the debris while cutting. If you wait until after to remove it, then you're working blind under a pile of shavings. I have a little shop vac that I attach.

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With the cutting done, the finished piece should look something like this...turned out great. We'll turn all of these little circles into "u" shapes on the bandsaw later, but I want to leave these holes alone for now.

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So, to summarize (this is where there's a little math involved):

1. The board is 5-1/2" inches wide.
2. A brace (cleat) will sit perpendicular to the trailing edge, taking up 13/16" of the total width. The usable width will then be less than 4-3/4".
3. From leading edge of the board to the rear of each drilled hole is 2-1/2".
4. 2-1/2" subtracted from 4-3/4" leaves me with 2-1/4" of space between the rear of the drilled hole to the front of the rear brace.

Why did I do it this way? Because that 2-1/4" space is the distance needed if any of these riles have scopes attached.:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrandig

Some people accidently get into car crashes, hit by meteors falling from the sky, scalded with hot coffee, etc. I accidently buy rifles apparently. I've also got an 1891 Argentine Mauser coming soon, which was also an accident. Not sure when that's supposed to arrive, as I understand that the mail is all tied up.

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Speaking of accidental gun purchases, I accidently bought a little Mosin today while I was working on this cabinet. Looks like more cleaning supplies are going to be needed. At least it has a "really good bore" per the auction listing. I find that statement suspect.

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I’ve had very good luck buying from that auction company. I think you’ll be quite happy!

I didn’t win anything from them today. Sure wouldn’t have minded a couple of the Walther PPKs they had!

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Originally Posted by rcathey

I didn’t win anything from them today. Sure wouldn’t have minded a couple of the Walther PPKs they had!

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I had four pistols I was looking at today. Two were Deutsche Werke Ortgies, one was a Polish PPK copy in 9mm Makarov. They came up for sale late in the day, and I was on the couch watching TV by then.

Usually, I'll start hoping that I lose after winning the first or second item. If I pre-bid, it's always a very low offer, but sometimes it's high enough. Depends on who else is playing that day. When the former Lt. Governor of TX's estate sold his firearm collection, I ended up with a bunch of his mausers, as I don't think I was bidding against anyone else. Then I had to tell the wife we're taking an unplanned romantic getaway over to Austin for the weekend.

Huge auction coming later this month on the 17th. I think I have around 35 items tagged out of 1200+ up for sale.

Day-do, day-do
The top and sides are done, and me wanna go home...

Actually, with the top and sides partially complete, now we have to figure out how to attach the bottom shelf. Remember earlier, I said I was going to try to avoid using screws for this project, just to keep things challenging. That may also be a large part of the reason why I'm not done already, but oh well.

There really isn't anything to do with the shelf, other than some trimming and fitting, but we'll do that in a bit. For now, we're going to make some dados. A dado is groove cut into the wood, using stacked blades on a table saw. Cutting wood like this across the grain is a "dado", where cutting along the grain would be considered a "rabbet". Same cut, different direction. This can also be done using a router, but I don't feel like taking apart my router table today.

You may have seen the orange Rigid table saw in earlier pictures. I actually use this table saw just for dados and rabbets, so I don't need to take my big Grizzly apart. First-world problems, I know...

Wear gloves when changing these blades out, as it's really easy to get cut. A few sample cuts may be necessary, so I always test my setup first. One thing that 3/4" thick plywood is not, it's not 3/4" thick. Usually it's more like 23/32", so some tweaking may be required for a tight fit. You want it snug enough that there's purchase on the bottom and both sides, but not too snug that you have to force it in.

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Looks good. The other sides looks and measures exactly the same. Now the shelf will fit right in, snuggly but not too tight. I made the cut 3/8" deep on each side, so we should only need to trim 3/4" from the bottom width and we'll be good to go.

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We'll glue and clamp the top, sides, and bottom together later. Before I can do that however, I need to first drill for some dowels. We'll use these to attach the top, toe kick, as well as the cross-braces.

Dowels go in next. I'm going to use dowels to join the top shelf and the toe kick to the sides. I finally decided against using dowels for the rear cross-braces, as it would be just to align and drill correctly, and I can cheat using pocket screws and nobody will ever know.

I'm using two jigs for the dowels; the first jig keeps the drill centered in the wood, and the second jig allows me to transfer the position of a dowel from one board to another. Both tools work really well. Remember to chamfer the holes so the dowels don't bind. Test fit everything.

I'm using 3/8" x 1-1/2" birch dowels. Since the wood is 13/16" thick, I'm probably drilling 9/16" deep into the cross pieces, and 7/8" down into the side pieces, as I don't have to worry about poking through the sides.

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Yes, I didn't realize it until I saw my pictures, but I'm wearing slippers. Since COVD-19, the dress code has been pretty loose around here.

I used the title "fitting" for this post, as it's now time to test fit everything together, but also due to the fact that getting the toe kick to sit correctly was giving me fits all morning. For final assembly, there may be a little nail gun action.

That said, after getting all the holes and dowels lined up, and cutting the bottom by a little over 3/4", it looks like we almost have a gun rack....

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The top still needs some work, so this is a trial fit only. I'm pretty happy so far, considering how well everything lined up, and also the fact that not one screw has been involved.

Now that everything's been cut, test fitted, and assembles the way I was hoping, it's time to get back to work on the top shelf.

I had originally drilled a total of 8 holes, 2" dia. each. Now we have to make them into "u" shapes, in order to hold the riles. I'll mark my cuts using a straight edge, then do as many as I can on the bandsaw.

The bandsaw will however, only cut pieces of a certain width, so I'll cut the left holes, then flip the top piece over, then cut the right holes, and then use the jigsaw for those holes in the middle I can't reach. I personally hate my jigsaw, and can't seem to get good results, but I never think to replace it until I'm in the middle of cutting something...

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I'll be honest, by this point I wasn't happy. I was not on top of my game today, and the top piece was looking like a hot mess. These were rough cuts however, so we'll see what things are like when the top is closer to being finished.

While I wasn't impressed by how the top shelf turned out, thankfully there's still a few more steps to go.

The rifles don't need to sit in a 2-1/2" deep "u" cut, they only need to sit in a slight recess. If the "u"' cuts were left as deep as they are, I'd be concerned that my rifles would get damaged just by taking them in and out.

I'm going to leave the far right and far left of the top piece alone, but everywhere else I'm going to remove 1" from the leading edge, and this will make these cut-outs not only shallower, but also eliminate any proof of my poor workmanship on this. Double bonus!!!

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After a few more steps, I'll also bevel each corner, again to avoid damaging the rifles when they're put away.

Everything looks much better after the last cut.

While the current state of affairs is improving, there still needs to be some sanding. Now, this isn't a tip that you'll find in Fine Woodworking Magazine, but I'm going to use the belt from a belt sander, as it fits in the cut-out perfectly, will give me the correct shape, and clean everything up real pretty.

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The hot mess has now become a hot YES. There's still a few issues, but I'll touch these up momentarily. After I'm done with putting a couple coats of shellac on everything, I'm also going to glue a felt insert (the fuzzy side of Velcro) into each of these cut outs, so any screw ups won't be visible.

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You're almost ready for the hardest part - deciding how to display your rifles on it!
Assuming it will hold 8 rifles like the original pic you posted, and that you have 8 rifles to put on it now, you will have 40,320 different ways to display them. Which will look best? Swap em around once at breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and you will have your answer in just under 37 years.

If you wanted to match the inside of your safe with your felt inserts, this is an exact match in my Liberty. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MTLPV42/ref=dp_prsubs_1. I built more shelves with it in my safe, as well as ripped off crappy door organizer that came on it, covered the fireboard with it to match. If you only need a little bit I have some left over I can mail you a few squares - free to a good home. EDIT: Just noticed the pic of what you already have. Sorry I didn't offer sooner.

Getting really close now. We'll need to do a couple of touch ups before we start final assembly; most of these are on the top shelf.

There were a total of four areas on the top shelf that I wasn't happy with, so I basically just cut and/or chiseled out the bad section, cut a small piece of wood for the repair, then glued it on. Since these pieces end up being pretty small, I just used CA glue. White glue takes too long, and epoxy is too messy.

Once the CA activator has been applied and the glue set, its just a matter of cutting, shaping and sanding.

Repairs will never be totally invisible, but these are so small, nobody will ever see them. I also think this is a good skill to practice, as it comes in handy when fixing cracked rifle stocks.

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Of course the first repair, which happened to be the largest, also had a crack right below the leading edge. I didn't see this at first, and then it blew apart when I started finish sanding. There's been quite a few cracks in this wood.

Once the repairs have been made, I'm just going to hit all of the sharp edges a few times with some sand paper (150 grit), just to knock off any sharp edges. This will keep my rifles from getting scratched.

I use an eraser as a sanding block, as it gives the paper some flexibility. Don't tear the sandpaper - you'll get a better result if it's cut. While I'm sanding, i say to myself cha-cha-cha, then another cha-cha-cha, and that's all the sanding I need. Alternatively, 1-2-3 followed by 1-2-3 works well also.

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A few minutes over the top piece with the orbital sander and we're good to go. i can't think of a single thing else to do. It's time to move on to final assembly!

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I wish I could do such things.
But I’m really not skilled in such jobs...
Bravo, really a neat job!

In my last post, I stated that we were ready to start final assembly. Actually, I wanted to have some plausible deniability for what comes next.

Worst case, I figured I would leave the country and delete my account after this. This has been a really long post so far, and it would be lame not to take it to conclusion, aside from being mighty inconsiderate if anyone is actually following along with my ranting.

We're going to make trim. Not just any trim, racing stripes. I like racing stripes.

I'm taking out my "ugly stick" for this next part. I forget what this type of wood this was supposed to be, but I think it was sold as some form of fancy mahogany, imported from deep in the mahogany jungle, located in the wilds of uncharted mahogany land. I may however, be thinking about a different piece of wood I bought. I'm just going to call this piece of wood mahogany for the sake of this discussion.

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This piece is so ugly, that I'm going to have to mill each of the four sides, just to make a useable piece of wood.

I'll do one face and one side on the jointer, the second face on the planer, and the final side on the table saw. After that, we should have a good piece of wood to work with.

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Once we have to wood milled to a useable form, I'm going to start cutting slices to use as trim.

The board is 2-1/2" wide, and I've planed it down to 3/4" thick. I'm now going to cut a few 1/4" strips.

Safety note!!! Notice that I'm using a special jig here for ripping this wood. Done this way, my cut-offs are falling away from the blade on the left side. Kick backs can be super dangerous, and if you pinch one of these pieces while cutting, you can have the wood launch back into you, and you can get really, really hurt.

I haven't said this enough, but please practice safety at all times and make sure to wear the correct PPE!

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Remember earlier, when I showed a table saw that I had set up for dados? I'm going to cut some groves in these pieces and lay these wood strips in. Makes everything look fancy. Nice finishing touch.

I want to leave the strips slightly proud of the surface, and then I'll sand them flush. Better to be slightly over in this case, than slightly under.

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I don't know if anybody saw the big knot on the top shelf, but I did. Problem solved.

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I was also complaining about the glue line that was on side panel. Problem solved as well.

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Here's all the pieces cut, and ready for gluing. They're a super-tight fit, so I don't think I need any clamps, and that also means I can sand them while they're drying. This helps fill in any voids, as the sawdust will mix with the wet glue.

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First piece done.

This is a lot of sanding, but that wood insert really pops. Only 3 more to go.

I'm down to only 220 grit sanding disks, so I may have to call it a night and start again tomorrow.

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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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The Danish Oil gives it a nice finish

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonzie

The Danish Oil gives it a nice finish

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I'm going to give the Danish Oil 5 out of 5 stars. It looks great and goes on pretty easy. It gives the wood a light sheen, but not too much. Doesn't really darken the wood like straight BLO does.

I ended up doing 4 coats total. The first two are pretty quick, the last two needed some time in between.

I ended up spending more time than I had planned getting ready for this next post, mainly because any glue lines become really obvious under the Danish Oil finish. Not only obvious, but exaggerated. That means there was more scraping, sanding, etc. needed.

Now that's all completed, it's time to take care of the final details, finishing out the top and bottom shelves. We're almost ready to call this project done.

The first thing I'm going to finish is the top shelf.

Here I'm going to use the "loop" side of some hook-and-loop tape I purchased from Hobby Lobby. I'm using the loop side because its soft and will protect my guns. It's self adhesive, so it's really just a peel-and-stick exercise, then cut with scissors to length. Medical scissors work really well for almost everything. As a bonus, it's 15/16" wide, so it's a perfect fit.

As luck would have it, I almost have enough, but not quite. Good enough for some pictures. I'll get more tomorrow to finish up.

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For the bottom shelf, I'm going to use felt, also from Hobby Lobby. I have some 3M spray adhesive that I'll use to attach it.

I'll need to frame the bottom so each gun has it's own space, so I'll use some of the left over wood I have. The rear strip will be 1-/14" wide and 34" long, and cross strips will be 1-1/4" x 9". I'll use my pin nailer to tack these in place.

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Of course, not only am I out of the hook-and-loop tape, but I'm also out of felt. I'll check back in tomorrow once I get back from Hobby Lobby. These were all leftovers from another project, so I should've checked my stock. No worries.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrandig

I ended up doing 4 coats total. The first two are pretty quick, the last two needed some time in between.

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Correction. Make that a total of 5 coats of Danish Oil now and counting. Since I couldn't finish the project last night as planned, why not apply more oil?

My only concern at the moment is that it's gotten so cold, I hope I don't have drying issues. We'll see later today.

More oil = deeper, richer finish

When I was a young man, all the girls would wait in line for a chance to get Duran Duran concert tickets. This morning was like that, except it was me, with a bunch of much, much older women, anxiously waiting to get into Hobby Lobby for craft supplies.

Anyways, the top shelf is completed. As an added bonus, the velcro strips were on sale for 50% off, so I also got some to hoard away for the next time.

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Time to wrap up the bottom shelf. I'm going to cut my long inside piece on the chop saw, and the smaller cross pieces on the table saw. I have a sled that I use for small parts, with an adjustable stop. The stop makes sure everything is the exact same size each cut.

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With all the wood pieces cut, I'm going to first put down some felt. I'll use 3M adhesive to keep the felt in place, and then frame the wood on top. First the left piece of felt goes in, then the right piece, and finally the center piece. This way everything goes in even. There's some overlap, but no cutting if 9 x 12 sheets are used. The empty space in the rear will be covered by a wood strip.

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Next comes the frame. I've already cut all the pieces to length, and also a few spacers. I put some red marker on the spacers so I remember not to nail them to the bottom.

I'll secure the frame with some 1-1/2" pin nails. Nail guns are a blast, and this step goes very fast. I was actually having such a good time, I think I may have actually used too many.

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Once that's all done, time for one last coat of Danish Oil. If you're keeping score, this makes coat number 6.

Project complete!!!!

Next time, I'll get back on the subject of actual C&Rs, rather than gun storage. These posts keep me from sitting at the computer following the news and social media, which at present is a good thing.

Hope somebody got something useful from all these posts. If not, I got a new gun rack, so it's all good. I actually purchased enough wood to build one more rack (which I was also building at the same time), but I won't post that here. One is enough.

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