C&R Storage Rack

[mrandig]

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.

Attachment 113773Attachment 113774Attachment 113775Attachment 113776Attachment 113777

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.

Attachment 113778

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.