Finding a way to coat the woodworking projects I make with some sort of finish, then find a place for all of them to dry has been a perennial problem for me .. oh, and did I mention, preferably at least somewhat dust free!! My long time woodworking friend Len, told me about these drying racks he had been using quite some time ago, and for some reason the went out of my brain, then a couple of weeks ago he showed me a sample of what they look like and explained how versatile they were ... I instantly knew I had to make these, I don`t know who invented them by they are a great idea. I made some minor changes to my version, to make them a bit more user friendly, but the basic design remains.
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/qQ6t_ZZJKFA
I thought about how many pieces there are to some of my last projects and decided that 10 or 12 pairs of these should cover most things. As it turned out, I had some used 3/4 inch firm boards that I wasn`t sure what to do with ...
The boards were quite straight and in good shape, they have been previously stained by that wouldn`t matter for this project. The parts list is pretty simple for 12 pairs of drying racks ...
24 - 14 inches long, by 3/4 x 3/4 inch square outside pieces
12 - 8 inch long by 3/4 x 1-1/4 inch inside pieces
The assembly jig is equally simple
Small piece of scrap plywood 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick .. about 12 inches wide and 16" inches long
2 thin pieces of plywood as bottom and side bracing, and another undersized 3/4x3/4 inch and 3 inches long.
I cut all my wood to length on the table saw and set up stop-blocks to make sure all the pieces were identical, I checked the width on all the pieces and found that they were all 3/4 inch as they should be.
The only moderately difficult part is cutting the rabbets for into the center pieces. If you are making this project make sure that you cut the rabbets into the correct edge ... that is the edge that will be butted up and attached to wood you will be finishing and drying.
To cut my rabbers, I used my 3/16 inch measuring bar to set the height of the blade and to set the outside edge of the blade, then ran all the center pieces through 4 times through the blade and that gave me perfect 3/16 square rabbets in on the contact side.
Click here if you wish to view or purchase a set of the measuring bars from Amazon.
Once you have all the pieces, the next thing to do is make the assembly jig. This is easy to do, with one small note, the little center piece that sits between the 2 side pieces needs to be less that the 3/4 inch square, otherwise it become to hard to get the finishing jig out of each time after assembly. The little center piece on the jig, is really only to position that center piece in the drying rack so that it will be centered in the 14 inch long rack, with a 3 inch gap top and bottom.
In the assembly I decided to glue mine together and to air nail them to keep them together while the glue dried. I used my 18 gauge nailer with 2 inch nails so all components would be nailed at the same time. This system worked very well but other would work too, simply nailing would be fine, and so would wood screws and if you had enough suitable clamps, that would work too.
I decided to pre-drill (and countersink) all the screw holes in the side of my jig, but doing this after assembly would work fine too.
I ended up with 7 pairs or dring racks and excited to now try these out
Copyright - Colin Knecht
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