Joinery
I took care of some wild grained areas with my cabinet scraper. What a great tool! A few swipes, and all the tearouts were gone. Imagine spending half an hour sanding them out with a RO sander? This took me a minute, if that!
A bit blurred image here, but this is an easy method for marking your parts. I mark the parts with, for example, “L in” and arrows pointing towards the front and lower end of the finished project. I then know that the part is on the left side, which side should face the inside, where the front is and which end is down. I write on painter’s tape, so no need to remove any markings afterwards and I can move the mark around if needed.
By marking all the parts like that, all the joinery is automatically kept sorted, too.
The rails for the saw plates and the ledge for the handles is made from teak. I am just going to use cross laps, but since the parts are at 90° to each other I am going to drill and glue dowels as well.
I set my marking gauge by placing a teak board on top of a plank and let the cutter drop before locking the gauge. Simple and dead accurate.
I then marked the cross laps on one plank, then transferred the marks to the other plank.
And we always use the square to strike the deciding lines to ensure accuracy!
I made knife walls and scored the cutouts lengthwise. I sawed down the lines using my Veritas dovetail saw. The band saw took care of the bulk of the waste. After checking the fit I transferred the layout using the marking knife, to the other board – I came to the conclusion that I should opt for the most accurate method possible. This ensured a dead accurate fit on the other plank too, and made the two parts identical.
Your fingertips are amazing! Have you noticed that you can actually feel a height difference less than the height of the finger print ridges? In woodworking, that level of accuracy is regarded as “dead on”! Wood moves, so anything beyond that level of accuracy is a waste of time.
To line up the boards perfectly, I used the rubber end of my Thor 712 hammer. While feeling for flush on the bottom, I tapped the planks until they were dead flush. I then cinched the vise to hold the boards securely while working.
Do we really need both cross cut and rip cut saws? No, but a dedicated saw with a rip cut pattern is a formidable weapon! The handle rail will be at the end of the side planks, so I could just cut a notch for it. And this is how far the waste flew when I finished the cut!
Using the marking gauge as a makeshift router plane, I removed a bit of material to give the chisel a starting point for paring.
And at this point, while I dry-assembled the parts, I realized that I had to fit a bottom to the rack in order to stiffen it up. My initial by-the-seat-of-my-pants minimal design just would not work all that well.
More on that on the next page.