Christmas Gift Idea

[DPB]

Here's a simple and very practical Christmas gift idea.

With Christmas fast approaching, I've been busy working on a few gifts for Christmas. The plans for these cooling racks were originally published in Volume 15, Issue 5 of The Woodworker's Journal. What appealed to me is that the construction technique requires multiple copies be produced. So I set up a mini production line and made five copies.

The rails are joined to the feet by means of a dovetail slot as shown in the close-up. The five cooling racks required 3 hours in the shop and about $10.00 worth of pine.

[vcohen]

Good gift idea Woodchuck


It take no longer to set up for 1 job as it takes for 5. On small jobs I prefer to get a production line going.

Cheers

[nic]

Hi

Did you cut the dovetails on the table saw or router ?

Nic

[DPB]

The dovetails on the legs were cut on the router in a series of parallel dovetail slots on a single piece of timber. Then this was sliced at 90 degrees to the dovetail channels to form ten legs.

The runners were ripped on the tablesaw at an angle and width corresponding to the dovetail router bit. On each cut, the timber was flipped end for end resulting in rails that slide into the dovetail slots.:)

[nic]

Hi

That's exactly how I thought of doing it :-)
Are the runners simply glued or do you have a liitle screw to hold them in place ?

Thanks

Nic

[DPB]

Like a lot of projects, assembly is actually the trickiest part. Each rail is drilled and dowelled to the feet. No glue is used to attach the rails to the feet, because, if you think about it, you would end up with one holy mess sliding the rails into the dovetails if glue were applied.

So I drilled the holes and squirted a small amount of glue around the inside top of the hole and then tapped and twisted the dowel as it was going in. This distributes the glue around the inside surface of the hole.

I used fluted dowels which is ideal for this application because it allows air to escape and glue to remain on the walls of the hole. If the dowel is too tight, it will simply drive out all of the glue.

Here's a closer look at the unit that clearly shows the dowels.