[Elise] Mug shelf #1

I've been tinkering around in the shop for a while, learning how to do different things (and preciously counting my fingers). It's a very different experience having free reign of the shop, a lot like how driving stick didn't really click until it was my car. Same principle applies. Screwing up is a lot less daunting if your Dad's not going to yell at you when it eventually happens. That said, I still have an appropriately healthy fear or losing my fingers. But that's good.

This is the second thing I really made from scratch, a shelf for my sister's mugs. Which was a bit more involved than my full sized bookshelf made of simple boards cut to length and finished, supported by copper pipe

I started with a pile of old fir taken out of a family friends garage some time ago. I planed it down to 5/8" to give a nice fresh surface and trimmed it down to a width of 4 1/2". Then I used a router to cut the front bottom edge of the best looking boards before cutting them into five shelves. From the boards that had something off about the front or back edges I cut the narrower strips to form the sides of the shelf. After very carefully measuring and remeasuring the placement of each shelf I used the radial arm saw to cut the dado cuts in which each shelf fit. Then I cut out the designs with the band saw. 

First I did this with a few scrap pieces to make sure everything fit together and to make sure that the cut out looked nice in practice and not just in theory. After cutting all the final pieces everything was once each with medium and then with fine grit sand paper. Then  and held my breath until everything was glued, clamped and nailed. Success, everything fit and was relatively square

At this point I added two vertical crosspieces to be used for mounting. After all the clamps came on came staining and waxing. I waffled a long time about the finish and ended up choosing wax because I wanted something that would offer some protection but that would make the wood look soft and natural (and boy it even felt soft).

These are closeups of the finished piece still drying in my shop (which is why they are horizontal) of the top, middle (x2) and bottom details. All told, I used six different machines with fast spinning blades. Between sanding and finishing I touched every square inch of wood ten times; sanding everything twice, applying stain, removing excess stain, and applying, wiping excess, and buffing two layers of wax. This was all in the day before visiting my sister (pushed up a day to avoid a snow storm). That night I was touching it in my sleep. It turned out almost precisely as I had pictured it. This worry was the main cause of procrastinating the project, originally a Christmas present, but actually made almost entirely in one week in February (the wood was initially planed in December).

I drove it across Wisconsin the next day, still smelling like stain, wax and freshly cut wood to my sister's house, and we put it up that weekend, replacing two of those accordion peg racks, where each mug hung precariously and a few more were stacked upside down on the table.  Not a bad improvement.

Before

After