My wife has been hinting for quite some time that she needs a new shoe rack. This coincides with my need to practice my hand joinery skills, considering I don't really have any, and seems like a good project to put practice to use on something that won't be seen outside of my closet. Material wise I am using walnut for the sides of the rack and soft maple for the rungs/shelves and are used because I have them on hand. The general design is to use use to walnut panels for the sides about 12" wide by about 30" tall. I have rough cut materials and rely on my planer for rough dimensioning as well as my table saw for all sizing cuts. The shoe rack rails are soft maple and about 3" wide and are sized to make sure my wife's shoes won't fall through too easily. The top and bottom set of rails are dovetailed similar to casework, the mid shelves are sliding dovetails.
I invite comments, constructive criticism, advice. I am learning as I go and find many of others posts on here very educational, especially when pictures are shared. After sitting down and deciding to document this simple project I realize how much effort it takes to create this level of documentation that others provide in their builds and appreciate their efforts even more.
The No. 6 getting busy flattening a side on the panels after a few passes through the planer. My process is to run rough dimensioned material through the planer, take it to the bench and hand work a side flat, take the material back to the planer and run through with the flat side down and take the thickness to within 0.050 and then finish the dimensioning with the No.7 and No.4. The No.6 previous to this project had not seen much work and was pretty rough before some rework. The blade was pitted beyond use so I re-purposed the original blade from my No. 7 that has been replaced with a Hock iron into the No.6. It was a new learning curve to properly sharpen the old Iron as I have been working primarily with my A2 Hock irons. This plane makes a completely different sound than the heavier modern irons and can really hog some shavings.
FlattenNo6.jpg
The No. 7 cleaning up ahead of the smoother.
FlattenNo7.jpg
Finish sizing and cleaning up rails from saw.
RungPreCleanup.jpg
Cleanup Finished on rail edges
RunPostCleanup.jpg
Obligatory shaving picture - I really like this No.4, just feels like an extension of my hand. Bad news is I discovered a crack in the handle yesterday about an inch up from the base.
RungFinishingPlane.jpg
Up next is cutting the pins, I have cut several test dovetails and have been doing them pins first. My saw of choice is what I currently have and it is not very good. Does not track straight very well, I have tuned it some by stoning the teeth on either side of the saw to improve tracking and to remove some set as it left a horrendous kerf when I first started using it. I do not have a proper vice yet so I am making do as many others have and still do. As will be visible through this post, my sawing skills are poor, I basically shoot to stay on the waste side and pare to the line so that I can create good fits.
CuttingRungPins.jpg
Sawing of pins complete, ready to clean out waste and pair pins to size where needed.
RungPinSawingComplete.jpg
First set of rails I started to work away the "waste" was an o'crap moment as I had started removing material from the pins. This set was quickly deemed to be the bottom.
RungChiselBiffup.jpg