BUST THE CLUTTER

A practical rack that’s easy to construct using mostly ostly ordinary home workshop tools, while honing some DIY skills.

IN THE INTERESTS of preserving fine flooring’s classy finish, or to avoid tracking dirt through the home, on entering it makes sense to o leave shoes just inside the front door. In the same way, some of us like to o have running or working shoes conveniently placed at the front door oor for grabbing and lacing on as they head out. What this all adds up to, of course, is an unruly jumble of shoes.

This shoe rack tidies up the clutter in a practical yet elegant nt way at minimal cost: it’s made of scrap pieces found in the workshop. hop. Construction is straightforward, too. Though not a simple cututand-nail procedure, it is designed to help you enjoy the journey ney and improve your skills.

1. PREPARE THE SIDE SUPPORTS

The frame (two side pieces and top) is made from a left-over piece of veneered 16 mm chipboard and the inner supports are a standard cut size of pine. You could use raw chipboard, MDF or SA Pine. The raw chipboard should be coated with sanding sealer and painted.

Figure 1 (right) shows the dimensions I used, but you could scale up and down, triple-deck depending on the number of pairs of shoes you need to store. My requirements were quite modest, the wife’s, well…

My local wood shop cut the two side supports to size for the price of some lunch money for the operator, as I don’t have a table or circular saw. I don’t have any professional tools and depend on basic routers, drills, sanders, lots of clamps, (you can never have enough clamps) and a trusty Workmate bench.

The top was to be hidden dowelled to the side supports and the cross-support pieces dowelled to the side supports. Setting up the two side supports to cut the slots was done for both sides using a router and a simple jig to hold the two pieces. I used a scrap straight piece of wood as a cutting guide. You need to do this as a series of passes to cut to the required depth (about 8 mm) and the required width of the chipboard.

Bear in mind that the glues used to bind machine-made products wear out tools quickly and you can’t make deep cuts with home DIY routers. Sanders get clogged easily, too. Pine is not much better: it tears easily, the knots in the wood don’t cut well and its resinous nature causes over- over-heating heating of tool bits.

Cutting the two slots on the side supports.

The next step is to drill the holes for the dowels, which will support the slat supports. I guess you could have simply glued the supports in place, even screwed and glued, but I needed a little more strength as I usually sit on the shoe rack to put on my shoes.

Preparing the dowel fixing to the sides.

I have the “luxury” of a drill press that helped when cutting the holes to locate the dowels. Drill a small pilot hole all the way through, then reverse the workpiece and use an 8 mm dowelling drill.

Drill carefully to avoid a ragged hole. Later, the dowels can be glued and tapped into position. The dowel will be trimmed to finish flush with the surface.

Alternatively, drill and countersink for a 5 x 30 mm screw.

2. PREPARING THE TOP

Dowelling holes for 8 mm dowels are drilled into the top; matching 8 mm holes are drilled into the side supports. This is a fiddly job to do accurately and the best way is a dowelling jig. I treated myself to a Jointcrafter 1360A by Milescraft and, after a bit of practice, the process was a breeze.

In Figure 4 you can see the jig in action creating the holes to match those in the top.

To make sure you don’t over-drill the depth of dowel holes, you can fit a “stop” collar to the drill bit. Note the handy clamp in Figure 4 being used as a “third hand” to hold the dowel jig in position.

Remember, when drilling the holes in the top, not to go all the way through.

Dowelling the top

Before gluing the top to the side supports, we need to just finish off a couple of jobs. The first is to make the circular cut-out at the bottom of each side support. Make a marking template from stiff paper board or cardboard; a piece of flat aluminium strip will help to get the curve right. Use a marking pen to show the width of the side support. Transfer the curve to the paper board/cardboard and trim the curve shape with a box cutter. Cover the bottom of the side support with two or three widths of masking tape to prevent tearing or splitting. Now you can transfer the curve that will guide your cut on the side support.

I used a jig saw to cut the curve shape. Be sure to choose the right jig saw blade depending upon the material you’re using. I finished the shaping with a wood rasp. Figure 6 shows the process as I cut the curve. The other remaining job, if you used veneered board like I did, is to use some iron-on wood strip to finish the sides of the side supports and the top. Iron on the strips using the cotton setting. After the glue has dried, trim the excess off with a sharp chisel or a box cutter and lightly sand edges.

3. GLUING THE SIDES TO THE TOP

The only careful check needed at this stage is to ensure that the sides are at right-angles to the top when gluing the top to the sides.

Start by lightly gluing the dowels and tap into position on the top piece. Do not overglue. Using a rubber- or nylon-headed mallet, tap the top into the side piece. I used a large block, cut with the sides at a right-angle to ensure the top was at right-angles to the side support.

Again, clamps come in useful for securing secure the side support while the glue dries.

Repeat this process on both sides and leave overnight for the glue to set.

4. SETTING THE SIDE SUPPORTS AND CROSS STRETCHERS IN POSITION.

Once the glue has set, sand down using a 200-grit paper and then coat all sides using a wood sealer. I used Woodoc 10 Indoor Polywax Sealer (Velvet). Leave to dry.

The next step is to position the side supports in the slots and get the dimensions needed to cut the cross stretchers (6) to size. As the cross stretchers are secured by both gluing and screw fixing, the position needs to be marked where the pilot holes for the screws are located.

The cross stretchers have a half-lap joint cut into both ends. Once the side supports are positioned, a measurement can be made to determine the overall length of the cross stretchers and the depth of the half lap. Do the measuring again using the rule of checking, then double checking.

I used standard 45 x 20 mm pine for the side supports and cross stretchers. Once cut, these were sanded, then stained to reasonably match the veneer used on the top and side supports.

Drill a pilot hole through the ends of each stretcher, positioned by measuring in from the ends about 20 mm. Use the type of countersink drill bit you can see in Fig. 8 to drill and countersink in on go.

You can also see in Figure 8 the action of clamping the side supports in position; the process of marking the position of the pilot holes for the screws in the cross stretchers. The side supports have been clamped into position; the position of the pilot hole used to secure the stretchers has been marked. NOTE: At this stage the half-lap has not been cut. The cutting position has been lightly marked on the underside. It’s not critical to get a super-accurate perfect fit.

Remember, when you are working with the cross stretchers, they are on the reverse side to where they will be screwed and fitted. You’ll be able to locate where they are positioned as the pilot hole goes all the way through the side support. Mark on pieces of masking tape that the support is, for example, bottom, right hand; a stretcher is outside front, arbitrarily marking the frame “front”, “left” and “right”.

Repeat the process with the other five cross-stretchers. Remember to position the middle stretcher halfway on the supports.

Mark and cut the half lap joints on each end. Use a tenon saw to accurately cut the half lap. Figure 9 shows a side and top view of the slats/stretchers and cross supports.

5. FINAL ASSEMBLY

The top and bottom slats/stretchers can be assembled to the side supports as a unit. Position the top and bottom assemblies using the masking tape marked pieces as a guide. Check you’ve got the pieces correctly positioned.

Lightly glue each half lap joint and fix in position using a 4 x 20 screw. Clean up any squeezed-out glue. Leave everything until the glue dries.

Lightly rub down each assembly with a 200-grit paper and apply two coats of wood sealer.

Once dry, use a rubber or nylon mallet to lightly tap the top and bottom assemblies into the slots cut into the side supports. Don’t force things; you can always shave a bit off the side support.

Align the assemblies between the side supports. Lightly tap glued dowels into the side supports or, if you decide to use screws, screw into position until the screws are just below the surface to allow the use of wood filler to hide the screws.

After the glue had set on my rack, I trimmed the dowels flush with the sides support surfaces using a fret saw and sharp chisel. I then lightly sanded the frame, stained the cut dowel ends with an artist brush (using the same stain used on the stretchers/cross supports) and applied another coat of sealer to all parts of the assembly.