Poppin' Tops

For the wedding, I wanted make my groomsmen something functional that also looks nice. Since we all enjoy a good brew, I made constructed some wall mounted bottle openers from granadillo and patagonia rosewood (leftover from the ukulele stand). I thought the colors contrasted well but weren't too overwhelming. The stock was already S4S so I didn't have to do any milling which is great since I haven't yet bought a jointer. I did start by planing the boards all to the same thickness though.

Thickness planer makes a mess without a vacuum.

Glue time.

After gluing them up I sent them through the planer once more to even up the faces. I then cut the three planks out of the boards and cut the ends square. This gave me my final size for all of them.

Cross cut sled came in handy.

All three planks sized.

I wanted to personalize each one for the guys but I don't have a letter templating kit for the router. I asked the kind folks at Woodcraft and they directed me to a couple that does laser engraving at their home near the 7 Mile Fair. It was a bit of a drive but the results were great and didn't cost all that much. Before engraving, I had to apply a coat of urethane to protect the wood surrounding the engraving area. I'm glad I did because they showed me examples of boards they had lasered without a finish and the wood around the area is charred and has a strange film on it that would be difficult to sand off without affecting the engraving.

One coat of urethane.

Engraved and routed.

After engraving, I used a cove bit on the router to dress up the edges a bit and then applied three more coats of urethane. The finish really brings out the colors of the woods and should hold up to quite a bit of abuse. If it does end up getting scratched I can just sand it a bit and apply a few more coats of urethane.

Several urethane coats.

Next was to work on the backs. I wanted these to mount flush to the wall and to catch the bottle caps when opening a tasty beverage. This meant I had to route out some slots for the mounting brackets and a magnet. I used key hole hangers for the mounting hardware and a 1-1/2" diameter neodymium magnet for the catch.

Burned my stamp in the back.

Testing router setup.

Marked the tape for start and stop points.

Key hole hardware fitted.

Hardware installed.

Magnet installed with Forstner bit.

The last step was to attache the actual opener bracket on the fronts. I made sure to arrange the back hardware screws to not interfere with the mounting screws for the opener.

All three finished.

Close up.

The end results looks really nice and the urethane provides a glossy, smooth finish that should hold up to years of abuse. I attached the magnets with epoxy which I haven't worked with before but I don't expect any problems with it. All the guys really seemed to like the gifts and I had a lot of fun making them.

Wedding Keezer

First off, what's a keezer you may ask? It's like a kegerator but with a chest freezer base. Since we were making our own beer for the wedding I felt it prudent to have a proper way to serve it during the evening. We didn't want to have to hire a bartender so I built my own bar. It started with a chest freezer I picked up from craigslist. Though small, I could still fit six cornelius kegs inside with a tall enough collar. Construction started with some 1 by lumber and some 2x3 framing. Because I wanted to be able to easily convert the unit back to a chest freezer I made the collar to be able to simply lift off.

Chest freezer.

I started with a frame of 2x3s the same size as the freezer base. It is about 22"x 34" and joined with some pocket hole screws. In fact, most of the project was assembled with pocket holes to hide all fasteners and give a cleaner look. I made two of these frames, one upper and one lower.

2x3 frame.

I then made the faces out of 1x12 lumber and attached the frames inside. The bottom of the faces stop below the lower frame so as to wrap around the freezer base and prevent it sliding off. Again, this isn't permanently attached to the freezer so this was the best way I saw to fit the collar on temporarily. One thing I did notice about this construction is that such wide boards cup a bit so the corners don't line up quite as nicely as I would like. However, clamps are a wonderful thing!

Creating the faces and adding frames.

I also added 2" rigid foam insulation between the frames for some insulation. I cut this with my drywall saw and it was surprisingly effective. I didn't have to use any sort of glue or fasteners, the foam just fit in with a strong push.

Foam insulation added.

Next was finishing. I used a red oak stain I had left over from some previous projects and then applied three coats of water base urethane. This produced a really nice finish and will protect the wood and stain from abuse.

Stained.

Urethane.

I also added some insulating foam tape to the bottom frame to seal against the freezer base. I just used an entire roll meant for a door which came out to something like 15' or so. It made it around the entire base nearly twice.

Foam insulation.

Added to the freezer.

In order to make moving the keezer around easier I also put it on wheels. To keep this as temporary as possible, I made a base out of 1/2" plywood and fastened the casters to it. This should help distribute the load more evenly. I attached the plywood to the freezer base with a few metal self tapping screws into the small feet on the freezer.

Wheeled base.

Attached to the freezer.

Mostly finished.

Now the lid was the next thing on my list. Since the faces stick out past the freezer base the lid needed a bit of a spacer for the hinges to attach properly. For this, I just ripped a 1x2 down to be about the height of the lid and drilled some holes through it to accommodate the bolts for the hinge.

Attached hinges.

Most of the woodworking was done at this point so the next thing was the gas and liquid plumbing for the kegs. I had to install a manifold to split the gas supply into six supplies for the kegs. Then I installed the liquid faucets by drilling 1 1/4" holes in the front face and insulation for the shanks to pass through. These are what the faucets attach to and they came with 1/4" barbed tails on the back for attaching the tubing.

Manifold installed.

Marking for faucet shanks.

Holes drilled.

Shanks installed.

Faucets attached.

With the manifold and faucets installed I had to next install the tubing. The gas lines are 1/4" inside diameter and the liquid lines are 3/16" inside diameter. These are the sizes recommended for proper throughput and resistance. In order to fit the tubing properly, it helps to heat it up with makes it a bit more flexible.

Heating the tubing.

Tubing attached to liquid and gas disconnects.

Assemblies attached to the faucets and manifold.

Next was transferring the beer from the primary fermenters to the kegs and then fitting the kegs inside the keezer. I test fitted all six empty kegs first just to make sure they fit before having to lift six full kegs.

Kegging in progress.

Six kegs fitted.

The keezer was pretty much done but the dent in the lid bothered me quite a bit. It wasn't very attractive so I decided to make a cover to hide it and dress up the keezer a bit. I just built a frame from some 1x3 square stock and a nice sheet of ACX plywood cut to size. Again, this was constructed with pocket hole screws to hide all fasteners and then finished with the same stain and urethane process as the main collar. Inside the front face of the lid cover I attached a small block of wood to fit inside the lid handle so that lifting on the cover would open the freezer lid as well.

Lid cover.

Inside. Assembled with pocket screws.

Stained. Urethane was next.

Finished project.

Half this project wasn't really woodworking but it started as such a project so that is why I'm putting it on this blog. The lid cap fits nicely and provides a nice flat top for perhaps setting glasses or signs on top of. I also attached some chalk board stickers by the faucets to label the beer taps. I soap tested all the air fittings to check for leaks and ran sanitizer through the liquid lines. All the fittings checked out and the project was complete. Huzzah!

Ukulele Stand

Siri was out of town this past weekend so I took the opportunity to spend some much needed time in the woodshop. One project that has been neglected is a ukulele stand for Siri's instrument. I wanted something nicer than pine and Woodcraft had some hardwoods on sale when I last visited so I picked up a bit of patagonia rosewood. The design I had in mind was very simple and the stock was already milled on all 4 sides so I started by cutting the boards to length.

Cut to length and joint sketched on.

The pieces were joined by a cross lap joint that I cut on the table saw with my miter gauge with a guide board fastened to it. I did a test piece first to ensure the joint was tight but not so tight that it would squeeze out the glue when put together.

Lap joint on the table saw.

Dry fitted.

After dry fitting the boards together I was satisfied with the joint so I glued the pieces up and clamped it over night. I sanded the stand with some 220 grit sandpaper and cleaned it up before applying a coat of boiled linseed oil. After letting it set for a few minutes for the oil to soak in, I wiped off the excess with a new, clean, cloth and let it dry for a few hours. I purchased a guitar hook that I mounted to the top of the stand and adjusted the arms to fit the ukulele.

Assembled stand. 

Minimalist design.

With the ukulele.

This was a fun and rather quick project. I think I spent the most time waiting for the glue to dry and then the finish to dry but that just gave me more time to work on other projects in the shop. Stay tuned for those updates in the near future.

Mead Rack

One of my other hobbies is mead making. Mead is just wine made with honey instead of grapes and I can sometimes make quite a bit at a time. Recently I bottled about 12 gallons of various flavors of mead and found I had nowhere to put it all. It came out to 54 bottles and my current rack in the living room only has space for 24 bottles and isn't really in a good area to bottle age the mead. So it was time for a new rack for the basement.

The 'problem.'

I started by drawing a basic rack that I would put together with pocket hole screws and nails. It is eight rectangular frames strung together and the bottles are supported by what are basically cleats. I began my cuts with a stop block mounted to the chop saw for consistency. These board were used for the horizontals and I also cut the vertical parts without the stop block since they were too long.

Stop block in place.

All frame pieces cut.

I used my pocket hole jig to assemble the frames and had the jig attached to my vacuum which kept the work clean. I had sixteen boards to drill four holes in each but this didn't take to long once I had everything set up. I put the frames together using a Kreg clamp to keep the boards flush and used 1.25" coarse thread Kreg screws as is recommended for joining 3/4" material.

Mass producing pocket holes.

Frame assembly.

All eight frames.

The next step was to make the cleats the the bottles would actually lay on. These would span horizontally from the front to the back of each frame. With the amount of wood I had setting around the shop I could only make the frames tall enough for seven rows of bottles. And to fit it in the space between the beams in the basement it could only be seven bottles wide which gives me a 49 bottle rack. With two cleats per bottle that means I needed 98 cleats total. I didn't have any small square stock so I ripped several 1x3 boards on the table saw. I then setup a new stop block on the chop saw to create my 10" long cleats.

Cleat creator.

Frames, cleats, and stringers.

After all this cutting I had all the parts to finish putting the rack together. The end frames only got cleats on the inside but the inner frames needed them on both sides. The first frame acted as my master template and allowed me to position the starting cleat in the same position on all frames. I had also cut 3 1/2" spacers to use to consistently position the remaining cleats. This resulted in the cleats being evenly spaced, parallel, and all in the same positions across the frames. I attached the cleats with finish nails.

Frames with cleats.

I then was ready to tie the frames together with the stringers I had cut earlier. I used the same 3 1/2" spacer blocks to maintain consistent spacing between frames and to ensure they were parallel when I was nailing them to the stringers. I also used a dab of wood glue for added strength on the stringers. The base has two stringers but the top only has one in the back. I left the front open so I could stack the extra bottles on top, at least until I build an extension. If I go any higher I will need to put a stringer on the front so that the weight of the bottles doesn't bow the frames out and cause the rack to fail.

Spacer blocks made everything straight and parallel.

Assembled and ready.

After assembly I moved it to its home in the storage area along the basement wall. It fit between the beams with about 3/8" on either side; perfect! I then filled it up with all of the mead I had bottled the previous Sunday that was just standing on the floor since then. Again, I had 54 bottles but my new rack only holds 49 (all of my spare wood was used) so I stacked the few extra on top. I think once I get a bit of extra wood in the shop again I'll make it a bit taller. I should be able to just build more cleated frames and attach them to this one with either pocket hole screws or dowels. The dowels could be glued on only one side to make it easy to disassemble but I doubt I'll have to move this any time soon.

Already overflowing.