Building Project: Blanket Rack

I live in the northeastern United States and we have all the seasons with all the temperature variations and weather that come with that. I wouldn’t have it any other way. We tend to keep the house cool in the evenings all year round and if we’re watching TV or reading we have blankets to adjust our personal temperature. In the last few years my beautiful and talented wife has taken up weaving as well as spinning and dying wool and other fibers. She wove both of the blankets in the picture above and she spun and dyed all the wool for the one in the foreground.

One small problem with blankets is that they tend to slither onto the floor if you’re not using them. So, I decided to build a blanket rack to hold them and to display them in the off season. I did some research on various styles of blanket rack and decided on this design which is a hybrid of things I liked about several that I saw. I made a scale drawing before I got started…

As usual the drawing is more of a guide than a blueprint… The material is two layers of 1/2” sanded pine plywood that I had left over from another project. I glued up the blanks rough side to rough side to make 1” pine plywood that had two sanded knot free sides. The glue-up came out great and I have become smart enough to make the blanks larger in all dimensions so I could true the edges up on the table or miter saw.

A hero tool on this build was the sanding station with a 50 grit belt on it, I was able to tape the two ends together and rough cut the curve at the top on the band saw and then just sand curve to the final shape with the sanding station.

The second hero was my new Bosch Colt 1 HP Variable-Speed Palm Router which saved the cutting of the openings in the ends. I had originally tried to use a jigsaw, but the blade immediately wandered, bent and mangled the cut… I ended up cutting them out with the Palm Router and multiple passes with a 1/4” straight cutting bit. I had to cut out the mangled section, glue in a replacement piece from an offcut of the material and then fill and sand it… I also rounded over all of the edges with the Palm Router and that did a fantastic job as well. I really like this router, it is much easier to control than the big beast that I got for the router table.

I got some practice fixing/hiding my fuck-ups and I’m happy with where it came out, I was able to patch fill and sand the mistake so that unless you know where to look you can’t really detect it. I painted the stand with a latex super primer and a semi-gloss white latex finish coat. All in all the rack works well and I’m happy with how it looks.

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Building Project: Weaving work bag stand

My lovely wife Dana has taken up weaving and now spinning. Both activities require having a bunch of small tools and supplies near at hand. Dana came up with the idea of a collapsible work bag/work table that could sit next to her when she was working and then be closed up for storage. She asked me to make it for her and using some measurements from things that she was already improvising to do this I made a measured drawing to figure out the design.

I had some nice 1/2” cabinet grade maple plywood scraps from the cabinet project so I was able to create a chipboard template for the legs and trace them onto the scrap. I had a nice length of 1” dowel that was long enough to make the handles and pivots. I had also just bought a set of Forstner bits and had a 1” one already.

I cut out the legs on the band saw and they came out perfectly. I cleaned up the notches for the stretcher and drilled the through holes and partial holes for the handles and pivots. I clamped my belt sander in the vice and used it to do the rough sanding and knock off the edges, I’m still learning finesse with power sanders but it is getting better. I did the finish sanding with my palm sander and applied a nice wax finish to all of the wood. I assembled the frame with small screws and wood glue. I’m thinking I need a brad nailer because even the smallest screws are a risk for splitting thin material like this especially into the end grain.

Dana made a cool bag out of the top of a pair of recycled jeans from the collection of fabric she keeps for projects. She also made a canvas platform to provide a removable table top for holding tools handy. I created a simple hook on the band saw that rotates on the handle and keeps the bag closed when it is stored.

All in all I think it came out pretty well.