With everything milled, the Dominos cut and the tile recesses made, it was time for the initial glue up. I glued up the four (4) side of box which forms the rear glue stick storage compartment. Then I glued the extra long walnut side and rear ebony block to it.
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| Still a bit too square for my taste. |
Next I began the shaping, as I wanted to make sure I was able to work the edge I would no longer be able to reach after final glue up. The shaping was, of course, the hard and the fun part of the project. It was the first project I was able to use my Foredom rotary tool on. Using a Kutzall bit, it made quick work of the walnut and ebony. I still used my rasps for final shaping, but the Foredom was much, much faster for the rough work.
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| The glue stick caddy, post shaping. |
Once I’d done about 70% of the shaping, I glued the sub assemblies to the base. As you may have guesses, I joined everything with Dominos. This made for easy, quick and strong joints between the vertical components and the base.
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| Flaring the curved verticals into the base was easy. |
The final shaping could now be done. I used my Festool RAS 115 to blend the shaped side of the base into the shaped side of the verticals. I learned from Andy Chidwick that using a hard platen on the RAS 115 with a 40 grit sanding disc allows you to use the sander like a grinder with better dust control and more finesse. As I had with the Foredom, I followed up the RAS 115 with rasps.With the shaping done, I dealt with the small gap that was left between the ebony and walnut on the front piece. The glue up hadnt been perfect and there was about a 1/16” gap at the top of the joint. To fill it I dyed some 5 minute epoxy with India Ink. This created Epoxy almost the exact color of the ebony.
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| Just a touch of black epoxy made the gap disappear (I know I messed up the order). |
After the shaping, I had to deal with the coarse texture.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
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This project began many months ago when my wife, a crafter, pinned this glue gun rack to one of her Pinterest boards. When I saw it I figured it would be easy to make and improve upon, so I re-pinned it to my Neat Things Carolyn Would Like Me To Build board.
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| The pin that started it the odyssey. |
Fast forward a few weeks from my initially seeing it and after a particularly rough day at work I declared that I would need some time alone to unwind and headed to the shop. That’s when I set to building my version of the glue gun rack.
I decided that the the glue gun rack I built would be an experiment in sculpted design. Specifically, I wanted to juxtapose a rigid, rectilinear design on two (2) edges, while creating a flowing, sculpted surface on the other two (2).
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| Starting on the rack. |
I made the glue gun rack from some scraps of Walnut and Ebony I had on hand. As with any process, it began by milling the lumber flat and square. Then I did my basic layout.
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| Figuring out where things will go. |
First, I glued the Ebony to a piece of Walnut to make a large billet. Then I used my Domino to make the mortises in all the pieces.
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| Dominos anyone? |
With the joinery done, I marked out the basic shapes on each piece, and rough cut them on my band saw.
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| Rough shaping prior to assembly. |
The final step before glue up was to recesses out for the glass tile the tip of the glue gun rests on. To do this, I used my small DeWalt trim router with an 1/8” spiral upcut bit and the plunge base. I routed freehand to within about 1/8” of the line and then cleaned up the edge with my chisels.Next time, well glue up and begin shaping.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
After shaping with power tools and rasps, the glue gun rack was left with a very coarse surface. I struggled with this surface for a while. I tried random orbit sanders. They didn’t work. The sculpted surface was too irregular and the pads didn’t rotate properly. I tried hand sanding. This was too much like work. |
| Not the smoothed finish right off the grinder. |
Thankfully, Paul Lemiski of Canadian Woodworks came to the rescue with his recommendation of using my Rotex with 60 grit paper in Rotex mode set to speed 1. It took the rasp marks off better and quicker than any other method I’d tried. |
| The work horses of my sanding regimen. |
Once the surfaces were smooth, I sanded it up to 220 using a combination of my RO 90 and sanding pads.
With the final shaping and sanding done, it was now time for finish. Rather than shellac - which has become my go to finish as of late - I used General Finishes Arm-R-Seal and the method explained in The Wood Whisperer’s Simple Varnish Finish DVD. I used gloss for the first two (2) coats and semi-gloss for the third. I sanded between coats with 00 synthetic steel wool and the final coat with 0000 synthetic steel wool. This left a warm and deep tone to the Walunut.
The last step was to insert the tile. To do this I squeezed a bit of silicone marine adhesive on the back of the tile and pressed it into the recesses I’d made before the glue gun rack was assembled. After spending a night under a clamp, it was done.
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| Just waiting for the glue to dry. |
I presented it to my wife as a gift on our 11th anniversary. She’s taken to using it, and the desk and rug are now glue free. |
| The finished Glue Gun Rack (poorly photographed). |
Additional:
Glue Gun Rack Photos
Glue Gun Rack Posts
Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
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