The first time I rode a bike. The first time I drove. My first date. The first night I spent away from home at college.

You really never forget your first time doing something memorable. And, yes, I am about to experience a new first.. my first 2 x 4 contest with the St. Petersburg Woodcrafter’s Guild.

I know. “Tom,” you must be thinking,”How on Earth are you going to contain your excitement?”  Easy there, Sparky. It’s a big deal, but not a life changer.

The real challenge with a 2 x 4 contest is coming up with something inspired. I mean, there’s only so much inspiration you can get from looking at an eight foot long piece of construction lumber. Well, maybe you can envision a room being studded out in your home… but a furniture project?  Hmm….

So, I tottered over to the local big blue home improvement center and saw the stack of  2 x 4s to pick from. They all seemed to look the same to me.

But, just as all the dogs look the same at first glance when you go to the kennel to get a new pet, a little bit of looking around will help you find the differences between the tail-wagging future four legged friends. After sifting through the pile, I found one that caught my eye. Very straight, just a few knots and not containing the pith of the tree.

OK, this one looks nice. Into the car with you!

Now, to think up a little inspiration… think.. think…think… A quick internet search shows some clever ideas out there floating around, and each of them is positively imaginative. Tables. Toolboxes. Toys. And boxes. Lots and lots of boxes.

Wait a minute. What about a little box?  Maybe built with a technique I haven’t yet tried before? A small box built like a pirate’s chest.. with a domed lid.  I mean, even if the thing falls flat on its face, I am only out the $2.50 I spent on one stud. A few minutes with some pencil and paper and voila…

I can see this thing with some dovetailed sides, a coopered top and an inset bottom.  Maybe I can even cut a fakie keyhole in the front to look like a lock goes there.  I know if I am going to build this, I had better get a jump on the building.. since the meeting is June 25 – giving me a little less than a week to work on it.

Guess I know what I will be working on this weekend!

So, as you know, I’m friends with a guy named Bob. Not only is Bob a great public information officer, he also loves wine.

Yeah, you can say that Bob is a wine kinda guy. So, when he asked me to build a wine glass holder for his family’s collection of stemware, you knew I was all over it.  Working with some rough dimensions, I decided that I was going to build the piece with some gorgeous soft maple I had gotten from my friends over at Bell Forest Products. This stuff is beautiful, but I ran into a problem. At 8/4, there was no way I was going to rip this stuff on my contractor’s saw. I would push the board a few inches, and I could stop the blade.

So, I had to do a little work around.. I turned to my Laguna band saw to do the ripping. Now, I’m not going to say that I have that saw tuned to the nth degree, but it was more than capable of ripping the boards with minimal drift. A few passes with a hand plane and a few runs through the thickness planer, and I had the pieces cut and ready to go.

For the frame, I decided to go with a half-lap joint at the corners. 

I figured this would be a tight joint that – if properly fitted and arranged – could provide a lot of strength. It was an easy one to cut on the table saw with some stops. Yes, the table saw could handle this shorter crosscut…  Once I had it cut to size and ensured the joints were snug, I glued them up and tapped them into place with my mallet. A few clamps while the pieces set was all that was needed…

Once I got the frame done, I had to start thinking about how the wine glasses were going to stay in the rack. I puzzled with the idea for a while, until I hit on something… What if I created a rib with a t-shaped profile that could be attached to the frame, but would give a lot of support to the glass base?  So, I hit on this idea…

The top of the rib is a piece of 3/4″ maple plywood ripped to 3/4″ . It is glued down and bradded to the top of a 2 inch wide maple slat. Properly spaced, these would allow enough room for the glasses to be raised into place and slid forward onto two adjacent slats.  This is what the top looks like:

Those ribs are pocket screwed fore and aft into the long rails of the frame, and a stabilizing bar of maple is glued and screwed into each of the ribs to ensure they wouldn’t rotate in use, and to help spread the load of the weight of the glasses. While this isn’t the pretty side to look at, the underneath looks pretty streamlined:

Remember when I said that the wood looked good when I jointed it? After some sanding and a quick wipe with some mineral spirits, well, it looks AWESOME.  Tiger throughout…

I realize all of this talk about up and down can be confusing with this piece on the bench.  What exactly will you be seeing from the ground? Well, I decided to hold it up in the right orientation to give you a better look at it.

No, the unshaven woodworker will not be holding the rack in its final position. It will be held up with some type of cable or chain attached to the ceiling. But, as you can see with the one wine glass in the holder, it seems to be working as advertised.  Now, just a little more sanding and a coat of finish, and I hope to deliver this to Bob this coming weekend. Look for some complete pictures soon…

After we toast to the wine glass rack!