Wine Rack Expedition #7: The end in sight... yet...

Well Folks, I did what I could today. It was a long day of work and hospital visits so shop time was certainly limited to a few hours late into the night.

I left a bit of a glue mess on my back assembly last night so I paid the price for it today.

Now, that picture was just to show the assembly without clamps, but this one should be better…

and some more….

I had a few pictures of my lady checking my sanding job but they all were too blurry. She walked around it and made sure I didn’t miss any pencil marks or glue spots. I went ahead and finished the back assembly with the BLO.

Now, I had a big internal debate about when to do the last glue up and when to finish. I hate finishing beyond the first coat, so I wanted to make it as easy on myself as possible. I decided to go ahead and glue up the front to back rails on the back side for a couple of reasons. 1. It is easier for me to finish inside and out when I’m not reaching in between rails. 2. If the side rails are attatched to the legs, I don’t have to worry about finding room to suspend them. 3. I wanted to see what it looked like together and finished.
So I glued up the legs to the back…

This time I made for darn sure that all the pegs fit great and the grain was matched up properly.
Just a note, if you have clamps that will mar the surface of your work, some leather patches work well. Make sure the smooth side is against the work or else you might have little rough spots in your finish. I’ve also used these leather pieces to spread the glue, it works great and peels right off later.

Once I finished glue up, I decided to take care of a little problem that everyone always has- glue seepage in corners.

and the solution… a water soaked rag wrapped around a flat head screwdriver.


Now that the back was glued up to the side rails and the rails were finished with BLO, it is time to pretend that the project is finished!!!

I like my selection of wood for the table top back splash and the top decor. I tried to bring just a hint of sapwood into it since the table top has a hint of it too.

Now, not everything is glued up, there needs to be a couple of coats of poly on top of this yet and the table is nowhere near ready with all the inlays to do on it.
But if it were done….

We didn’t have any wine in the house. I could only find 3 glasses too.

sparkling cider does the trick though!

I love the grain on this rail!

So, before I had to crash (and do this blog) I wanted to plane and chisel the butterfly (Dutchman, bow tie..).

I think it looks pretty good! Any gaps are small enough to fill in with sawdust and glue.

I pulled the full assembly into the furnished side of the basement so it can dry in an area a little warmer than the unfinished side.

Next up, lots of poly (or whatever else people convince me to use), lots of work on the table top and inlay. And one more glue up (after the finish). Thanks folks, bye bye for now!

-- Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us; establish the work of our hands- establish the work of our hands! Psalm 90:17