Christmas wine racks

These were from plans in the December issue of Wood magazine. I made ten of them as Christmas gifts (and one wedding gift). I also made three of the wine balancers in the third picture. I used various combinations of red oak (ebonized and not), cherry, quilted maple, and Peruvian walnut. Because I had so many parts to make, I made templates to use with my router, and did multiple pieces at a time by stacking them together with double sided tape. The templates worked out fairly well, but I had to be careful which way I was routing the curves, especially on the maple. As long as I avoided going “uphill” to the grain it didn’t tear out. I have a template bit with bearings on both top and bottom, so that let me change direction without having to move the template to the other side of the workpiece. I think I probably didn’t save myself much time over using an oscillating spindle sander though, except for the fact that I don’t have one.
The first picture shows cherry/maple and oak/cherry. The cherry hasn’t seen much sun yet, so I’m hoping it will eventually darken up a bit and contrast more with the maple. I shellacked and sanded the maple parts to try and bring out the figure a bit. I used garnet shellac but I think next time I’ll get some dye to add to it. It didn’t highlight the figure as much as I’d hoped.
The second picture shows walnut/oak and oak/oak. I ebonized the oak frames by rubbing vinegar with steel wool dissolved in it onto them before attaching the feet and supports. I was initially hoping for a real dark black, but after just one application they were a nice dark brown and I decided to leave them that way.
The third picture shows one of the balancers I made with scraps of maple and thin strips of walnut. The upturned wine rack is to show the design I made with my initials and stamped on the bottom. I cut the design onto a big pencil eraser and used a dye stamp pad to stamp it onto the wood before finishing. I’ve ordered a small branding iron of the same design to use for future projects.
Not shown are the walnut/maple and walnut/cherry wine racks.
They’re all finished with three coats of Vermont Natural Coatings Polywhey finish.
Oh, and in addition to making good worksurface coverings (a tip I saw in a recent issue of This Old House magazine) old roller blinds make passable photo backdrops. Although I could use a wider one I guess.