Monthly Archives: April 2017

Bicycles, Woodworking

Bike Rack Build 3rd and Final – Install

Oh sweet satisfaction. Finally I get to wrap this project up. Things went smoothly, but of course there were some last minute changes to get everything nice and secure.

The first notable change, which I really should have expected, was a serious case of shrinkage. I bought the green doug fir lumber about 3 weeks prior to the install date. Over those week, while carving and staining, the wood shrank noticeably. When I carved out the recesses for the lap joint the two pieces fit together snugly, requiring some gentle tapping to get the pieces set into each other. By the time I was ready to install, the joint had a quarter inch of clearance on all sides.

I was a little disappointed by this at first,  but it was really a blessing in disguise. The shrinkage allowed a little bit of wiggle room to make sure everything got set up nice and level. 

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Bicycles, Design, Woodworking

Bike Rack Build 2 – Finishing

Sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding. So much sanding to take these rough cuts of dimensional lumber down to a finish to be proud of. Moderately proud of, anyways. I’m not going for a high gloss, pristine mirror finish. I’ll be sticking to some simple poly stain to compliment the colors of the ceiling beams in my apartment. A natural color for the drop, and a dark cross beam.

The green doug fir 2x’s that I bought were definitely rough. I started off with my random orbital sander with 80 grit sand paper. After a thorough twice-over with that I moved to 120 grit, then to 220. At this point the wood was nice and smooth, but I was done for the day. The stain would have to wait.

The orbital sander makes quick work of the sanding, but isn’t the best choice when applying the stain. As a last step before the stain I used a sanding block with 240 grit sand paper and went over everything one more time, sanding with the direction of the grain. I doubt I got all of the swirls from the orbital sander out of the wood, but I didn’t notice many by the time I was done.

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Bicycles, CAD, Carving, Woodworking

Bike Rack Build – Construction

Content with the CAD model I had drawn up I set to work on actually making it. Step one was to find the materials. I was hoping to make this out of red cedar, like I used on my guitar rack, but Lowe’s didn’t carry any 2×12 red cedar. The only thing available in 2×12 was green douglas fir.

Fortunately, this is also about the cheapest option in the store. I picked out an 8 foot length of 2×12 and 2×6, doing my best to find consistent grain and minimal knots, and headed to the shop.

The first step is getting an overall picture of how much wood would need to be trimmed off. I only had about 8″ of extra length on the 2×6, so I didn’t have much choice laying out the hole patterns. However, I did still have some options with orientation and used the opportunity to cut off the worst of the ends.

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