Rifle Rack
#11
I had a shoot this weekend where I had promised to bring an assortment of demo guns and oddities. I had intended to build a portable rifle rack for years, but somehow never got around to it. Figured this would be the motivation I needed to pump out a one-day project. All went well until I decided to try my hand at hand-cutting mortise and tenon joints, then it turned into a tragi-comic misadventure of mismeasurement, mistakes, and cutting dutchmen. Also at one point, I am pretty sure every piece had an unanticipated trip to the shop floor. But I learned a lot in the process of making it and fixing the mistakes, and it served my purposes perfectly, despite not having been built perfectly. Walnut and Rock Maple:

[Image: walnutrack03.JPG]

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[Image: walnutrack01.JPG]

The little shelf on one side is a riser for short rifles, and is held in just by gravity. Worked pretty well, and more stable than I would have initially thought.

In use:


[Image: walnutrack06.JPG]

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Math is tough. Let's go shopping!
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#12
Wow that looks awesome!

It really complements the rifles. Or the other way around.
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#13
Johnny, love the walnut and maple combo.

Big Grin
Jim in Okie
You can tell a lot about the character of a man -
By the way he treats those who can do nothing for him.
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#14
Looks dayam good to me! Would be a week project for me!
Waiting to grow up beyond being just a member
www.metaltech-pm.com
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#15
It looks great. Classic wood combo.
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#16
I do like the way that turned out. I've had one on my build list for a very long time (not nearly as elaborate as yours), maybe it's time to get 'er done.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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#17
Nice job on the rack. I was expecting to see a lot of hunting rifles, but then I see you are into area defense weapons. Home defense at its finest.
Still Learning,

Allan Hill
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#18
Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

(07-16-2019, 11:25 PM)BrokenOlMarine Wrote: Johnny, love the walnut and maple combo.

Big Grin

Great minds have similar taste in contrasting wood, my friend!

(07-17-2019, 04:52 AM)Tony Z Wrote: Looks dayam good to me! Would be a week project for me!

It ended up being about a week-long project for me, too. I got 90% of it done in 12 hours on a Sunday. The only thing left was to attach the slip rails to the back of the stiles to give it a little more rigidity. If I had just pegged them, I would have been all done but for the finish in one day. But instead, I decided to hand-cut my first mortises ever. The rails have two tenons on the ends, and two mortises for floating tenons along the long edge. So eight handcut mortises. On Monday night, I cut two of them with varying degrees of success, and then cut a third one that was absolutely beautiful, until I realized I had cut it on the wrong side of my scribe line. On Tuesday night, I cut a dutchman for it, and this time marked both sides of my scribe line for the remaining mortises.
[Image: walnutrackdutchman03.JPG]
[Image: walnutrackdutchman07.JPG]

On Wednesday night, I planed the dutchman down and filled the visible seams with sawdust and glue. It was the inside corner, mostly covered by the tenon shoulders, and I took a moment of pride that I had salvaged a bad situation with a reasonably discrete fix. Now that I had marked all of my mortises clearly, I knew the rest would be easy sailing. I started cutting mortises again, and noticed they were going a lot cleaner and faster now that I had marked them out completely and had a bit of practice. So clean and fast that I cut a mortise that I had perfectly marked on the wrong side of the board:
[Image: walnutrackdutchman08.JPG]
[Image: walnutrackdutchman09.JPG]

On Thursday night, I had a Cub Scout function. So Friday night, I cut another dutchman. On Saturday morning, I did assembly and glue. Saturday evening, I put two coats of Watco Danish on it, because it was the only finish I was reasonably sure would dry by Sunday morning when I put it in use. So my 12 hour, one day project turned into an 18 hour week long debacle that finished at the last possible minute.
Math is tough. Let's go shopping!
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#19
Very nice and a good design. I have to be a bit jealous, however. As I am in NJ, the mere possession of most of the pieces in the pic would end me up in jail..... especially the supressors. Plus, now we are limited to 10 round magazines.
Credo Elvem ipsum etiam vivere
Non impediti ratione cogitationis
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#20
Smart design.  I built one for my neighbor several years ago.  It was one sided. He received so many comments at the range he wanted to produce them at the amazing price of $99.  He said "WEEE" will make a killing!"  I said no thank you.
"I tried being reasonable..........I didn't like it." Clint Eastwood
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