Building a MULTI Guitar Rack from Dowels - PLANS and TEMPLATE available!

time for a project that i've been pushing off for quite a while so i have a few guitars but none of them really have a home they're kind of just scattered around my house in random places so i decided it's finally time to build a home for them and build a guitar rack so as far as design goes i want it to look like a piece of furniture that's in my house and i want it to be fairly sleek and modern looking so i thought it would be really cool to make the whole thing out of dowels and as you can see from this drawing it's fairly simple this would be a very easy project except for this one area where the dowels meet at an angle so i have an idea of how i'm going to make this whole thing work but not quite sure how it's going to go yet so let's get into it this project doesn't require too much lumber so i'm just going to try to use what i have on hand and it seems like i have the most white oak here that would make for good dowels all right i think that this is more than enough to make the dowels for this and just a note i'm making my own dowels but you can totally make this by buying pre-made dowels i do think that it's easier though to cut all the joinery in the pieces when they're square and then to turn them into dowels later so oh this is not white oak this is ash one second this is white oak so now based on this material i couldn't figure out what size dowels i can possibly make from these i also have to keep in mind the size round over bits that i have because this is how i'm going to turn these into dowels i don't have a lathe i do this on the router table so it all depends on the size roundover bit that i have before turning these into dowels i first need to make everything square so to do this i first plane them to thickness at the planer and then i used a straight edge double side tape to the piece to make one edge square and then flip that piece over to make an opposite edge square but i went a little bit oversized here so that i can finally bring the pieces back to the planer to get them all squared up around all four sides and it's nice and even so remember that big piece of white oak that i took out to replace the ash earlier so instead of having to cut into that i ended up finding some scraps that were from a storage bench they just had this curve on the end of them that i chopped off and now i have all the pieces ready to become dowels turning this square stock into towels is pretty simple by using a round over bit on all four sides just do some test cuts on the end and adjust the fence and bit height until the end is round once set up correctly just run the material through all four edges the only trick here is to pick the right size round over bit the bit needs to be half the diameter of the desired dowel you want in the end so the radius of the circle that you want in this case i wanted a one inch dowel so i used a half inch radius round over a bit and boom just like that you have perfect dowels i didn't need to do any joinery on those one-inch dowels but the next set i do i'm going to use more dowels as the method of joinery for these so i want to make sure that the hole is perfectly centered on the end grain before it's round this is really easy to do with a center finding jig like i'm using here and i'm also going to be cutting a super steep angle on these later so these holes need to be drilled out pretty deep these are going to be inch and a quarter dowels half of that is 5 8 so that's a lot of material to remove in one pass so this time i set up an auxiliary fence so i can make incremental adjustments as i go and not disrupt my workflow by stopping and measuring i have a whole separate video on this but basically you set the fence to your desired location and then add spacers behind it then you turn on your router and make passes around all four sides which will remove very little material then you take out spacers as you go and run your material every time you take out a spacer the last spacer is really small 16 inch thick so that last and final pass will be really small with no tear out or chatter and just like that i have inch and a quarter dowels moving on to the last set of dowels the base pieces these are going to require the most prep before turning them into dowels i figured that nine inches was going to be good spacing for the bottom stretchers that are going to hold the guitars and marked out those centers this would have been a lot more difficult to lay out on a round dowel doable but more difficult drilling out the holes would also be more difficult you can use a v-groove holder at the drill press or a center fronting jig with a hand drill but those typically only go up to half inch and this is a one inch hole now based on those holes that are for the stretchers i marked out hole locations for the legs the first one is a simple straightforward 90 degree hole that will hold the back leg the second hole for the front angled leg was just a bit more challenging i tilted the drill press table to 20 degrees and clamped a sacrificial board onto the drill press table i wanted to make sure that the angled hole for the leg was going to intersect with the hole for the stretcher so i just eyeballed it and marked on the sacrificial table where to line up the piece then i use double-sided tape to add fences on that table to make sure that the holes on both pieces are going to be in the exact same place after all those holes were drilled i could turn those base pieces into dowels these are inch and three quarter dowels which means i had to use a 7 8 radius round over bit because that's so much material i use the auxiliary fence system again to take incremental passes quickly and efficiently all right so when i mocked this up on the computer i thought that i was going to be able to make two inch dowels but i didn't have material that was thick enough to make two inch showers so these are an inch and three quarters and what i didn't take into account was how close these holes were going to be next to each other when removing all that material that's a little bit too close for comfort for me as i was routing was very scared that i was going to route all of that away it's like just barely hanging on there but i still think that it's going to be fine because there's going to be strength for this thing coming from other joinery stuff that i'm going to be doing that was a little bit scary moving on i sanded all the dowels and made sure they fit in the hole so i can prep the rest of the joinery first up the angled joint at the top of the legs i used a bevel gauge to get the exact angle the dowel was seated at which was about 20 degrees and adjusted the miter saw accordingly since i'm going to be cutting the round dowel at the miter saw i needed to make a holder for it so it doesn't roll around just two quick passes on a 2x4 at the table saw with the blade tilted to 45 degrees to make a v groove down the center that the dowel can sit in i took that holder and cut one end at the 20 degree angle i set earlier then adjusted the saw back to zero i quickly tacked a fence on that angled part of the holder and clamped the whole thing to my miter saw fence place the dowel in the holder and cut off the end what this is actually doing here is cutting a 70 degree angle a degree that my miter saw can't normally cut so basically i'm holding the dowel at a 20 degree angle and the saw is cutting a 90 degree angle so the result is a 70 degree angle because 90 minus 20 equals 70. okay so in order for that angled cut to sit flush with the mating dowel the inside of it needs to be the same rounded shape as the dowel i figured i could just use some sticky backed sandpaper on a dowel of the same diameter and just sand it to shape while this did work it took for ever on the second one i realized i can save time by using some carving tools first to get rid of the bulk of the material before finally sanding in the rest of the curve so that was a lot of sanding to get this shape in there and it's not even perfect like there is slight gapage in there and it's because i use the exact size dowel that i wanted to put in there and then added the sandpaper on top of that so that added some thickness to it so what i should have done was use the dowel that was slightly smaller than what i actually needed then put the sandpaper on top and then maybe that would have fit better also as i was doing it i was thinking maybe i could have like built some sort of jig where i held this like straight up on something and then used a drill press to drill into it like this using a forstner bit or a hole saw or something like that maybe that would have been a good idea i'm not going to do that and try it with this because i don't want to lose any more length to this piece but i think that's definitely something to experiment with in the future to join these dowels i made another dowel using a dowel plate the next problem i needed to solve was how to drill the matching angled hole into that upright dowel for the joinery so i took the cutoff from the 70 degree cut i made earlier sanded a slight curve on the inside of it so that it can register around a curved shape flattened out the top at the sander and then glued on another piece that made up the rest of the angle so that i had a parallel surface for clamping this kind of looks like a custom pocket hole jig in a way so the hole for the dowel is perfectly centered and it's also at the exact angle that i need because it's directly referencing the angled cut from the other piece cool all right this is my dry fit by the way before any glue is in here this is really strong and really solid so kind of excited about that it's going to be a little bit too strong ugh finally okay anyway that's right fit definitely convinced me that these legs were going to be super strong i just added glue to the dowels for the angled joint up top put some glue in the base and tapped everything into place repeated to the next side and set them off to dry the next day i took a one inch forstner bit and used the hole previously drilled in the base pieces as a guide to drill into the leg pieces and this will create a flat spot for the dowels to rest in within the joint then using the center point the forstner bit made in the hole i can make another smaller half inch hole for some more joinery and added strength with tenons from the cross pieces to make these tenons on the end of the round dowel i put a spiral bit in the router table set up a stop block so that's in line with the end of the half inch bit so that i know i'm only making a half inch long tenon and then i set the height of the bit to half the thickness of what i want to remove so these are one inch dowels and i want a half inch thick tenon so i set the bit height to quarter inch high okay that makes sense i think then i just pushed the dowel along the fence making sure that it was really tight against the fence and rotated it until the dowel is formed and this always stops at that stop block that i put at the out feed so that all the tenons are the exact same size cool these pieces are now ready for glue up i love how easy this was to do and even better i love how much stronger this is going to be because of those tenons all right time for the top rack portion of this so i did a bunch of testing and cut out a bunch of different shapes played around with it and just tested it on my existing guitars finally landed on this shape here which i designed on the computer and then i cut out on the origin so then i thought i was going to cut out the whole shape of this using the origin but then i got to thinking and thought wouldn't it be cool if i can offer you guys some templates to purchase if you want to make a guitar rack like this so here's how this works so the template comes in two separate pieces that you just have to connect using this dovetail joint that's already put into here the best way to do this is to find the flattest surface that you have in your shop and then just press it down into place it is a super tight joint and it's not going to go anywhere when you do this you only want to do this one time you don't want to keep having to separate this this is just a one-time thing that you're putting this together if you start taking it apart and putting it back together this is going to loosen up and then it won't be a tight fitting joint and if you're going to be making multiple racks it might be a good idea to make another template out of mdf just in case you ruin this one but for now i'm not going to do that i'll just place this roughly in the center of the board and trace out all of those holders what's cool about this template is how customizable it is so you could do as many or as little holders as you want you can only do three or you could do 10 by then just continuing going down the line and like overlapping it so it's pretty cool and i also figured that most of you will not want to build this dowel guitar rack it's a little bit personal to my taste so i decided to draw up these plans for a super simple guitar rack that anybody could build with butt joints and screws but i also figured that some people might want to be a little bit more advanced than that so i added some options to do more advanced things like different methods of joinery changing some subtle shapes on some of the pieces maybe then also adding in some angles or changing some of the dimensions on some of the pieces which i think would be really cool all of that the plans and the template are going to be on my website which is linked in the description box down below since this piece was just a bit long for me to cut with my band saw i used my jigsaw to roughly cut out all the shapes now to make all these cuts perfect all you need to do is use double-sided tape on the template put it on your work piece and then use a flush trim bit to get all of these holes perfectly clean and perfectly spaced apart for all of your guitars now the particular bit that i'm using has a bearing at the tip of the bit so i'm going to have to place the work piece so that the template is at the bottom but you might have a bit with the bearing that's at the other end so you adjust flip it over and have the template at the top one more thing to note about the template just be careful when taking it off because of this joint here so if you make a hard copy out of this one you don't have to worry about that but just something to be aware of when taking it off all good i thought the rack looked a little wide so i trimmed it a bit at the table saw since the upright legs that will poke through the top are at an angle i needed to drill a hole in the top at an angle at the same angle so i used a drill press that was set to 20 degrees already and i drilled a hole in a scrap piece of plywood clamped it to the top rack which acted as a guide for the correct angle to drill at now i don't know if you guys can tell but it's literally 100 degrees outside today which means it's 100 degrees in my shop and just because it's hot outside doesn't mean i can skimp on safety so i've been wearing these six inch composito work boots from ariat i mentioned the heat because i wanted to point out how lightweight these boots are a lot of other work boots i've worn in the past were just too heavy for me to wear in the summertime and the composite toe on these boots makes them really lightweight and easy for me to wear all year round as you can tell by the stains all over them they are well used and loved staying cool in my uninsulated shop in the summertime has always been a problem for me but i just found out that ariat makes workwear that's designed to keep you cool during the hottest days check this out they have work shirts that are loaded with features like moisture wicking and ventilation the material choices are also really thoughtful these heat fighter shirts are made of lightweight mesh to keep you cool and dry on the hottest days so if you want to try out some awesome area work gear that's going to help you stay cool this summer check out the link in the description box down below and you could save 10 on your first order i know i'm definitely going to need some more this summer all right moving on the ends of the top rack were too square they needed to be rounded to match the rest of the design so i made a quick template using my six in one trim router jig rough cut the ends with a jigsaw and then trim them nice and clean with a flush trim bit okay one last feature i thought it would be really cool to add a holder for picks on the top rack so i designed a shape on the computer that looked like a pick and then brought it into the shaper origin i then made a grid based on the edges of the work piece and i could accurately place the shape in the center of the top cool first i cut out a shape with a regular straight bit until i got to the depth that i wanted and then swapped out for a bowl carving or a dish carving bit and set an offset so it would only cut on that inside of the cut and i kept plunging until the sides were nice and smooth the top rack just needs a small little round over on all the edges and obviously a ton of sanding but before i can attach it to the base i cut off the excess from the legs to make sure the whole thing would be nice and flat i just used a straight line on a scrap as a reference for where to make these cuts before assembling the legs i cut off the tip of the angled pieces and this is going to act as a positive stop for the top rack all i need to do is glue it on cut off the excess leg pieces put on some cork on all the inside curves to protect my guitars and prevent them from shifting and moving around throw on some finish and it's done time to load it up here's my first guitar i ever got when i was 16 the guitar i stole from my brother and he's probably finding this out right now the strap my husband bought me for my birthday when we first got married the first guitar i ever made well kit guitar the ocean guitar made for my son and there is room for one more not only do my guitars have a place now my picks have a home this is very exciting this design was a total experiment i'd say it's a good prototype but i'm not totally happy with the execution the angled dowel joint needs some tweaking to make it more seamless otherwise i really love how this looks but i think my favorite feature is the pick holder i'm kind of obsessed with it the dowel look is also super cool making the tenon on the end was so easy and i definitely plan on implementing that more in my future builds thanks again to woodcraft and ariat for sponsoring this video and thank you guys so much for watching i'll see you on the next one [Music] say it again [Music]

Channel: 3x3Custom - Tamar

Views: 56,421

Keywords: guitar stand, guitar rack, diy guitar, diy guitar stand, do it yourself builds, guitar stand plans, diy projects, wooden guitar stand, guitar stand build, electric guitar stand, instrument rack, multi guitar stand, guitar rack diy, guitar rack build, woman woodworker, woodworking, dowel joinery, template, woodworking plans

Id: 2nDvivzCIFs

Length: 20min 32sec (1232 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021