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November 18, 2002

The entryway of our new house is a little room between the back door and the kitchen; much too small for my old boot bench. I am going to build a vertical rack with four or possibly five compartments, that will fit into a corner of the mudroom. This is going to be my first frame-and-panel project; I am building it of quarter-sawn white oak for its stability and resistance to moisture, and I'll finish it with spar varnish.

December 19, 2002

I have been dimensioning the four stiles for a couple of nights now, and tonight I started cutting mortises in them.

March 11, 2003

This is definitely the longest lasting project I have done so far! A bit of delay has resulted from the fact that in the middle of cutting the mortises and tenons (i.e. after I had one side almost finished) I decided to stop what I was doing and redesign.

The principal motivation was that the joints I was making had no strength or stability. What I ended up doing was deciding to buy a bandsaw and drill press to help speed my work along; making the rails and stiles wider and the tenons thicker; and abandoning the idea of frame-and-panel construction. The rack is now going to be an open frame (although the back may have a panel, I'm not sure.) I've finished the joinery for the two sides and they look pretty good. I took some pictures and created a joinery page.