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I spent some time last weekend drilling.  I'd decided to fix the sides of my shoe rack onto the front and back rails using these barrel nuts:

...well, not those exact ones, but you get the idea.  Real joiners and woodwork buffs will be turning their noses up at this point since fixing stuff together with bolts is cheating.  Well it turned out that this approach was probably harder than the glueing and dowelling but it did allow for some adjustment - and will it'll be super strong in the directions that will probably experience the most stress as the thing gets dragged about in use.

The barrel nut and bolt approach seemed to require me to drill nice accurate, 90 degree, super-straight, super-central holes.  I mentioned last time that I didn't have a drill press so my solution was to set the pieces up as straight and level as I could in my 'bench' and use the little round spirit level thing on the end of my Argos drill:

That seemed like a good approach but when I tried to get things to fit, they didn't.  I'd drilled 10 mm holes for the 10 mm cylindrical nuts but they were too snug and too shallow.  It took some effort and ingenuity to get the nut back out!  10 mm is the biggest brad-point wood bit I've got and the next size up from that is my 15 mm forstner bit - so obviously I had to try widening the holes with an 11 mm general-purpose HSS bit - and it made a right mess.  Afrer I tore out a nice big gob of wood out on one of the pieces, I decided that I'd had enough for the day.  Sometimes you just have to know when your patience is wearing thin and it's best to stop before turning your project into a complete sodding disaster...

A couple of days later I had another look at the situation during my lunch break (beween sessions, slaving over a hot computer) and I decided I could widen the holes for the nuts to 11 mm fairly succesfully without making too much more mess.  For the nuts to be central in their holes, I needed to drill through pretty much the full width of the rail but just stopping before breaking through the other side - using my finger to feel the bit starting to jiggle under the surface!  It's amazing the difference it makes coming back to what seemed like such a hard problem but with a fresh head this time.  I also decided I needed to enlarge the 5 mm right-angle holes for the bolts to 6 mm to allow a bit more adjustment and wiggle room.

I cracked on with this on the following Saturday until all the holes in the rails were reamed out to my satisfaction and I was ready to try fitting stuff together.  It was really fiddly trying to get all the dowels to all go in and I noticed some of my 15 mm holes were not deep enough with the result that the selves would be pushed out too wide.  More on that later.

Earlier in the week, I'd invested in a sander as I thought that'd be handy - and I like buying stuff with wires.  I (wisely) tried out my new random-orbit sander on a piece of scrap - and instantly knew I'd bought the wrong bit of kit!  That thing would have reduced my project to sawdust in no time.  However, I did still find a use for it:

Clamping the handle as shown, I was able to assemble a poor-man's sanding station which enabled me to very quicky chamfer the ends of all the dowels to make them easier to locate in thier holes.  It could have also enabled me to quickly lose a few fingertips too if it'd have come loose.  So don't try this at home kids, I'm a trained idiot.  I did at least wear eye protection.

Holes endeepened and dowels chamfered, I just needed to make some holes for the bolts in the side pieces to correspond with the bolt holes in the rails.  When I said earlier that I didn't have a drill press, I sort of lied.  I have one of these sort of toy drill presses you can fit your Dremmel tool into:

The biggest bit I can fit in my Dremmel is 5 mm - just big enough for this - and not much else. It made some very nice, straight holes so I think I need to get me a proper one...

Now I'm ready for the final (ish) assembly.  It was a bit fiddly but it went together much better than I expected.  Here's a close-up of one of the joints, showing one of the chewed-out holes (one of the better-looking ones) with its barrel nut nestling inside:

The final task was adding some castors to the bottom.  I just drilled some 9 mm holes and the M 10 thread of the castor just self-tapped its way nicely into the wood.

So here it is, in all its glory:

Acually, I lied about the castors being the final task.  I still need to sand it down (manually!) and paint on some wax finish.

It's not entirely perfect and the bolts aren't real joinery but all in all I'm pretty happy with it.

:o)

Why am I doing this?

Elspeth (my lovely wife) remarked lately that the shoes on the kitchen floor were getting a bit out of hand and we wondered if we needed another shoe rack like the plastic affair we have in the front porch.  That idea was quickly followed by my resolution to build a wooden one.  I don't do a lot of woodwork because my past attempts have met with mixed success.  My dad was once a joiner and when I was little I was fairly in awe of his Jedi-like wood skills.  To some extent I think I naturally assumed I would somehow inherit these skills, perhaps genetically, and would demonstrate my own mastery without putting in the required effort.  Needless to say it doesn't work that way!  Anyway, this time I have an electric, circular mitre saw to help make neat cuts and a determination to take the time I need and not rush things as I'm prone to do.

So, off to Wickes to buy a load of wood.  I'm using 34mm square planed timber for the frame and lengths of Ø15mm dowel for creating the shelves.  I tell you what though, it might grow on trees but it's not cheap that stuff!  I reckon it'd have been cheaper to buy a bloody rack, ready made.  Mind, I suppose that's not the point as this will be made by me and to my specifications.

First task was setting up the fence on my cheapo mitre saw as the angles are not right as it comes from the factory.  It was pretty tricky to measure 45° accurately against the blade so I just made a couple of trial 45° degree cuts and put them together to see if they made a nice square 90° degrees.  Took a couple of goes but after that, I decided it was close enough.

After making all the mitre cuts I needed, I set it to 90° and cut all the straight bits.  I clamped a bit of wood onto the end of my 'bench' so that all the peices were the same length since consistency and precision is more important than accuracy here!

Here are all the cut 34mm square pieces:

To join the two side assemblies, I just used glue and 6mm dowels.  It's tricky to get holes drilled accurately.  I just used ordinary HSS drill bits rather than the 'brad point' bits made specifically for wood - and the general purpose bits do wander a bit on wood.  I don't have a drill press - which might have been handy.

One tip I learned off You Tube is to always do a dry fit before glueing anything:

Now for the front and back 'bars' that will support the shelf dowels.  I ordered a 15mm forstner bit (pictured) from Ebay for this.  So many holes...

And now the dowels that will form the shelves.  I could have used my circular mitre saw again but I went old school and got the mitre box and tenon saw out.  Quicker, safer and just as accurate in this instance.

To do...

Concusion

I'm no expert but here are my tips - more for my own benefit than for anyone else:

• Use a propelling pencil for marking.  Ordinary pencils get blunt quckly on wood and before long, you might as well be using a lump of charcoal!
• If you're unsure of your marking out, put masking tape on the piece and tear if off if you mess it up rather than making several sets of marks.  Better still, plan it properly and mark it once!
• Have a specific safe place (or places) to put small stuff down like your pencil, glasses, square, etc. - and stick to it!  Cumulatively, I must've  wasted days of my life looking for stuff that I've mindlessly put down on the first surface that came to hand while doing stuff like this.  My dad always used to (and presumably still does) stick his pencil behind his ear. I am unable to do this as it keeps falling out.  My failure to be able to store my pencil in this way annoys me to a disproportionate extent - probably more because I'm unable to emulate my dad than for the lack of amenity it affords!
  
• Don't glue anything until you've dry-fitted it first - even if it is a pain in the arse to assemble everything only to pull it all apart again.  It might seem like a waste of time but it isn't!
• Unplug the mitre saw the second you're done cutting.  It's easy to forget it's on while your lining the blade up with a mark you made for your next cut - and it can steal your fingers.
• Take your time.
• Think, plan and measure carefully.
• Don't cut your fingers off - or any other bit of you if you can avoid it.