1st DIY project complete! Flexy Rack w/covered threads - PIC (1 Viewer)

[Robert Derouen]

Well for what it's worth here it is. I haven't calculated my total expense for this 5 shelf Flexy but it's right around $100. Everything was purchased from my local Lowes. The tubes covering the threads are metal curtain rods that I cut and painted gloss black. If anyone is interested in a detailed parts list or assembly instructions let me know.
Rob
http://robertd.freeservers.com/index.html

 

[Mike_A]

you beat me to it! i just finished a flexy tv-stand today that i'll be posting pics of in the next day or two.

i must say though, nice job! i like the covered threads. I decided not to go that route on mine for a few reasons - 1. too busy with other things 2. too lazy 3. not sure exactly what shelf heights i want anyway right now.

just curious - what are the shelves made of? what stain did you use?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Very nice job! (Especially in hiding the rods, and finishing the shelves).

 

[Robert Derouen]

Mike_A, I was going the low cost route so the wood is a cheap pine product that looks like is made up of 2" strips laminated together to make various sized planks. The description was "Solid Laminated Knotty Lodgepole Pine, factory sanded" It was the cheapest thing I found at Lowes that was stainable and offered in 16" x 24" planks. MDF planks were cheaper but I would have had to paint it black and I am trying to satisfy the wife factor. I tried to find something I could stain closer to the color of the floors (were it up to me, black would have looked fine, heck I don't even mind the threads).
*Note* I strongly suggest for anyone to have whatever wood they choose pre-cut at the store unless you have a table saw or something allowing you to make perfect cuts. I figured I would have no problem cutting the 48"x16" planks in half with my skill saw to make the 24"x16" shelves that I wanted... wrong! I'm fairly good with measurements and a skill saw, I took my time measuring and cutting but when I stacked all the boards up on end together I saw that not many were perfectly even. Many were about a 1/16th" off, some over an 1/8th" on some ends. That blew out my initial plan of measuring the hole cuts from each corner since I don't have a drill press to do them all together.
To solve thbe problem I ended up borrowing an orbital sander from a friend to even the edges up as close as possible. For the holes I used a 3/4 bit rather than 5/8 (the size of my all-threads) to give me a little play. It worked out just fine and now the rack is as stable as an anvil.
I'm wondering now if about 5-10% of the art of HT DIY is about learning how to cover your screw-ups
Rob

 

[Robert Derouen]

Oh and Patrick, thanks for the compliments but the staining of the wood was completely a hack job. The stain I had originally used on an oak chair to match the floor turned out beet red when I applied it to the cheap pine wood. In desperation, while it was still wet I added a coat of mahogany stain that I had left over from years ago. The blend of the two came close enough to what I was looking for by luck. Anyway, I had to do the two coats of two different stains while wet on each shelf to semi-fix my error. One nice thing about racks is that the equipment covers about 80% of the surface