#23 DIY Saddle Rack / Saddle Stand Made out of White Oak

Описание: Today's video discusses the White Oak Saddle Rack I made for my wife for Christmas 2019.

Link to Plans - https://tinyurl.com/SaddleRackPlans

JRH Woodworking - https://www.jrhwoodworking.com/

Watco Natural Danish Oil - https://tinyurl.com/y8e8hrmw
Minwax Finishing Wax - https://tinyurl.com/y9w2rrgf

This entire process started with heading to a local saw mill to obtain whatever wood caught my eye that day. I knew I was going to at least purchase some black walnut and ambrosia maple to make a toy chest for my daughter. I had come up with the idea of making a saddle rack for my wife's Christmas present only a few days before, and hadn’t decided on what wood to make it out of.

I ended up getting some 4/4 rough sawn white oak boards, at the recommendation of the sawmill owner. I had been leaning that direction already, but his recommendation sealed the deal.

After purchasing the lumber, the first step of the building process was to take my 4/4 boards and head to my buddy JRHwoodworking place to mill down and process the lumber into something usable. We used his Dewalt planer and antique jointer to process the rough saw boards. We processed the white oak down to a hair over ⅞” thick. I wanted to keep the boards as thick as possible while making sure they were planed smooth and flat. We then broke them down in rough lengths and split one of the sections in half on his bandsaw to make the slats. After that, it was all on me.

Once back at my own house, I used my Dewalt table saw to rip all the boards to the correct width and a hastily built crosscut sled to get them all within ½” of final dimension. From there, it was pairing up the boards together to be glued. I borrowed a Dewalt biscuit tool from my dad and put 3 sets of biscuits in each board. I wasn’t really happy with the way this turned out, but I think it was mostly user error for never having done biscuits before. They didn’t really help with fit or alignment, and I don’t think I had the right size biscuits as they were loose in the grooves the tool cut. I then glued up the bottom panel and two side panels. I made 4 pipe clamps for this process and used a ton of smaller clamps I borrowed from my dad. The alignment on my glue ups were “eh”, but a little bit of hand planing and sanding smoothed them out.

Next we went back out to the table saw and used the crosscut sled to cut the panels square and to length. I then used my miter saw to cut the 45 Degree angles on the side panels to make the shape the saddle with rest on. I left the top exactly the width of one slat and let the 45 run out the sides to wherever it naturally ended on the panel. I knew the panel width would fit the saddle well.

I then began pre-finishing everything before final assembly. This, by far, took the longest amount of time. I hand sanded the 11 slats, starting at 120 grit and then going to 220 grit. I used a 5” orbital sander for the panels, starting at 80 grit before moving on to 120 and 220 grits. Everything was then cleaned with a dry towel followed by some acetone.

My finish of choice for this project was 3 coats of Watco Natural Danish oil. I allowed at least a day of dry time between coats, if not longer. Finally, all the pieces were finished with a coat of Minwax Finishing Paste. I’ll put links in the description for those products for anyone interested.

The last step was assembly. I clamped the base to the sides and then began with attaching the slats. I started with the slat at the peak of the saddle rack, predrilling the slats and panels for each screw. I used brass #12 screws which were not fully threaded, so once the sides were predrilled I had to come back and use a larger bit on the slats for the solid part of the shank. I used this same procedure for the rest of the slats, starting with the two on the sides before moving onto the slopped portions of the rack. I then drilled and attached the base to the sides before putting on the final two slats which help hold any tack items put in the bottom of the rack. Note: My animation shows these last two steps out of order. The order I used seemed to work the best as far as being able to take out any imperfections in either my glue ups (twists or cups) or lengths of cuts that occurred during the entire process. The final step was to put small rubber feet on the bottom panel to keep it from setting directly on the floor.