(This was originally posted May 12th, 2013 on my original blog.)
Six months ago I joined Makespace in Cambridge, the community’s inventing shed. Started by Jonny Austin, Laura James and Simon Ford the aim is to build a community and an environment where we can build pretty much anything. We’re based in the old Robotics lab of Cambridge University and membership is open to anyone over 18, more details can be found on the Makespace website.
Before we could use the space we had to clear it, fix the electrics, give it a lick of paint and generally make it habitable. Once we’d got somewhere to sit and some benches to work on we started to add more creature comforts, one of the things we didn’t have was somewhere to hang our coats. Rather than buy a coat rack I decided I would go with the spirit of Makespace and make one, here’s how it went.
In order to keep the costs down I used a plank of pine that I already had and bought some cheap hooks from Screwfix. Rather than just use the plain board I thought I’d add the Makespace logo, which is a styalised overlapping M and S, fortunately made up from simple circles and a few straight lines. With appropriate guides this could mostly be created using a router.
First I found some scrap boards the same thickness as the pine and screwed some guides at right angles to the board. I then routed a straight channel half the thickness of the board, to form the right hand side of the ‘M’ and separate the logo from the main body of the rack.
Luckily the radius of the circles corresponded to the radius of the router with a straight bit fitted. Therefore a nail in the centre of the circle to butt the edge of router up against provided the ideal guide to cut top curve.
Adding a second nail I then cut the remaining curves at 1/4 thickness of the board, to outline the ‘S’.
In order to cut the straight edge for the top of the ‘S’ I screwed a guide level with the bottom edge of the board.
Moving the guide to the top provided a straight edge to cut the bottom of the ‘S’.
A hole saw was just right to remove the two centres.
Finally
The last steps, which I don’t have pictures of, were to sand and varnish the board and add the coat hooks – job done. First project completed and a handy coat rack for all. The completed item can be seen at the top of this post, or on the wall in the corridor at Makespace.
