Finally built my wine rack

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Awesome, all of y'all! I definitely agree on adding even a lightweight backing - that's what keeps the cheap pressboard furniture from going off square or becoming unstable. As much as I ooooh and aaaah over the really foofy racks you see in the magazines & Pinterest, I LOVE inexpensive and easy! Kinda wished I'd run across this before the emailed newsletter went out since I put together a few articles on building home wine cellars this week - oh well. Great designs!
 
ImageUploadedByWine Making1401008948.174273.jpg I built my first wine rack this year out of hardwood maple. I already had the wood on hand since I have been attempting to build furniture...

I helped my brother build one out of black walnut:
ImageUploadedByWine Making1401009060.429331.jpgImageUploadedByWine Making1401009080.574072.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making
 
Last edited:
Harlequin Pattern wine racks

I really like the Harlequin / diamond pattern wine racks, as it seems to me to be ths most efficidnt use of space and lumber.
 
All simple and lovely racks. Kudos!

Sourgrapes: I'd be interested in plans or more details on your harlequin rack as I may do something similar.
 
Sourgrapes: I'd be interested in plans or more details on your harlequin rack as I may do something similar.

I can offer a few drawings. The first one is an overview of the plan. I made each side of the diamond exactly 14". This makes it a little tight for fitting 16 Burgundy-style bottles. I think 14.5" would be better for that (but, of course, decreases efficiency if you have mostly Bordeaux-style bottles to store). The horizontal spacing between diamonds is the same (due to geometry) as the length of one of the sides, so, 14" in my case. The vertical spacing is, due to geometry, sqrt(3) times longer, so sqrt(3)*14 = 24.248" in my case. (I am not sure why the dimension in my drawing is slightly different -- just a drawing error, I think).

I used 1x8's and used a circular saw to cut slots, halfway across the 1x8, to accommodate the intersection. I set my circular saw at 30 deg., and zipped it just over halfway across the board. I then used a wood chisel to remove the material between the cuts. (I actually made four cuts, instead of just two, so that I could more easily chisel the excess wood out.) Technically, the width of the slots should be exactly 3/4" (the thickness of a 1x board), but I made it 1" to give a little slop for assembly. I was very grateful I had that slop when assembling!

I think if I had to do it over again, I may have used 1x10s, just to make the bottles sit farther back into the hole.

You have some choices regarding how to terminate the pieces, where they touch the outer walls. This bears a little thinking about. The second picture shows a close-up of the intersection, as well as the profile of various pieces of terminating boards. I chose to have the outer walls go through the exact center of the intersection, mostly to make the math easier on where the next board should be located. However, this means you have to make a funny, pointed cut on the end, which results from having a 60 deg. cut intersect a 30 deg cut.

I built an outer frame for the rack, and then assembled the boards within that frame as is shown above. The first boards went together well, but small errors accumulate as you assemble farther, making assembly difficult. I wound up having to trim the ends of some of the boards and open up the slots of some of those boards a bit. After I got the boards assembled, I used a power nailer (16 gauge) to nail the inner boards to the outer frame. I also put a nail through each intersection. After nailing, the rack was stout as could be.

That is everything I can think of for now. Ask me questions if there is anything that isn't clear!

View attachment wine rack overview.pdf

View attachment details of intersection.pdf

wine rack overview.jpg

details of intersection.jpg
 
Cool. Thanks for sharing. I'm still in the brainstorming stage and probably won't have the space to build my rack until after our cross-country move (sometime in the next 2-14 months), unfortunately, but I like the design even if its a bit more complex to build. Looks like the capacity on this bad boy is in the 450+ bottle range?
 
Bill, thank you for sharing. I bottle mostly splits but your storage rack will be great for them and I will use 1x10 and it should be great.
 
Last edited:
@sour_grapes is the 30degree angle better/more efficient than 45?


Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making
 
Thanks. I was wondering how to cut the grooves at 30 deg with a router but then went back and read you used a circular saw.


Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making
 
I love this design! I think I may have this on the winter project list for my hubby. Very nice and thanks for all the details to make copying a little easier!
 
I love this design! I think I may have this on the winter project list for my hubby. Very nice and thanks for all the details to make copying a little easier!

Just curious, Homesteader: There are a number of nice designs on this thread. Which one were you going to put on your Honey-do list?
 
Paul,

I liked your article on circle packing, but I missed the part where they said that harlequin diamonds were the best for storing wine. :)

I've got a cellar project on the docket for this winter, I hope to use your prints to get something half as nice. I'll post up m efforts as they get underway.

Thanks for the pointers and new factoids on the most efficient way to group non-intersecting circles on a plane. Is this related to how many non-intersecting snakes you can get on a plane?

Best, Fran
 
Back
Top