The boat they made on GardenFork.tv, which I was using as the basis for my design, was made of a single sheet of plywood. It was about 24” wide with sides about 12” high. Though Eric from GardenFork.tv is a trim guy, his narrow boat road very low in the water when he launched it as a solo passenger. As I wanted to be able to take my kids (and even other adults) in the boat with me, I decided I would need two (2) sheets of plywood.

With this as a plan, I headed straight to Lowes once we were settled in at Lake George (and I was back from the trip to Fine Woodworking Live I made immediately after arriving).

Yep, thats what a boat looks like before its put in the water.

Since the ¼” luan I used on the mock boat was awfully damn thin, and the plywood bottom would need to support me, I opted to use ?” CDX plywood. Though it was bowed and coarsely textured as most CDX is, I felt it provided me the best mix of strength, weight and cost. For the battens, I chose to switch to 2”x2”, so the tips of the screws wouldn’t poke through the ¾” thickness of the 1”x used in the mock boat. I also bought some 2”x4”, metal saw horse brackets and a small drop cloth so I could work at a comfortable height and keep the mess in check.

Ready for ripping!

In the parking lot, I had to rip down the 4’x8’ sheets of plywood before they would fit inside my truck. This being upstate New York, there was no problem woodworking in the parking lot.More (Ply)Wood Boat Posts.

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To finish the Quilt Rack I first installed a pan head screw in the bottom of each foot point to hold it just above my protected table saw surface and allow me to easily finish it without resting the foot on wet finish.

This choice the wet finish doesnt stick to the drop cloth.

Since I was short for time and only ended up with one day to apply finish, I used Bull’s Eye Sealcoat shellac. With the help of Kenneth’s great Woodshop Widget app, I was able to mix up .5 lb and 1 lb cuts of shellac (it’s a 2 lb cut in the can).

Shellac, post cutting, ready to be applied.

First I applied two (2) coats of .5 lb cut and then 10 of 1 lb cut. I spaced the coats about an hour apart and applied them all with a rag. Between the first few coats I sanded with 00 synthetic steel wool to get the rough spots out. After the final coat, I rubbed it out with 0000 synthetic steel wool.

As the coats went on, the "flame" really began to show.

I managed to finish it by about 9:30 the night before the party. This meant I was actually around the day of to help instead of being holed up in the shop frantically trying to finish. The quilt rack was a wonderfully received surprise. I’m happy to say it made my mother-in-law the envy of all the old quilting ladies in attendance. In fact, the quilt rack was received so well, I’ll be making a second one for my wife’s aunt this fall.

A poor photo of the beautiful finished quilt rack.

The formal presentation, tears from the recipient and fondling by the other sewers in attendance.

The quilt rack in its new home.

Quilt Rack Photo Gallery

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