Homemade Wine Racks for Dummies

Pigeonhole wine rack unit

Among the multitude of pet peeves of the Antisocial Network staffers as a group are freelancers who fake their references and carpentry plans that play fast and loose with measurements. Today's DotD nominee is guilty of both, but that comes as no surprise. Janos Gal has already demonstrated an unfamiliarity with citing references and, even more to today's point, a total lack of knowledge of lumber and woodworking. Let's have a look at the mess he made of the eHow instructions for "How to Make a Wine Rack for a Small Cabinet." You're gonna love it...

We'll start up front by pointing out that standard wine bottles are 3½" in diameter, so all the little cubbies in a pigeonhole rack (see left) need to be at least that wide and tall. Next, we'll note that wine bottle heights vary, but most are about a foot tall, and the spaces need to be deep enough to protect the necks (the wine bottles must lie on their sides so the corks stay wet). And last, the obvious point – so obvious that even Janos understood it:

"...first measure your cabinet and adjust the size of this wine rack design accordingly..." We agree. Unfortunately, that's about the last thing Janos got right. Let's have a look at some of his instructions: "Cut [a 10-foot long] floor board for the wine rack using the circular saw. Cut four one-foot, two two-foot and three pieces eight-inch long pieces [sic]."  A floor board? First, Gal gives no indication of width. Second, flooring is tongue and groove: what about the tongue?

"The one-foot long pieces will be the horizontal parts, the eight-inch long parts will be the separators and the two-foot long pieces the sides of the wine rack." 

Wait, what? We think Janos is describing something two feet tall and one foot wide with "separators" in it to make the cubbies. Well, it might work this way: the four 1-foot pieces are sandwiched between the longer pieces, and the little short ones are installed parallel to the long ones. The design would more or less work... but only if Gal had made some corrections to his bullshit post; corrections like:

1. The rack's depth must be at least 12 inches, which is highly unlikely for a "floor board" (whatever that is).
2. The dimensions of all pieces must be adjusted to allow for the thickness of the stock used.
3. We really think it would be sturdier if everything were assembled using dadoes and a few finish nails instead of "PVA glue."

Curious about his sources, we took a look at Gal's sole reference. What to our wondering eyes did appear but a website with general information about designing your own wine rack. There were, however, zero instructions for building one, the name of the site notwithstanding. Now only is Janos ignorant of simple woodworking basics, it appears that he also made up his reference. Small wonder we decided to give him his third Dumbass of the Day award.

copyright © 2019-2023 scmrak

DDIY - WOODWORKING