Never Bored

The thing I like about woodworking is the variety of challenges and projects I constantly run into.  I don’t think a woodworker ever quits learning something new every day.  We agonize over design, proportions, math, and chemistry.  We expose ourselves to harmful dust, sharp spinning blades, and hours standing on concrete floors.  But, we keep coming back each day with the desire to gain a sense of accomplishment.  We don’t get bored because there is always a project on our list or in the back of our mind.

My recently completed project is a knife display case for my brother-in-law.   He is a serious knife collector and was complaining that even though there are many display cases available, there are few high quality ones.  Most pocket knife cases hold the knife in the case with a tie wrap so it is not easy to remove the knife.  He wanted to be able to pick his knives out of the case to handle and show them off.

This case is made out of red oak and is 24” tall, 18” wide, and 4” deep.  The shelves are adjustable and have captive pins to keep the shelves from accidentally falling out.  Every knife case I looked at used a wood frame door with glass.  To be different, I used a ¼” frameless tempered glass door with the magnetic push to open/close latch.  I think it looks cleaner and allows a full view of the contents.  Instead of picture hangers on the back, I used mating cleats cut at 45 degree angles to provide a very strong wall mount system.  This case is very heavy at 20 pounds empty.  The cleat system is similar to how kitchen cabinets are mounted to the wall.  A dado was cut into the top of each shelf so that the felt sits flush instead of on top of the shelf for a cleaner look.  Overall, this thing came out very nice for my first one.

The glass door is so clean that it’s hard to tell it’s there.

Base detail

Shelf pin details

My one little knife sitting on the shelf