There was quite a bit of prep work to do for this rack. I had to pre-cut all of the 2”x4” X 5 ¾” shelf spacers which also act as rail braces. I set up a stopper on my Miter Saw so that all of the cuts were exactly the same length. You need 80 of these for the project…
And... Done!
I also pre cut all 60 rails on the same saw. I used 3/8” x 1 ¼” door stop material. It cost a lot more than I budgeted for because I didn’t realize until I was at the checkout that it was priced by the foot and not by the board.
Anyway, these pieces could have been a LOT cheaper. Next time I will just use 1”x1/2” lumber.
These pieces are cut to 24” and I was able to cut 3 at a time…
And... Done!
I had the shelving cut at Home-Depot to save me a lot of time and so I wouldn’t have to borrow a truck. I used 3/8” OSB for the shelves. Because there is never more than 24” of shelf without a support, and because there is NO weight on the shelves themselves, I was able to use a slightly thinner material.
The boards were cut to 24” x 55”. You get two shelves per sheet and I bought 5 sheets… even though I need 11 shelves. I decided to just make the bottom shelf out of 2”x6” lumber.
I applied 3 coats of “Varathane – Plastic Enamel”. In hind sight, I should have started painting a week or two a head of time to allow the paint time to fully cure. It took a whole gallon of paint to do these boards. The OSB really sucks up a lot of paint on the first coat…
1st coat:
2nd coat:
3rd coat:
And finally…
Next post will show the pre-assembly of the rails and wiring up the heat tape on each level.
"Free Dumb-Breeder Rack" - PART 2: Prep work + Painting
Linear Mode
