So last week I was searching for cool things to post on Curbly, when I came across the Marvelous Key Rack by Tomke Biallas and Grisella Kreiterling. The designer version is made out of a slab of oak (15″ x 2.3″ x 2″) that has a cavity the width of a key plunged down the middle. A quick measurement of my keys told me most are about 1/16″ to 1/8″ thick, about the same thickness as a saw blade. You know what that meant….to the table saw!
I searched through the scrap wood in the garage and found a piece of 1.5″ x 12.5″ long oak that I had MWT* rip down to 2.5″ wide.
Next, we measured the length of a typical house key. We adjusted the saw blade accordingly to cut that depth.
Then MWT plunged a cut down the middle of one of the skinny 1.5″ edges. He eyeballed the center for this cut, and then, when finished with the pass, rotated the part 180 degrees to the left and ran the board through the saw again. When finished with this cut, he rotated it again 180 degrees to the left and cut a third time. This might sound redundant, but MWT tells me this is how you get a perfectly centered cut. (Exacting? Yes, but I’ve gotten used to it.)
When the cuttin’ was done, I took over and buzzed the part with the orbital sander and then applied a coat of Danish Oil. And voila, a cool, modern key rack that cost nothing versus Tomke & Grisella’s $36 original.
MWT is going to take this baby to work and mount it via sticky back foam tape to the top edge of his cubical, but if you wanted to fix it to a wall, I would drill two holes through the plunged cut and feed screws through it for mounting. (Use the designer original as a guide.)
*Man With Tools
