I was asked to figure out a nice way to display six to ten 1/4″ full size foamcore boards on the wall. The employees of Mule Design had been using the dry erase board marker rails to hold up their display boards, rendering the dry erase board useless. There was a nice, open space of wall just calling out to be used as display space. I answered that call.

I started with a few configuration sketches to see what would work well in the space.

The chosen concept was a very long box with aluminum rails set into the top of it to hold the boards. A similar, but much shorter piece would be mounted at the top to prevent the display boards from toppling forward away from the wall.

After figuring out which concept to do, I built a mockup in Rhino to be sure of accurate dimensions. I tend to build a lot of my projects in CAD before starting in on the read thing. It’s probably the industrial designer in me–my version of measuring twice.

I used 3/4″ oak for the shelf, with 45° miter joints at the corners. To keep the joints strong, I used a diagonal spline full length of the miter. The spline is also oak, but I used a dark walnut stain to give it the appearance of being…walnut. I didn’t have my tablesaw fully operational at the time that I made this, so I used a small laminate trim router to cut the miter slots. I screwed a scrap piece of 45° cut 1″ plywood to the router plate, and then pressed along the mitered board ends with a 1/8″ straight bit. You can see a bit of a goof where I let the router get away from me in the upper photo. Wood filler to the rescue!

Once the corners dried, I used a japanese style flush-cut saw to trim the lock splines down. The front face of the shelf has a 25° inward bevel, and I wanted the splines to match these surfaces.

My Japanese flush-cut saw is from Harbor Freight, but unlike most of their products, it’s actually made in Japan. The handle quality is definitely mass produced, but it does a great job flush cutting without marring the surface. After cutting the spline, I had to carefully re-stain the exposed edge using the corner of a folded piece of paper as a brush.

Once the corners were dry and strong, I used a 1/8″ straight router bit to route slots in the top surface. I had some 1/8″ x 1″ aluminum rails that would be inserted in the grooves as board holders. I ended up running the router along the slot a second time with the guide bumped out another half millimeter so the rails would drop in easily without compressing the surrounding wood.

After getting the rails glued up, I finished the whole thing with boiled linseed oil. I just discovered this stuff a couple months ago, and really like the finish that it makes. The richness of the wood is highlighted, it gets a mild resistance to water (no bare cups, but a splash can be wiped up quickly), and it’s not stupid stinky to apply. The overly glossy look can sometimes detract from nice wood.