I’m making some custom hook rails for a friend’s son to hang all of his superhero & dress up clothes in his bedroom. The design will be a negative-space cutout with LED backlighting. It will need to hold a little bit of weight, but not a ton of weight. Finished size will be approx 24"Wx5"H and will be cut on my GF Pro.
Since I’m still extremely new to this, I thought it would be a good idea to get some expert advice regarding what type of material I should use for this project. Should I go for a hardwood or plywood? What thickness seems appropriate? What wood species would cut the best for this application?
Yeah that’s my plan. I’m just not sure what type of hardwood to order. The backlight will be battery powered LED strips that I’ll attach with adhesive & maybe a couple tacks.
I don’t have many other tools yet. Just basic hand tools, so I need to order pre-cut boards & don’t have a ton of wiggle room in my budget to do more than a couple tests.
Since this project uses the pass-through, the face will be cut from thinner material (like Medium proofgrade hardwood) , and the mounting screws for the hooks will likely need more depth than the thin material provides. I personally would not trust medium proofgrade ply on it’s own to handle weight-bearing fasteners over time.
if I were making this, I would probably build a frame to sit behind the face. This would allow a pocket for the led/battery/wiring so that the whole thing mounts flush to a wall, and also give some extra material for the hooks to screw down into (and would also give room for some mounting considerations).
Yes! Thank you! This is so helpful. I hadn’t considered the passthrough limitations, as I haven’t even used it yet. This makes material sourcing a bit easier, too.
I’ll head down this path & will definitely update once the piece is finished!
