Needed a shelf / spice rack

Was frustrated with having to store all my spices in the cupboard and seen an opening in the cabinets in my apartment.



They conveniently had gaps on the under side so i created a frame that friction fit into those openings as i am a renter and didn’t want to do anything they might complain about down the road.

This is the in progress result so far.


I used 3/4" copper pipe that i sanded and applied a clear coat so it will not tarnish.

close up of the pipes with a box/ dice i made out of some aromatic cedar to play around





Quickly designed some shelves to rest on the pipes but stand off a couple inches so i could use the pipes as a towel rack. They are also easily removable they just lift out. I also plan on adding things that hang off the pipes like possibly a knife rack or something to hold utensils. but that is a project for another day. Hope you all enjoyed this tour of how i spent today. cheers.

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Very interesting!
You might be interested in my approach. I was using magnets but It looks like the command strips might do better. oops, bad link :blush: here is the image

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Great use of space and cool design!

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Lovely design and execution. Thanks for posting such detailed pictures.

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Thx for the new link/ photo

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Nice write up and excellent, useful project.

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Thx it was a fun project gave me a chance to try cutting some 1/2" plywood and gain some experience before i tackle the next project which is a wooden tongue drum.


Will probably cut the box itself on the table saw but plant to do the top piece on the glowforge. Will make the first one out of plywood before attempting it on some fancy hardwood.

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That is a beautiful box, what is the white dot for? What is the box made of? :smiley:

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Not sure hehe its just a photo of the thing i want to make next. Called a tongue drum. I assume the white dot is so you have it orientated the correct way for playing.

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Assuming that the top will fit then I think everything else will as well, I made what was supposed to be a pencil holder from bent oak plywood and perhaps it is the tension from the bending but it is very loud and sharp as a percussion instrument though that was not the intention.

Depending on the material the GF can cut up to a half inch thick in good maple or walnut or paduk though it would not in poplar, zebrawood, hickory, or ash. it all depends on how the wood burns,

What I would find curious is how you can set the notes that it would appear might be tricky and even different in different pieces of wood even from the same species,

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Setting the tones is relatively easy, there are online calculators for setting them up so they will be close to what you want. After they are cut you can tune them as well by either removing wood from the underside. remove from the base of the tongue to lower the pitch or from the tip to increase the pitch. I will try it with some 1/2" plywood i have in the house to play around then use some paddock or bamboo plywood (a cutting board i have around) to make the final version.

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I tried that and ended up with charcoal. Even engraving a wide piece a quarter inch deep first, Much later I tried solid maple and was amazed that it held up well even on very deep cuts.

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Ah thats a bummer mine cuts fine. i used 1/2" plywood for the peices that hold the copper pipes in my design above. there was about a large kerf compared to normal but i just compensated the cut files to reflect that. cut through no prob at 110 speed and full power. could have gone faster but there were some irregularities inside the board i didn’t want to deal with later with a razor blade. im waiting for my local shop to get some 1/2" maple boards that im going to try cutting.

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We developed a design that ate up very little material but does a very good job of showing exactly how any piece of material acts at various speeds and full power or you can change the power and run the different speeds for engrave and cutting, I then keep the piece as part of a reference set I can refer to. It has 100 speed and full power as the slowest cut and most of them I had to have a wet rag to stop them from burning up completely, but that burn is also a reference, The woods noted above did not burn at that lowest speed.

In thinking about it the plywood I had was your basic HD ply that was mostly pine, but if you had Baltic Birch the results would be very different.

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Pretty cool design thanks for the link. I use this one i made up it takes up a lil bit of room tho, but i like how it works. i do one of these every time i buy a 4’X8’ sheet of material.


I write other info on there by hand like the thickness i set and number of passes. building up a catalog of swatches. I think i should add in some engrave tests in the dead spaces to conserve materials.

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Aside from 4 kinds of plywood I normally use: Oak, Revolution, Baltic Birch, and Lauan the different species of solid can be a wide range of thickness and in some all I have is a 3" x 12" piece that might not be the same thickness at each end :open_mouth: and it might be 1/8" thick so 350 will cut through or 450 be a good score speed so I ran the whole gamut and then increased the detail at the low end but will only be a half-inch off a 3" wide board

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One i get into some more valuable medium i think i will ise your test strips. They seem very handy. Most of what i cut is 1/4" plywood sheet. I go to the local suplier and rummage theough their scratch and dent stock for deals hehe.

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I’m impressed! Can’t wait to see updates as you add to the project.

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