I Made a Shoe Rack


I took a break from making knives and the last three days I have spent testing my new circular saw by the means of making something with it. My mother has requested a small shoe rack that would fit between a wall, an open bedroom door, and a washing machine. That meant the rack has to have a bit funny shape, as you can see.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

It was made mostly from recycled materials. All the shelves and the sides are made from old kitchen cabinet doors. The sides are covered with adhesive wallpaper and the tops of the shelves themselves are covered with pieces of PVC flooring leftovers from house renovations. The upper one has a different color in the photo due to additional light from the window, they are all the same IRL.

Doing this kind of work with my new table saw was a joy, but the saw has one design feature that I think is done extremely poorly in comparison to my previous one (and in fact even in comparison with my home-built belt grinder and tumbler) – the design of the on/off switch. The old one had an extra emergency switch that could be easily pressed with an open palm, or a knee or whatever body part is near. This one only has an elevated red off button that is not very big and not readily accessible, it requires a bit of fumbling about under the table edge to find and a firm and relatively precise push is needed. I must say that as much as I love the tool, this particular feature would earn the designing engineer a clip around the earhole from me because it is very, very daftaroony. Everything else – the dust collection exhaust, the folding legs, the extendable table supports, the adjustable cut depth/angle works very well and easily, the ergonomy of all those parts is great. But for that bloody daft on/off switch alone, I would take it one and a half star out of five if I were writing an official review. A beast of a machine like this just must have an emergency off-switch that even a panic-stricken and/or injured person can immediately find.

I may be overly strict in my expectations, but this one is a real bummer for me. If it did not violate the warranty, I would change it for something more suitable straight away. I might build something with an extension cable that would allow me to have an easily accessible emergency switch without compromising the integrity of the machine.

Comments

  1. Jazzlet says

    Very neat and I approve of the casters!
    I strongly disapprove of the difficult to find and use on/off switch, I hope you do make your self an extension with switch.

  2. billseymour says

    I might build something with an extension cable that would allow me to have an easily accessible emergency switch without compromising the integrity of the machine.

    That was my first thought…maybe some big red button mounted somewhere just under the table.  (I note the requirement to be able to hit it with a knee…I hadn’t thought of that.)

    <aside>
    Do CZ power connectors have a ground connection?  In the photo of the saw stored away, it looks like the plug on the yellow thing has a grounding strip on the side, and it seems too regular to be a reflection of some kind.
    </aside>

  3. Ice Swimmer says

    Charly @ 3

    It is a nice and practical looking shoe rack.

    Boring electric stuff:

    Re the ground connections: Isn’t it so that you have the (French-style) round earth pin in the wall sockets and not the German-style Schuko earth strips in CZ? I’d imagine that most earthed equipment (like the shop vac) would come with the CEE 7/7 plug (which has both an earthing socket and the strips) that can be used with both the French/West Slavic and Schuko sockets (the latter are the standard in most of the rest of Europe).

  4. billseymour says

    Ice Swimmer @4:  thanks, now I know what to call the German connectors. 8-)

    I once had a French-style socket on an overnight train from Paris to Madrid and didn’t have an adaptor that could handle the pin.  Fortunately, I had a small two-pin-only adaptor that fit next to the grounding pin in the socket, and I could plug my computer, with its US-style plug, into that.

  5. Nathan Adrian says

    The article showcases an impressive DIY project that will inspire any shoe enthusiast. It provides valuable insights into creating a practical and stylish shoe storage solution. Whether you’re a fan of Jordans https://sneakerzone.dk/collections/jordan or any other shoe brand, this article offers inspiration for organizing your collection in a functional and aesthetically pleasing manner.

Leave a Reply