PROJECT Bike wall mount
90 The Woodworker & Good Woodworking September 2019 http://www.getwoodworking.com
13 ... and in the mount7 Checking everything is symmetrical
10 Mounting the horizontal piece onto the back
mounting piece
9 Using a belt sander to further shape the hand17 The completed bike rack in situ11 Once the pocket holes are drilled, place wood
glue into the holes, insert the dowels and marry
the two pieces up together8 Abrasive wrapped around a thin piece of wood
ensures the spaces between the fingers are uniform12 Drilling pocket holes in the hand...
Next, cut out the side profile of the hand (photo
3 ), ensuring to measure your bike and making the
area that holds the frame 3-6mm larger than the
top bar of the bike frame. The next step, which I
unfortunately missed in the video, is to cut away
the remaining palm area (photo 4), but make sure
you leave the thumb in place. This can be carried
out using a hand saw.
Finishing
The next step is to sand all the components down
to 220 grit and use your choice of finish – I chose
a Poly finish. Use a thin piece of wood wrapped in
abrasive to smooth the areas between the fingers
and a rounded piece of wood to sand between the
thumb and fingers (photo 8).
Making the wall mount
The wall mount I made used pieces of wood that
I had lying around, so any offcuts will be suitable
for this. The back panel measures 229mm wide
× 229mm long × 125mm thick, and the horizontal
piece is 150 × 292mm (photo 10). It’s important
to make sure the bike is far enough away
from the wall that the pedals don’t make
contact and potentially cause scuffing. The
150mm plus the depth of the hand made my
bike sit 2,033m off the wall. I used a pocket
hole jig by Milescraft to ensure the dowel
holes were being placed correctly (photo 11).Mounting the hands
You need to mount the hands using a pocket
hole jig and dowels as previously. Ensure to carry
out some extra measurements here because the
last thing you want is for the hands to be a little
off and potentially ruin the whole project.Hanging the rack
You want the mount to lay flush against
the wall, so you therefore need to embed
two keyhole hangers into the back piece: one
on the top and one on the bottom (photo 15).
The last step is to add a little support to the
rack, just for some security, then it’s finished
and ready for hanging.