Counter-mounted Knife Rack
Looking for a way to keep that beautiful set of knives in view, and right at your fingertips? Take a look at this simple counter-mounted knife rack. Reader's Digest Countertop Knife Rack |
You’ll need a plunge router to cut the knife slots and round over the rack’s top edges, and a table saw to cut all the pieces to size and form the rack’s lipped edges.
Make the rack from any type of hardwood. Sand it smooth, and finish it with three coats of spray polyure-thane, which will get into the knife slots easily.
You may need to slightly shorten a drawer to make room for the rack. Gently tap off the drawer back, place it forward a few inches, reattach with glue and 4d finish nails, then cut off the excess drawer sides and bottom. Make sure the knife-blade shield doesn’t interfere with the drawer slides.
1. MARK the rack outline and the knife slot locations on a piece of 3/4-in. thick hardwood, using the dimensions given at left. Or, devise your own size and configuration to accommodate your knives.
 Reader's Digest Marking the knife slot locations |
2. CUT knife slots with a 1/4-in. dia. straight bit in a plunge router. Routing on a wider board stabilizes the router base. Or you can clamp pieces to the edges to make your board wider. Hold the router base tight against the clamped-in-place guide board. After the slots are routed, cut the board to size and round over the top edges with a 1/4-in. dia. round-over bit.
3. WARNING: GUARD MUST BE REMOVED FOR THIS PROCEDURE
FORM the 3/8-in. x 3/8-in. lipped edges with a table saw. Make the first four cuts with the rack flat, then reset the fence and make the vertical cuts as shown. Hold the rack tight against the fence with a push stick.
 Reader's Digest Cutting the knife slots |
5. CUT the front for the blade shield from 1/4-in. plywood and the two side pieces from 1x pine. Determine the width for the sides by measuring from the cabinet back to the front of the knife slots. Secure the shield to the cabinet back with four small angle brackets.