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Building a Sculpture that Doubles as a Coat Rack

This project started with an interesting challenge. The clients wanted a coat rack for guests, but they had a specific problem: they use a coat closet for their own coats, so the rack would basically always be visible, hanging on the wall with nothing on it. From an interior design standpoint, a row of empty hooks just sitting there wasn’t going to cut it. So we decided to build something that could work as a sculpture first and a coat rack second.

The result is what I’m calling the Two Moon coat rack, made from walnut.

Starting with a Template

The first step in building the sculpture was importing my client-approved sketch into the laser cutter to cut out a template. Now, I do have a CNC machine, and I could have cut the whole shape out on that, but I didn’t want to. The reason is grain matching. When you’re cutting a curved, sculptural shape like this, you want to lay the template down on the workpiece and orient it so the grain follows the curve — especially toward the tips. If the grain starts running across the tip instead of along it, that tip becomes fragile and can just snap off. So taking the time to match the grain to the shape isn’t just aesthetic, it’s structural.

There’s another reason I prefer the bandsaw over the CNC for cutting shapes like this. As you cut into wood, you release the tension that’s been built up inside it. The wood moves. When that happens on a CNC, the part shifts, and the shape you’re cutting is suddenly not the shape you wanted anymore. On the bandsaw, you can feel that happening and adjust. The CNC doesn’t know the wood moved.

For attaching the template to the workpiece, I used double-stick tape. I know the CA glue method is everywhere right now, and yes, it works, but I’d rather not add more chemicals to my shop if I don’t have to. And honestly, the CA glue method has been pushed hard by sponsored content. It’s not the only way. It’s not even necessarily the best way. It’s just a way. Keep that in mind when you’re watching woodworking content online.

Routing the Shape

At the router table, I took my time sneaking up on the template with a pattern bit. And I mean, really took my time. That thin tip has a lot of flex to it, and if the bit catches it wrong, the tip can chatter and blow out. Slow and steady.

The router bit I used has bearings on both the top and bottom, which lets me flip the piece and always route with the grain rather than into it. Routing into the grain causes chatter and tear-out, so being able to switch which side the template rides on makes a big difference on a curved piece like this.

Joinery on a Curved Surface

Locating joinery on a curved piece is genuinely hard. There’s no flat, square surface to reference off of. To solve that, I used the CNC to cut a pocket, essentially a fixture that the workpiece snaps into. With the part locked in position, I could use the CNC software to precisely locate and cut the joinery. The joint itself is basically a sliding half-lap/bridle joint hybrid. I’m sure there’s an official name for it somewhere.

I marked the orientation with a Sharpie as a visual aid. It sounds simple, but you really don’t want to cut the half-lap on one side of one piece and the opposite side of the other — they won’t come together.

I left the dust collection off during the CNC cuts for two reasons: so the action is visible, and more importantly, because the brushes from the collection hose could drag the part out of the friction-fit fixture.

The Glue-Up

Here’s where I’ll admit something: after trash-talking CA glue earlier in the project, I used it for the glue blocks. The difference here is that these blocks are going under clamping pressure, and I didn’t want to rely on tape peeling away as I tightened the clamps. CA glue for blocks that are going to get busted off and sanded away afterward works great. Context matters.

I milled up a piece of scrap as a floating tenon and fitted it, then did the glue-up with blocks on both sides of the joint to keep clamping pressure even and the piece from pulling out of flat. If it did come out a little twisted, I could run it across the jointer, but keeping it flat during the glue-up is always the better move.

One thing worth explaining: the reason this piece isn’t made from one long board is that the curve was too severe. A single board would have meant those tips crossing the grain, and that means weak tips. Building it in two pieces and joining them lets the grain follow the curve on each half.

Hiding the Seam

Once the glue-up was cleaned up, I located the seam between the two pieces and positioned the shelf-and-hook assembly right over it. The shelf hides the seam entirely.

To locate that shelf precisely on a curved surface, I again went back to the CNC, cut another fixture, snapped the piece in, and used software to find the exact position. Then I cut a half-lap across all three sides of the curve so the shelf would dive into it without any gaps. A lot of math and test cuts in that scrap plywood to dial it in, but once it was dialed in, it was right.

For the CNC work at this stage, I set the feed rate to what I’d call snail mode. A catastrophic failure at this point, after all the work to get here, would have been a real problem. Slow feed rate, no drama.

One unavoidable downside of CNC joinery: rounded inside corners. I spent time at the bench with a mallet and chisel, squaring those up by hand.

Thinning the Moon

At this point, the moon shape felt bulky. Too thick. I wanted it to feel more like a sculpture and less like a plank with a shape cut into it. To figure out the taper, I took a thin, flexible piece of scrap and bent it along the curve to trace out a line from the shelf up to the tip, just eyeballing it until the proportion felt right. Then I followed that line on the bandsaw.

Assembly and Mounting

The sculpture mounts to the wall with screws, and those screws are hidden behind the hooks. I countersunk the holes through the half-lap area on the shelf, drove the screws, and then slid the hooks into their half-lap slots to cover the heads. Clean and simple.

I cut the hook shapes on the CNC and completed the half-lap joinery on the hooks themselves with a dado stack at the table saw. I squared up the corners on those, too. Then I put a roundover bit in the router table and ran each hook through to soften the edges, but even after that, they still felt too sharp and machined. So I spent time at the sander, working each one by hand to give them a worn, organic feel. The kind of feel that says handmade.

Finishing Small Parts

Spray finishing small parts is always a bit of a pain. The pressure from the gun wants to blow them around. My solution here was to cut half-lap notches in a piece of scrap plywood so the hooks could sit in a little rack while I sprayed them. Finished everything before final assembly, popped them off when dry, and installed them into the sculpture.

Shipping and Final Assembly

The two moon pieces ship separately and get assembled on-site. Shipping them glued together would mean a fragile joint that’s just asking to get broken in transit. I fasten them through the half-laps with screws, and the hooks are a friction fit that slides in to cover everything up.

And that’s the Two Moon coat rack, a sculpture that happens to hold coats.  That’s how I designed and built custom furniture for my Las Vegas Clients.

Two Moon Coat Rack Sculpture.

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