Free Plan: Mission Magazine Rack
Nine pieces of oak and twenty screws — the 1912 rack where the joinery is the decoration.
Free download. No signup required.
- Full 1912 cut list
- Finish-before-assembly workflow
- Pocket-hole shortcut included
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Download didn't start? Get the plan here.The rack is drawn up. Nine pieces of oak need a bench, not a machine shop.
- A layout guide for a one- or two-car garage or a basement: which tools to buy in what order, and where each one stands so the work flows in one direction.
- What to read first: the chapter on tool order. Nine boards, twenty screws and a diagonal mortise ask for a square, a drill and good light before they ask for anything with a cord.
- A digital guide sold through ClickBank, with a 60-day refund window stated on the vendor's page.
Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
This whole project is nine pieces of wood: four posts and five shelves. Each shelf corner drops into a diagonal mortise and is held by a screw — twenty of them in all. Mission style means the joinery is the decoration. Nothing to hide, nothing to fake.
The plan walks through the cut list, the diagonal mortise layout, and the workflow the 1912 author got right: finish every piece while it is still a flat board on the bench, then assemble.
If mortises are not in your toolbox yet, the pocket-hole shortcut builds the same rack from the back, hidden from view.
Project at a Glance
- Difficulty
- Intermediate (twelve steps, repeated layout across four posts)
- Main materials
- Quarter-sawn or red oak — four 2 x 2 x 40 inch posts, five 1 x 14 x 24 inch shelves, twenty 2-inch flat-head screws, optional plugs, stain, filler and wax or shellac
- Build time
- 2-3 shop days, including finish
- Tools needed
- Miter or table saw, marking tools, chisel or router, drill, clamps, sander
- Source
- Popular Mechanics, 1912 (public domain)
Before the oil comes out:
Finishing the parts before assembly is the best tip in the old plan — but keep the glue surfaces bare. Finish sealed onto a tenon or inside a mortise is a joint that will not hold. Tape them off first.
A rack like this is how furniture building starts: nine parts, repeated layout, a result that goes straight into the living room.
What decides how clean it comes out is rarely the tool list. It is whether the bench is clear, the light falls across the work and the parts have a place to wait between steps. That is the shop, not the project.
What the guide actually covers
The eight-foot test
Take an eight-foot board from where the lumber is stored, run it through the saw, and set the offcut down. If you had to move something, open a door or turn the board sideways to get it in, the shop is filled, not laid out. That is the problem this guide is written for, and a nine-part rack is a good size to find out where your shop stands.
The guide covers layout for a one- or two-car garage or a basement, the order the tools go in, and the parts tool reviews skip: lighting, dust, noise and where the lumber lives. It won't tell you which brand to buy, only where the tool belongs.
Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
Also worth a look: the technique layer
Woodworking Secrets is a printed book on layout, cutting, joinery and finishing, the part a plan leaves out. The publisher sends it at no charge and you cover the shipping. It ships to US addresses. On the order page there is a box for a trial membership that is already ticked — untick it if you only want the book.
See the book →