Card Display Stand
My friends over at The Adventurers’ Academy needed a bit o’ fancy to better display their higher-end Magic The Gathering cards in their display case. That seemed like a fairly simple task for a guy with a garage full of hardwoods and woodworking tools, so I told them to give me a few days.
I grabbed a couple small pieces of Sapele (a type of mahogany) and milled them to about 3/8″ thick. I then edge glued the two pieces together into a small panel (using my small panel gluing jig clampy thing… which probably needs a better name).
I also had a few already-milled strips of Granadillo, a Latin American hardwood, and mitered those to make a frame for the panel. I cut a dado on the inside edges of the frame to house the panel and I was about 60% of the way done.
I used a scrap of plywood to make some test cuts in order to find the best angle and depth to hold the cards up right in the stand. Once I found that angle, I cut three grooves across the length of the panel, and then applied a simple-and-quick shellac and paste wax finish to the panel.
I then glued up the miters on the frame pieces, trapping the panel in the grooves… and being very careful to not get any glue on the panel itself, since the panel needs to float in the frame to allow for seasonal wood movement. Then a shellac finish on the frame finished it up and it was ready to go. I did add a little bit of a metallic tint to the shellac for the frame to give it some subtle shimmer, but I was a bit too subtle and sadly, my bit of trickery ended up being unnoticeable. The finish looked nice, anyway.
I created a simple base out of some scraps to hold the panel at a good angle for display and then took it to the store to go into the display cabinet and fulfill its destiny.
