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I'm making a coat rack to hang behind a door, but there isn't room room for a hanger between the door and the wall when the door is opened so it's parallel to the wall. My solution to this is to have the hangers align on a 45 degree angle between the door and the wall. So I need a way to make a bunch of regularly-spaced, parallel grooves in a bar of wood which will act as my hanger bar. Here's a rough pic of what I want to make:

Coat rack bar with slanted grooves

I'm hoping to avoid the "table saw a bunch of times where you want the groove and then chip/chisel the remaining wood out" technique because it doesn't seem like that will give me nice, neat grooves easily. I'd love to find a way to use a router (I have a small portable router table if that will help) to do this, but I can't think of a way to produce a bunch of exactly parallel grooves. Anyone have any ideas?

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    Considered using a dado blade so you don't have to chip/chisel?
    – Steven
    Commented Feb 2, 2013 at 23:14
  • Exactly - a dado blade can give flat bottoms. However, a CHEAP wobble dado blade can give a bottom that has a bit of a curve to it, so this might even be best for your goal.
    – user558
    Commented Feb 3, 2013 at 14:45

1 Answer 1

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You could use a router set in a router table, with a crosscut sled set at 45 degrees.

enter image description here

Building a jig with a "pin" that fits into the previously cut groove, will make sure all the grooves are cut an equal distance apart. The "pin" will be attached to the sled in some way, and will sit against the edge of the work piece for the first cut. After the first cut, the "pin" will sit in the groove produced by the first cut. The board is then lifted and moved, so that the "pin" sits in the most recently cut groove. This process is repeated the length of the work piece.

I'd make a jig similar to this.

Example jig

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  • I'll try to add a diagram of the jig described above, when I get a few minutes to create a model.
    – Tester101
    Commented Feb 3, 2013 at 13:25
  • +1 A router table will do this nicely, or a tablesaw would do as well using a similar setup. If the slot is wider than the width of a blade, a dado blade would help there.
    – user558
    Commented Feb 3, 2013 at 14:39
  • In any case, a backer board is necessary to prevent tear out as the bit/blade comes through the back of the wood.
    – user558
    Commented Feb 3, 2013 at 14:41

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