Ray Macke
Marissa, USA
This is a Lego Mini Fig Shelf for my grandson’s collection. The overall case can be built to your dimensions – this one is about 24″ × 32″.
The project was made of pine ripped down from a common 2″ × 4″. Getting the 2mm high pins just the right diameter and spacing took some experimenting but finally found the right combinations for my set-up. I highly suggest you do several test cuts and adjust to get the pin size to where it is a firm fit for the figurines. This requires a fairly close tolerance cut so you may need to play with it some.
My overall case is about 24″ × 32″ and handles a little over 200 figurines. But obviously you can adjust the size to your need. The 11 individual shelves took about 22 minutes each to carve. I know this may seem long but the spacing between the pins was about .002 less than an 1/8" bit could cut so it had to come at them from two sides meeting in the middle. This was still faster than a 1/16" bit.
The case sides were also cut on the X-Carve and were even slower at 56 minutes each. This was mostly because I didn’t have a 1/4" downcut bit for these deep grooves. My upcut tore out the pine a good amount particularly when it exited the piece 90 degrees to the grain. So they were cut with an 1/8" downcut which delivered nice clean cuts but slow. I could have made these MUCH quicker on my tablesaw but it was a great learning experience for a new user.
Also, there is an unseen full length dado on the backside to countersink the 1/4" plywood back plus another 3/8" depth to accommodate the cleat type mounting bracket I built-in.
