The Challenge Coin Stand

At the office I work at, we issue and receive a lot of challenge coins. All over my desk and shelf, there are coin boxes and pouches with coins. I decided it was time for them to be displayed on a wooden stand. It cleans up my desk space and makes it easier to display all the coins in a smaller space.

I had researched coin stands made by others, and most of them are low and wide. They take a lot of space on the desk. I wanted mine to be vertically oriented, so it would have a smaller footprint. I found one that matched what I wanted, so I used that as an inspiration for mine.

The one shown below is made from several boards shaped and glued together. I wanted something similar, but with the addition of side walls that would not only keep coins from rolling off the sides, but also would hide the edge of the boards.

This is the inspiration I used for mine. 
Found on Alibaba.

I already had some maple boards available from the chess board. Fortunately, it was all I needed. No trips to the wood shop or hardware store needed. I cut the boards to length for each of the levels needed x 5, and then another 2 for each of the side walls.

After they were cut, I used a few scraps to test cutting the very shallow angle needed for the slope on the board. This was done on the table saw with an angle of approx 17°. The result was each board having the base shape.

The next step was to use my dado blades on my table saw to cut the notch in the top of the boards. This would be the space that the coins rest in - recessed behind the slope in front of it.

I had 5 boards, but only the first 4 of them would get a notch. The board that would be at the back (the tallest board) would not need a notch because there would be no coin behind it.

All the boards were the same size, but in order for the stepped alignment of the stand, each level would be slid down to the point where the notch would sit at the edge of the slope for the board behind it, as shown above.

Next step was to sand the boards. It would be very difficult to sand the faces of the boards once assembled, so each board face and slope was sanded individually. You can see on some of the images above that the saw blade left some serious scratches that would need a considerable amount of sanding to remove.

After that, I added flocking to the notched spaces. It wasn't truly necessary, as the coins would be resting peacefully on the sanded wooden slots, but my wife suggested I added the soft flocking to the slots, and it seemed like it would add a nice, professional touch. I already had the flocking materials from the Chess board drawers, so it was fairly simple to do. First step was to tape around the area that would have glue applied.

After that, I needed to apply a thin, even coat of glue to the exposed wood. After that, I placed the board into a box, and used a flocking applicator to spray the red flocking powder onto the glued area. The box was used to contain the flocking that was not stuck to glue. That excess flocking would be collected and used another time.

the board is glued and ready to be flocked. The yellow tube is the flocking applicator. The red powder is placed into the tube, then it's expanded to let in air. The tube is similar to an expanding poster tube. In the bottom of the tube, there are holes that spray the flocking powder when the tube is compressed.

a small section of the glued area has received the powder.

All flocked and the glue is drying

After all the appropriate boards were flocked, I let glue dry for a few hours. My garage is quite hot in the summer (it was 27° C in there today, July 11). Once the glue was dry, the tape was removed and the edges of the flocked areas were cleaned up with a sanding block.

The boards then needed to be glued together. That would be done two at a time, to ensure the alignment was done right. If I tried to do them all at once, there was a good chance that the we glue would allow some of the boards to slip and then they wouldn't be straight, or at the correct placement. The photo below shows two boards about to be glued together. The one on the right only has glue to a certain point, as the rest would be offset off the board on the left - so no glue was needed there.

clamping the boards together as they dry. The green tape was added to the face of the bottom board in case any glue squeezed up that direction during clamping. It would be very difficult to scrape any glue from that area in the notch. If the glue ended up on the tape, I could just remove the tape easily, and the wood would be clean and free from residue.

I avoided needing to tape off areas on this glueing but ensuring my glue was very thin and already tacky at the top part of the board, so squeeze-out was unlikely in this direction.

scraping some of the glue off the sides after drying

When the glue was dry and all the boards were joined, I then used my mitre saw to cut bottom of the coin stand flat. I used the start of the slope on the front board as a location for the cut.

Red laser shows me where the blade will be cutting, helping with alignment. In this case, it showed that the boards right edge was not perfectly straight, so the red laser doesn't stay perfectly aligned with the cut-line I drew. To fix that, I added a couple playing cards behind that portion of stand to straighten the cut-line with the laser.

after cutting the bottom on the table saw

As mentioned the left and right sides weren't perfectly straight, so a few extra cuts were done on the table saw to fix that.

The sides needed to be drawn next. I simply placed the stand on a board, and marked out how the side walls would be shaped. I wanted them to be taller than the base because they would serve as feet also.

ignore the dark marks on the side of the stand. Those are burns from the saw blade on the wood. Maple is a very hard wood and cutting it across the grain is done slowly, so this means the saw blade rubs on the wood a lot more, particularly on the ends of the grain - where the cut is more difficult. Those burns are hidden behind the side boards. The important part of this photo is the outline of the side board.

several angle cuts were done on the table saw to get the right shape that would compliment the sloped design of the stand.

Many of the edges would be more easily handled if they had small chamfer bevels on them. My handheld router with a 45° chamfer bit was used - only on the side walls though, and the bottom front of the stand. The rest of the stand was left as-is.

The board on the left has a chamfer applied, while the one of the right still has sharp edges.

Propping up the base of the stand upside down with the cut-off of what was actually the bottom parts of the boards. This allowed me to use my router to cut a chamfer on the bottom edge.

I knew that the bottom of the stand wouldn't be seen, but I didn't like this glue bead being visible.

I used my router with a straight bit to chew-out the glue squeeze-out

Now that all the parts were properly shaped, the next step was to sand everything. On the stand, I needed to remove any trace of glue residue that might have been applied by my grubby fingers. For the side walls, the sanding needed to be done in such a way as to avoid overly rounding the edge. I setup my tabletop sander and aligned a 90° guide so I could properly sand the edges square.



I couldn't use the tabletop sander for the angled edges of the sides, because there would be too much chance of rounding over. My clamp was setup and a handheld mouse sander was used to smooth the edges and remove the burn marks.

After the major sanding was done, the grain needed to be raised. I used a water spritzer to lightly spray all the wood. The wood soaks up the water and the fibers expand - which would have happened later with a top-coat. By spraying the water now, the fibers expand and can be sanded smooth once dry.

After the light sanding sanding of all the edges, I needed to add a stain to the side walls. I used the same stain that was used for the couch console table and the shift shelf. Staining in advance of assembly is easier than trying to keep the base protected after assembly. Stain also doesn't affect the adherence of the glue.

The base was going to be slightly offset from the back, and to get the right amount of lift, I used a few stacks of playing cards. I also used a piece of wood to lift the base off the ground, so the side walls would function as feet.

The glue was allowed to set for several hours, with 4 clamps pressed tight. I ensured to keep the glue very thin in the areas near the front, so there wouldn't be any squeeze-out. After the glue was set, I used my new favourite top-coat, Osmo. It's a hard wax that spreads on as a liquid and then gets wiped off. The oil penetrates and the wax hardens, it makes a great finishing coat.

The shine of wet Osmo can be seen on the side wall. The top 3 sections have the oil applied, so the difference can be seen. A slight yellow hue is also applied from the wet Osmo.

The top coat takes about 24hrs to really set and harden. After that, it was time to bring it to work and set it up!