Guitar Hanger From Piece of Oak Driftwood

One of my work friends (my boss) questioned me on a team call "You do woodwork don't you Steve? Could you make me a wall mounted guitar rack?"
He then hit me with, "to fit in with the rest of my house decor it needs to be made of a piece of drift wood."
Later that week I was round at my parents chatting about what projects I was working on, I said "i've got a problem one for my boss, he wants a guitar rack made of drift wood", my dad (being a bit of a hoarder) said, "I've got a piece we got out of Langstone Harbour about 10 years ago, I was going to do something with it, you can have it."

Supplies:~
A long (1300 mm (4' 3")) piece of solid driftwood
6 x guitar hangers (came with mounting screws)

Tools:~
A bandsaw to split the log not necessary if your log is thinner
Oscillating saw (cutting out the mounting locations)
Electric drill (drill bits for clearance holes)
Chisel and mallet

Optional:~ (if you decide to make your own mounts)

500 mm (1' 7⅝") x 40 mm (1.57") x 20 mm (0.79") oak
Table saw
Router with 45º mitre bit.

The first issue with this project was I needed to rip the wood in half (halfish).
I wanted to make sure the wood stayed straight and level as it went through the bandsaw. To do so i mounted it to a piece of MDF, first I drew around the wood then drilled 6 holes within the outline. From the underside I screwed the wood to the MDF, I was then able to use the straight edge of the MDF against the fence of the bandsaw.
The driftwood was an ancient piece of oak, incredible tight grain and very heavy (>20 kg (44 lbs)).
The finish I got on the bandsaw cut was perfect, certainly perfect enough to be against the wall.

Having laid out the hangers I marked around each with a sharp pencil.
My aim was to make sure the mounts were flat but not necessarily sunk fully into the drift wood.
I cut around the perimeter of the pencil line using a narrow wood blade in the oscillating saw. I removed the rest of the cutout with some freshly sharpened chisels.

Once all the mounting cutouts had been created. I marked the mounting holes and drilled the 3.5 mm (0.14") pilot holes.

While screwing the mounts into position some finish was scrubbed off. I had a closer look at the 'wood' used on the mounts and there are no other words for it but it was rubbish, a very soft wood. I had a look in my offcuts bin and pulled out a piece of oak.

Having decided to remake the mounts, they were actually very easy, and I wish I had done them straight away.
As I had already cut the drift wood to fit the mounts I needed to exactly copy the size of the originals. This was in fact very easy, they were 80 mm x 40 mm x 20 mm (3.15" x 1.57" x 0.79") to add a little finish I also ran a 45º bevel around the top edge of each piece.

Once I had the blanks I used one of the original to mark the holes.
These holes were a little tricky, the mounting holes needed to be stepped, a 3 mm (0.12") clearance all the way through and then a larger (8.5 mm (0.33")) hole for the screw head, this larger one went halfway through from the top.

The fingers of the hanger screw into a t-nut through the front of the mount, this too needed a stepped hole but this time from the other side. First I made the larger hole with a 19 mm (0.75") forstner bit, the forstner bit has a centre point making it easier to then drill the clearance hole through the rest of the piece.

I reused the t-nut from the original mounts, to remove them I screwed a bolt in from the front and gave it a tap with a hammer. Fitting them in the new mounts was the reverse, I positioned by hand then using a 12 mm (0.47") socket as a punch, hit them into place with a hammer.

I'm super pleased with how these came out.

Really surprised how different the two side are considering they were halves of the same log. One side is completely sun bleached and full of worm holes, the other side is very dark and eaten away.
My guess is that it was laying in the mud of Langstone Harbour with the upper side in the sun and the lower protected in the mud.

Having discussed with my friend how he wanted them mounted to the wall we decided on a slightly jaunty angle.
The top screw holes on both hanger was level to the laser line and the bottom screw hole was 230 mm (9") directly below the laser line.

I came back in from loading the tools in my car to find my friend stood in the room just staring at the installation.

To say he was chuffed would be an understatement 😁