Crescent Moon Crystal Display Shelf Plans

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Free woodworking plans to build a Crescent Moon shaped shelf to display Crystal Healing Wands.

I let a friend of mine for Christmas. She's into a bunch of things I don't know much about healing and crystals and stuff. She send me a link to a picture of crescent moon shaped display shelf for crystals. It looked really nice but only limited amounts are hand made and I guess they went fast because I couldn't order one. The reasonable option was to make one myself. Below you'll find plans and a video to make one too if you want.

Building the crystal shelf cost about the same as buying it when counting all the different finishes I had to get and it did take a good amount of time.

It took me about 6 nights doing a little bit of work each night. One night to come up with the design, one night to cut and sand all the pieces and the rest was finishing. Finishing shouldn't have taken that long but I didn't get the right color and decided to sand everything down and start over.

If you don't want to go through all that you can see if there's anything you like on Drew Silver's Etsy store where I saw the shelf. The maple he uses comes from a mill local to him and has a nice grain pattern. I used red oak because it was easy to get in the time I had. Mine is also a little bigger and the moon is a slightly different shape. He also used 1/2" thick material for the moon and half moon shelves.

What You'll Need

Materials

1' of 1x12 board
1' of 1x2 board
6 #8 1" flat head wood screws
Wood stain (I used 25% Varathane Jacobean and 75% Minwax True Black)
Clear Satin Minwax Polyurethane
This Natural Crystal Wand Set goes well with the shelf

Tools

Band saw if you have Jig saw if not
Drill
1/8" drill bit for pilot holes
countersink bit
Combination square
Compass
Belt and Detail Sander
80, 150 and 220 grit sandpaper or similar
finishing supplies

Crescent Moon Crystal Display Shelf Video

I'm trying to make more videos in an effort to get better at that. Let me know what you think of the video. You'll still need some of the info in these plans.

Step 1: Mark Centers of Arcs

The design of my shelf looks a little more round and uniform compared to the inspiration piece. The reason for this is that I'm not great and freehand drawing and I wanted to come up with a way of doing this that would be easy.

After playing around with different methods for a while I found I could get a pleasing looking crescent moon shape by drawing 2 arcs with a compass.

To start off we'll need to mark the location of the centers of the arcs on our 1x12.

Draw a horizontal line with a combination square 6" up from the bottom of the board. Then mark the centers of the arcs 1-5/8" and 4-5/8" from the left edge as shown.

Step 2: Draw the Outer Arc

Set your compass so it draws a radius of 5-3/4" and draw an arc on the wood using the right most marking for the center.

Step 3: Draw Inner Arc

Set the compass to 4-1/2" place the center pin of the compass on the left center mark and draw the inner arc.

As easy as that we have a nice crescent moon shape we can cut out.

Step 4: Mark Half Moon Shelves

Set the compass to 1-1/2" and mark out 2 half circles along the right edge of the board making sure the entire half circle stays on the board and is far enough away from the other arcs for cutting.

Step 5: Lay out Stair Shelf

Next we'll lay out the stair pattern on the 1x2 board. Using the combination square's 45 degree guide draw 7/8" lines to define the treads and risers making a total of 9 steps. I made a mistake and said 8 in the video. Once all those V's are drawn close the stairs by making 2 more lines at 45 degrees as shown.

If you've laid out stairs before should be easy. If you need more help have a look at the video.

Step 6: Cut Out and Sand the Shapes

The ideal tools to use for this would be a band saw, bench belt and drum sanders. I don't have any of those. I cut out my shapes using a jig saw, staying outside the line, then used my handheld sanders to finish sanding to the line. I started with 80 grit paper then moved to 150 grit. I also sanded the edges to soften them a bit and the front surfaces to get them ready for stain and remove the pencil marks. Once you have the pieces cut you should have 4 chucks of wood that look like this.

Step 7: Position and Attach Stairs

Lay out the Crescent moon so the top point is on the top. Position the stairs in a way that makes the steps horizontal. I don't have any advice on best to do it and I just did it by eye as best I could. It should look something like this.

Once you get the steps positioned where you want, use a clamp to hold them in place. From the back drill pilot holes through the moon and the stairs, using a depth gauge so you don't poke through the stairs, use the countersink bit to make the countersink and secure the stairs with wood screws.

Step 8: Position and Attach Half Moon Shelves

This is another one that is mostly done by eye so take your time. For the bottom shelf I used the bottom of the steps to align the shelf then slide it to the left and make sure it looks parallel to the steps. Clamp the shelf in place, drill pilot holes, countersinks and attach with wood screws.

For the upper shelf I did it by eye trying to line it up with the steps as best as possible.

Step 9: Drill Mounting Holes

Finally the last step in construction is to drill some mounting holes in the points that are wide enough for the mounting screws you plan on using. You'll probably need drywall anchors to mount it as well.

Step 9: Staining & Finishing

I liked the dark look of the inspiration shelf and tried to get a similar look. The grain of red oak is easy to get dark but the wood between the dark rings is hard to darken. Minwax True Black stain will get stain every part of oak a nice rich dark black but that wasn't the look I wanted. I mixed 25% (2 teaspoons) of Varathane Jacobean with 75% (6 teaspoons) of True Black together, left the stain soak in for 15 minutes before wiping it off. That gave me a nice dark display shelf that would help the colorful crystals stand out.