Bookshelf
 

Alright. So I'll catch up to the present on my bookshelf construction. Unfortunately, it's sort of late in the game, so I won't be able to show all of the steps in progress, but here goes.

We bought most of the wood rough, 4/4 cherry, at least 11 1/2 inches wide. (This was not cheap.) For the top, we got some planed poplar and cherry. We then spent one weekend putting the rough wood through our planer. We brought the bottom piece down to about an inch, and the verticals to about 3/4 inch.

We used a router against a guard to straighten one side, then used a square to draw square ends, and routed them square. We marked off the desired width at intervals along the board, and routered that off. We could have used a tablesaw, but they make a big mess and are unwieldy for long boards. We don't have a roller table or a bandsaw, either of which would make this part easier.

Here's the wood for the basic framework. It has already been shaped, but you can get an idea of the dimensions.

The next step was to start shaping the boards. This is the top of one of the verticals. The cuts into the grain were made with a dovetail saw. The cuts across the grain were made with a crosscut saw. The crossgrain cut in the middle was done by repeatedly scoring and chipping it out with a chisel. We used a router to thin down the tongues, and a chisel to clean it up.

The holes are obviously drilled, and the bottoms squared by chisel.

Here's the bottom of the sides. The same methods were used as at the top, but it is obviously much simpler. I'll get back to those holes in a bit.

The bottom of the center vertical is a shorter version of the top and is not pictured.

Here's the other side of that joint. The board on top is the bottom, upside down, and the board on the bottom is a side, inside up. :)

The jig was used to drill the holes for the screw and insert shown. I'll get back to that after a quick sidestep.

These are placed every 10 to 12 inches around the back of the frame. They are to hold the plywood backing on. I didn't purchase the specialty screwdriver bit for these brass inserts, so I improvised. The two nuts are tightened against each other, and the insert placed on the tip. The whole thing is put inside a small block of wood with a hole drilled through, which is clamped in place over the predrilled hole. I used a power screwdriver to drive the insert in. Sometimes when I tried to screw it out, the insert wanted to come with it. In that case, I loosened the nuts from one another, and it came out easily.

The inserts are about 3/8 inch deep, because I will be routering a lip into the edge of the wood, for the plywood to rest in.

The center vertical has the same tonge joint on the bottom as all three verticals have at the top. Here are the holes for those tongues. They were drilled, then squared with a chisel. The same was done at the top.

Ah, back to the jig. When in use, it was clamped in place, and the boards were clamped in position, but this is easier to see. The thick drill bit is for an insert which is essentially a steel cylinder with a threaded hole through it. A long bolt goes in where the thin drill bit is, and through the threaded hole in the insert. When tightened, the joint is pulled together.

I wanted this to be a "knockdown" bookcase which could come apart easily. Otherwise these joints would be dovetails with pins.

And here's the joint, all put together. You can see the inserts peeking out a bit.

OK, finally a glimpse of the top. 13-inch-wide cherry is quite expensive, and hard to find, and this is above eye level, so I decided to have a poplar board edged with cherry. The front cherry is just glued on. For the sides, I had to put a thin strip
of walnut in the joint, because glue doesn't work well on endgrain. I did the same for part of the diagonal joint at the corner.

Cross Section:
_ = air C = cherry, W = walnut, P = poplar
__CCCCCPPPPPPP
__CCCWWWWPPP
__CCCCCPPPPPPP

The pins throuh the tongues need to be shaved down a bit, so they can go further in.

Here are the patterns for my walnut feet. I drew a schematic of the existing framework of the corner, and put that on a light table. I then drew each pattern over it, using a French curve, and cut them out.

These are the shelves, cut to roughly the final length. I lost one shelf, due to measurement error. Here's the biggest tip in woodworking: Measure twice, cut once.

And here's a portrait of the proud craftsmen with the assembled frame. Sorry it's cut off - it's hard to get the whole thing in one shot in the room it's in.

Windsor Chair
 

My dad has begun working on the straight pieces of the next project - a Windsor chair. He starts from square stock, and shaves it round with a plane.

And here's where he is so far.

:)


wow.

I gotta get to a REAL lumber yard. I'm making stuff out of shitty home depot pine planks. Nice work, monkey and monkey's dad. Your dad looks like a wood shop teacher.

keep the pics coming! i love it!

And finally (whew), here's the chair he made in the class he took.

Re: Re: Windsor Chair
 

I think he enjoys it. Perhaps it's the homemade look. Perhaps he just wants to use some of the stock we already have. I'm not sure.

Nice use of the Freedom Curve.

Dowels are not appropriate because the grain isn't consistant. They could break off instead of flexing.

edit- I forgot to mention how awesome that chair is. It must be great having a Dad with so much know how.

The next step was to rout out a lip for the plywood back to rest in. We took out the middle upright and put it back together, then laid it facedown on some pillows and styrpfoam blocks. My dad ran along the inside back wit ha router, and I squared up the corners with a chisel.

As an aside, this view shows the cross section of the joint holding the endcaps on the top, which I illustrated with truly awful ASCII art a few posts back. It also illustrates wh the screw insets were put so deep, and why it would have been difficult to put them in later - screwing into a stepped surface is very difficult.

Here's an interesting aside. Before I started work on the bookshelf, I did some design work with POV-Ray, to play with dimensions and to see whether the pins sticking up would look too odd. Here's the result.
forgive the overdramatic background.

Two points HM... first is, is that bookshelf square? Or is it just the angle or my eyes? It looks like it's on an angle to me.

Second: You really should use a sharp bit in that router...you're burning the wood.

Brian

It's the angle. The frame is square, but it's got some give, which will be fixed when the back is in.

The burning is not really an issue. That area won't show. But we probably should deal with that for future use.

Who knows anything about sharpening stuff? good resources etc..?

So, with the walnut for the feet cut to rough lengths, my dad routed a design into the top edge. This was pretty thick wood, so I had to find a pretty big router bit.

I then drew a cut line far enough from the edge to leave room for error, using a square.

We tried using a chopsaw to cut the 45 degree angles...

...but it wasn't accurate enough, so we set up the tablesaw using a protractor. Good thing we left the extra space.

And here's the test of the joint. These clamps are great for corners, whether it's furniture or picture frames.

With the corner edges cut, I traced the pattern, and cut it out with a scroll saw.

I used a drill press and a sanding drum, and my father used a drawknife (not pictured), to smooth out the sawcut.

Then we used a fancy mortise jig on the tablesaw to cut a lip into the inside top of the feet. Obviously, you don't need all the hardware to do it, but if you've got it, flaunt it.

And here's the first rough cut of the feet.

I didn't get to do anything over the weekend, but my dad glued up the feet, smoothed over the ends, and glued in some blocks on the inner surfaces of the corners.

Next, we prepared the plywood backing. It is 1/8 inch birch plywood, so it is quite flimsy.

First I measured the same distance from one edge at intervals, using some scrap wood to make sure the tape measure didn't go too diagonally, then I used a straightedge to connect the dots.

Then I put masking tape along the line, to minimize splintering, and my dad cut it with a circular saw.

We then shaved it down with a (very sharp) plane, until it fit in the groove on the back of the bookshelf.

We ground notches in the edge with a dremmel, to allow for the bolts which will hold the backing in.

And here's what it looks like with those screws in...

...And from the front. We're getting close to finished.

For the molding around the top, we routed one edge of a board, cut it off with a tablesaw, then repeated the process.

We also ripped off two slices from some of the spare wood from the shelves.

We used the chopsaw to make a angle joint in the molding, for the corner.

For perfect placement, we wanted to place the molding while the frame was together. The masking tape is to avoid unwanted gluing.

And then we glued it. Once the glue got a bit solid, the excess glue was scraped off with a chisel.
whee! post 500!

man, monkey. you guys don;t fuck around, do you? very precise work. I'm very impressed. Dad's got a pretty mean tool set, too, huh?

some day, baby, some day.

tell your pop he's my hero, and keep the pics coming!

Waste of time, though. You could have gone out and bought that bookcase for what, 7 maybe 8 thousand dollars. :D

He's got a lot of tools, but there's only a few that get used all the time:

Router
straight edged chisel
drill (a drill press is nice, and occasionally necessary)
tablesaw
Lots and lots of clamps. Those red-orange clamps with the plastic pads are great. Home depot has them.
workbench
a very sharp plane

And if you want choices when buying wood, a planer is a necessity.

For the amount I spent on materials, I could have gotten about twice the shelfspace from Ikea...

Nifty! I'm a Master Dwellar now!

HA! The stuff you can find on the market, isn't worthy of holding your tools. What you (and Dad) have built, vs commercially available bookshelves, is like comparing Moon/Mars Rover to a beach buggy.
Now you've got to have some kids because you've created an heirloom.:)

Indeed.

Also, I can't stand shopping for furniture. All of mine is either handmade or handed down.

Wow, it's really encouraging to see someone still makes their own funiture and that someone makes *quality* furniture. I know from experience there is great satisfation to be found bth working with wood and making things yourself. Sadly for now I can't own anything that doesn't fit in a suitcase. C'est la vie.

That's great, I tried to get into woodworking but I don't have the patience. I like to screw up and then fix my mistakes, doesn't work so well with wood.

No worries! If you make a mistake, just cut off the mistake, and make it smaller!



http://www.roughriderauction.com/min...ture_small.JPG
no, I didn't make these

The middle foot has a bar going back, which the base rests on. The end of the bar is in a groove in the back of the foot. The groove was cut with a tablesaw and cleaned out with a chisel.

The bar is solidly in the groove, and attached with three pieces of hardware designed for chairs. These are much stronger than normal angle irons, due to the 3D shaping - not that it's a joint that needs to be that strong, but I had the pieces from a previous project.

Long time no post. I'll start off with a picture of the piece all together, face down in the work area. It just fits, with inches to spare.

I spent a day sanding all of the pieces down with an orbital sander, and following up with some extremely high grit sandpaper.

Next was to drill the holes for the shelf pegs. I have this nifty jig I got from rockler.com that goes with this nifty drill bit, which goes with some nifty brass inserts that the shelf supports fit in. :)

Well, partway through, the drill ran out of juice, so I went on to the next step. These blocks will be used to attach the feet to the bottom. If you look closely, you can see that the grain on each block goes in the same direction as the grain on the board. Otherwise, the glue would not bond properly. The excess glue was scraped off with a chisel once it partially dried.

I never heard that one, HM. Now I'm going to be up all night trying to figure out why that would be true.:)