Bookshelf a la Matt Part 2 - Finished!

Today I completed the assembly of the bookshelf. It's been quite a month since my last post on the bookshelf and I won't bore you with the details of my non-woodworking adventures. Let's say that there was some good and some not-so-good. C'est la vie.

Most of what you're reading about occurred over 4 weeks, so I'll ask your pardon if I gloss over some details. If there's anything you'd like to hear more detail on, please let me know by leaving a comment and I'll elaborate in a future post.

My next step was to route the stopped dados for the bottom and middle shelf. I set up an edge guide for my router by gluing a 2x2 to a piece of 1/4" plywood followed by a pass with the router to create a clean edge exactly the right distance from the 2x2. Because I was using a 3/8" bit, I had no worries about starting to wander away from the edge guide. For a 3/4" dado, there was plenty of wiggle room. Once again, yours truly forgot his camera, so no pictures of the process. I set the 2 sides beside each other back to back so that I could cut the entire dado and be in perfect alignment on both sides. Except that on the bottom piece, I routed all the way through to the front. So much for the stopped dado.

I did get it right on the middle and that was the critical one as I planned on having the shelf stop about a 1/2" shy of the front which is a bit of a design change from my sketchup pic in Part 1.


Milling Completed



Cutting the rabbets

A few days later, I took the boards that would make up the ship-lap back and cut them to their appropriate width of 4". From there, I used a 3/8" rabbet bit with my home made router table (which I had almost thrown out, but decided to wait - incidentally, it works great being clamped down to my workbench) to cut rabbets on opposing faces.

All cuts completed

Finally, I used a chamfer bit to add a bit of softness to the corners so that the gaps between the boards would look more natural. I guess in the summer when the boards swell, the gaps may close, but in the winter, it gets dreadfully dry around here and I expect that the gaps may widen to about 1/16". Or so says my Woodshop Widget app. Dialing in the router to cut the rabbets exactly .25" deep was fun. I don't have a router lift, so I would make a test cut, check, adjust, repeat and after about a dozen attempts, I deemed it close enough. The chamfers were much easier to set up. Not bad for 1 nights work.



Knot stabilization



The next time I got out to the shop, I routed the rabbet around the inside of the sides, top and bottom - again on the router table - it's just easier than trying to balance the router on a 3/4" thick edge. I found that using green tape on the top side of the board to mark where to stop and start cuts on the side pieces invaluable. The rest of my time was spent sanding everything to 180 grit and I ended my day in the shop by doing some knot stabilization using epoxy. This is part of the joy of working with off-cuts from the lumber yard, but I think that knots give the wood some character and the grain some life. Sure it's a pain to hand plane, but I think the end result is worth it. Just mask off the areas around where you need to apply the epoxy (and tape the bottom of the knot if it goes all the way through) and apply. I had to go over some of the areas twice as the epoxy had settled into the deep recesses of the knot and left a hole in the surface. The first application sealed the knot however and it didn't happen a second time.

A few days later, I assembled the outer shell of the bookshelf using epoxy as my glue of choice. I would have used wood glue, but I had to use bricks as my downward pressure on the assembly because I had only 2 pipe clamps that were long enough. Well, I would have used the wood glue on the dovetail joint in the top because dados all have end grain at leas on 1 of the mating surfaces throughout the joint. Because of the weight that the shelf would have to hold, I decided that epoxy was just a better choice.

All that was left was applying finish, inserting the middle shelf and attaching the back. It was the Home Stretch!



Nice figure! Applying sealing coat

 The boards were all of varying shades and just putting a coat of shellac on it just wouldn't do. I didn't want to just cover it up, I wanted the grain to remain visible. So taking a method I picked up from Charles Neil during the last guild build, I applied a single coat of shellac cut to 1 lb and then followed up with either 1 or 2 (depending on the piece that was having the stain applied to it) coats of water based stain wiping off after 3-5 minutes of sitting with the stain on. Finally, I applied 2 coats of the same 1 lb cut of shellac (The Woodshop Widget rides again!). I of course sanded with 600 grit after every coat of finish except the last where I used 800 grit.

Today I attached the middle shelf again using epoxy before I started my regular day job and let it set over the course of the day. This evening, I fastened the ship-lap backing using my pass-lode cordless nailer using my pull saw's blade (the back edge) as a spacer (I would hazard a guess at 3/64" thickness). I then brought it in, and introduced my daughter to it.

I can't say for sure, but she seemed pleased and that is all a father can ask for.

It's more than enough.

Resources:

 The Woodshop Widget

 Fixing a Knot -TWW Episode 113

Children's Bookshelf a la Matt - Part 1

As a preamble, let me say that I know I originally wanted to try to publish something 2-3 times per week. Fact of the matter is that I only get out to the shop 2-3 times per week and for a couple of weeks after finishing the workbench, I spent a week reorganizing the shop. I disassembled my old bench and now the warped plywood is sitting in a corner waiting to be taken to the dump. The sanitation department wouldn't take them on garbage day. Boo! The other thing that's been keeping me from publishing anything is that my daughter who will be 6 months old this weekend is far more interesting with the pace at which she is learning about the world. If only I could pick up wood working skills as quickly! I'll spare you the boredom of being the proud father gushing with what noises she can make or how quickly she's growing... let's get on with the post.

One of the things about taking on a hobby such as woodworking is that loved ones may ask that you build things for them. When it's a spouse that's asking, it may be called a 'honey-do list'. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate being asked to make something. It gives me something to challenge myself with.

It was originally thought that we should have some shelves to put up on the wall. Not quite knowing the best way to go about it, I did some research, and hanging bookshelves seem to be somewhat rare in the internet community. The ones that were out there, were not in the style or of the magnitude that was originally envisioned. I decided that maybe I was out of my depth on this one. Sure, designing something from scratch is an option, but being new to woodworking, I don't feel ready for that. Without the experience to know what wood is capable of, I was afraid that I would make it either too light and thus dangerous to place books on or overengineering it with the result of it looking very chunky.

After some discussion, a smallish 2 shelf floor standing bookshelf was the design to go for. Portable, easy to build and not that heavy. Walnut. I had some 6' lengths stacked under my bench. Not enough, but a starting point. Well, the starting point was the design. After some more interenet searching for inspiration, I decided to model it after the bookshelf Matt (from Matt's Basement Workshop) built back in the summer of 2008. It's not quite the same, but looking at the sketchup drawing, you will definitely see the similarities. Dovetailed top, stopped dados and ship-lap back.

A quick trip to the lumber yard for some walnut offcuts and I was ready to go. I was also eager to try out my new 6" jointer.

What? Oh yeah, well, it isn't new, but seeing it listed in CraigsList, I couldn't pass it up. I have tried to flatten and thickness by hand, but was left exhausted and unsuccessful. I don't plan on giving up practising, but the convenience is nice to have. Especially for the particularly harder woods like purpleheart (which I have worked with) or wenge which I hope to work with someday ... But I digress.

A test board went wonderfully. I had already spent some time ensuring the fench and beds were in tune with the blades.

The sides were milled to just under 3/4", the shelves at 3/4", the top at 5/8" and the back pieces to 1/2". Well, the first milling was to 5/8" and then I let those pieces sit for a week before milling down to a 1/2".

The dovetails for the top and sides were next on my agenda, and over the course of a couple of evenings and Saturday afternoon, I managed to get them completed. I even cut one set pins first and the other set tails first. After having run through the exercise both ways, I have to say I preferred the pins first but I guess it's all in the setup on how you transfer the layout from the cut pins to the tail board or vice versa. Oh, because I didn't refer to the drawing when laying out my first set, I ended up with a layout other than what was in my drawing. When I looked at it after, I had to laugh, but was able to adapt and it's now a 'design feature'.

One thing I did come across was an issue of tearout at the middle of the board. I had set up the board onto a sacraficial surface and clamped a vertical surface above on the layout line as a reference to ensure I was chopping vertically. After chopping halfway through - relieving the chips as I went along, I would flip the board and chop down from the other side. When there was only 1/8" of waste left, the remaining waste would snap off pulling fibres out from the end grain leaving a gaping cavity. I know this wouldn't be seen when assembled, but I wondered if there was a way to prevent that from happening. So I put the question out on Twitter. I don't have a lot of followers, but Steve from The Taylor Garage responded and we chatted back and forth. The solution I ended up implementing was to chop from one side until there was only 1/8" left and then flip the board over and make light cuts until it sheared the fibres completely away. My delight at this immediate improvement was manifest as I did a little sitting jig on my stool. Not only improvement in skill, but taking a little more patience and care to do the final cuts a little slower instead of mauling away with a war hammer on an Uruk hai (Yes, a Lord of the Rings reference - I'm such a geek).

Meanwhile, I've also glued up all of the shelves. Each one is made up of 2 boards. More out of the necessity to use as much materials already on hand than anything else. These are pretty straight forward. Gluing up right after milling meant a minimum use of cauls to squish the glue around.

Next week, I will tackle the stopped dados, the rabbet and maybe even the assembly. Let's see how the week goes and how much I (willingly) get distracted to play with my daughter.


Resources:
Matt's Basement Workshop - Episode 284 - Child's Bookcase Finale