Posted by Jerry on January 16th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Woodwork
With the final two bookcases in place and the shelves all cut to size the end is in sight – well kinda. As with any project in wood or textiles the finishing process and embellishments can take up nearly as much time – but then these are the really fun bits that will pull the whole project together.
I wanted something with an architectural feel, but not crassly colonial in style.ย But above all, I wanted to cover the joins between the individual units to pull it all together visually.
I planned from the outset that all the uprights would be bridged by 40mm beaded trims in Tasmanian oak. The the long low top of the shelves beneath the window should be edged the same way. And in keeping with the sense of scale, as well as something to rhyme with the previous built in bookcases in the adjoining room (yeah – we’re onto the second room now!).
But what to do about the junctions? I had used rosettes in the other room – commercially bought ones – and they look … well, being honest, they look okay. For now.ย But they are expensive at around $10AUS and then you can’t get them smaller than 3 1/2 inches or about 60mm.
This time I would need at least a dozen so I started to look at buying a rosette cutter. Sure enough, with the summer sales in full swing I found one at Carbatec in Fyshwick – the industrial part of Canberra. I had a close look at the cutter head – a very substantial piece of metal, but great value at AUD42.00 plus the rosette blades at AUD22.00 each. I could see that there were several shapesย – but they were all at least 60mm wide. Looking closely at the profile I figured I could do something creative. So I spent some of my Christmas money and realised very quickly that I could not only make exactly what I wanted, but save a pile of money too!
The rosette cutter is not to be taken lightly. I was told in Carbatec that it was for use at SLOW speed in the bench drill only, and under no circumstances should it be used in a router. I could see why. The blade is a friction fit in the cutter head, and at high speed there is a clear danger of the blade coming loose. I read on a forum how someone had been killed by one of these blades – by using it in a router. So it was with some caution that I read the manual first – noting that it says in large threatening letters DO NOT USE IN A ROUTER – drill press or lathe only and then only at between 300-600rpm max.
I set the speed in the drill press, double checked that the blade was secure, installed it in the drill press chuck and then dressed up for combat – face shield, leather apron, dust mask – and gingerly turned the drill press on from the wall. Suddenly… nothing happened – except a nice whirring sound. No rattle, no vibration. It was time to test it on some timber.
Pine was … not brilliant. The coarse grain meant a lot of tearout. I tried increasing the speed to around 510rpm – better but still not what I was after. But I could see that with the right wood it would do okay. I went for some red maple trim leftover from a previous project – it’s light, soft, but close-grained.
And with some experimenting found the right feed rate to minimise any chatter and tearout.
The key to using this is to treat it gently and clamp everything down tight.
You’ll notice I used 40mm wide stock – hence the need for extra care to ensure a slow feed rate. I made sure it was well centred and clamped tight and found that the soft close-grained maple was ideal. But hang on, isn’t the cutter 60mm? And so my plan emerges.
Once I had a row of rosettes (I’m sure you can see why I didn’t cut the stock to size first), all I had to do was slice them off at 60mm lengths
which left me with a bunch of little boats. But with some judicious sanding I was able to keep the central feature, while shaping 40mm wide rosettes.
And I can still make 3 1/2inch rosettes with the same cutter, without modification.
Here they are varnished and ready to decorate the joins on the bookcases – once the varnish dries! And you can see the beaded trim that will go with them.
With twelve completed the rosette cutter has already paid for itself twice over ๐
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on January 14th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Woodwork
Turning the corner with bookcases can be a bit of a challenge. There are three possibilities: you can butt two bookcases together at right angles – but then you have a dead spot in one of the bookcases. You could construct the bookcases slightly short and have a right angle – but that would mean wasted space in the corner. The third possibility is to build a corner cabinet.
It’s actually not much different from building standard bookcases, except that the shelves are deeper than the adjoining bookcases. I could have bought wider timber, except my hardware store doesn’t stock timber 450mm wide. However I did have some melamine chipboard of that width.
Noting that I was going from narrow bookcases on one side to wider ones on the other I prepared one board of each width – one of 2400x190mm and one 2400x240mm in the same way as for the sides of the bookcases. That is, I made cutouts for the skirting board and for the architrave.
I wanted an opening of 300mm (about one foot), so I measured 190mm on one side and 240mm on the other and moved a steel rule around until I could make a five-sided figure resembling a truncated triangle.
Once drawn to size I cut that one out carefully and used it as a template to make four more.
I also needed to make a kick-board and chose in this case to make it as tall as the skirting board to avoid having to cut down the bottom shelf.
Assembly was assisted by the use of a mitre clamp, but otherwise went the same as for the bookcases. For added strength I made all the shelves fixed, using screws and glue as the back of each shelf would be unsupported – most of the items I plan placing in the unit will sit between the shelf supports so I’m not worried about the rear of the shelves bowing.
The one exception is the bottom shelf where I intend to stow a spare fiddle case – that one I made a block to fit beneath the corner and screwed it to the bottom shelf. I shall eventually put a door on the bottom section and the upper will remain as open shelves for a clock and small decorative piece.
The sides will be faced with beaded trim and the top will be faced with a decorative trim to take it up to ceiling height and the exposed edges of the shelves will be faced with iron-on wood veneer – it’s real wood but backed with a heat activated glue – but that is for another day.
I managed to get the wider bookcases built today, so tomorrow will see a flurry of cutting for the loose shelves and the start of the finishing process.
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Posted by Jerry on January 14th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Woodwork
So a week has passed – with a couple of 40 degree celsius days I’ve actually had about four days – well mornings and early evenings to get into the shed and build more bookcases. the plan is to build in the bookcases around the room. The challenge is that they need to be fitted around a window and across a corner.
I built seven low bookcases in the style of the one I built before. I wanted a floor-to-ceiling book case at one end flowing into the corner unit. So the seventh low bookcase has one side that goes up to the ceiling – the reason for that will become clear shortly.
The standard bookcase is pretty straightforward, so I’ll just focus on a couple of details – the stuff they don’t tell you in the woodwork magazines – and how I solved a couple of …er… issues. There are obvious ones like coping with skirting boards to get the shelves to fit against the wall – on two sides. And there are less obvious ones like the wall not being straight or perpendicular! And then there is the issue of building the corner shelves – which I’ll cover tomorrow.
Fitting against a wall
In the previous post I talked about the cutout for the skirting board, but what if you want to butt the shelf against a corner? The easy solution is to apply packing pieces to the side, shaped to the profile of the skirting board. As I shall be covering the joins with some beaded trim these can be fairly crude
And to get the view from the front
While this might look a bit lop-sided it will blend the unit to the wall. At least it would if the wall were perpendicular to the floor. In this case it isn’t! So I found some close-grained Tasmanian oak and shaped it by holding it upright against the shelf side and running a pencil held against a small block and running the block against the wall to get the profile transferred to the board. I then cut this so that the gap between the wall and the shelf is suitably covered.
To fit the tall shelves I wanted to be sure that they would fit around the curved architrave at the top of the room – a process best done while the shelves are single boards rather than assembled units. I decided to take the medieval approach and make a wooden template.
First I went up a stepladder and shaped a piece of cardboard to the architrave
Then I transferred the shape to a piece of scrap timber
And then I cut this out with a coping saw. So now I have templates for the skirting board and the architrave
As you can see the tall bookcase has a fixed shelf in the middle to prevent the sides from bowing. And that is the story so far
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on January 6th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Woodwork
Whether making one book case or several – as I am doing – there are a few tricks to make it a quick and painless process – remember we’ll be building this book case in under two hours.
Firstly, when making the sides (the uprights), cut them in pairs – that way they will always be level with each other. You will need for each book case a pair of sides of equal length – the size is up to you. For floor-to-ceiling book cases they are likely to be a fairly standard 2.4 metres. The ones I am making today are designed to fit under a window, so mine are 830mm tall – which will leave a 20mm gap for a final smooth top to be fitted along the length. But the principle is the same, whether tall or short.
For each book case you will need at least four shelf-length pieces – in my case about 750mm. These will comprise the fixed elements of the book case. They will be used as follows:
- a top for the book case
- a kick board at the bottom front
- a bottom shelf; and
- a middle shelf
All other shelves will be adjustable to allow for different height books.
Measure once, cut many times
In contrast to the old dictum about ‘measure twice and cut once’, we’ll reverse that for this project! Even for one book case you will have several pieces that need to be of the same length. The trick is to measure one (carefully!) and clamp a stop-block to your saw bench – after that, forget measuring and just slot each new one up to the stop block and cut away. Providing the block doesn’t move they will all be be the same length.
Fit around the skirting board
When all your uprights are cut, the next thing is to cut a notch to fit the bookcase around the skirting board – that way the back will be flush with the wall. To do this we use a contour gauge – there are several types, but all use the same principle – a collection of stiff wires trapped between two flat straps. When you press it against an irregular object, the wires deflect, leaving an imprint of the contour – in this case, a skirting board
Then you transfer that shape with a pencil to the lower back part of your book case sides
Now cut out the shape with a hand saw
And the shelf sides will now fit your wall
Assembly
With all the pieces cut to size it is time to assemble the bookcase. Find a large flat surface – in this case a couple of sheets of melamine placed across the saw bench extension.
Lay the two sides face downward so that the skirting board cutouts are facing up. Now place the kickboard and the bottom shelf in position.
Assembly is with screws – you can glue the joints as well for added strength. Pre-drill right through the side into the kickboard. Then countersink the hole and finally screw in the screw – I use chipboard screws for just about everything!
Here are the steps in pictures – I use quick-change drill bit, countersink and screwdriver bit – they save a heap of time ๐
Once the bottom shelf is on, make sure the bookcase is square and add the top shelf using the same procedure. You can make it easier on yourself by using a mitre clamp to hold the pieces together while you drill and screw them together.
Adjustable shelves
Now you should have a bare bookcase carcass. Place it on one side and using a template – I use a length of pegboard to guide the position of the holes. In this case I had a part of an old bookcase where I had drilled all the way through the side – so I used that as a template this time.
Note that I have used masking tape on the drill to give me a depth guide to ensure I don’t drill all the way through the side!
Now insert some shelf supports and add the centre shelves. And aside from the varnish – that’s all there is to it!
For a tall bookcase I would make a fixed shelf about halfway up to prevent bowing. With practice you can build one in about two hours ๐
Tomorrow I’ll finish off the other bookcases and and then we can look at how to make built-in bookcases using this construction technique – the secret is to build in modules and hide the joins with some 40mm beaded trim ๐
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on January 5th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Woodwork
Well, Christmas and New Year have come and gone, and with twelfth night fast approaching I was contemplating our growing pile of books beside the bed, and on the computer table waiting to be dutifully entered into our LibraryThing catalogue – one of a few New Years resolutions!
I realised something was up when Sharon made me a cup of coffee. Perhaps it was something in the tone of “I was thinking…” that suggested I really should be paying attention, and words like ‘book cases’ started to enter the conversation – hypothetically of course….
Yes, an expansion of our book cases is long overdue – far too many books wedged in sideways on the shelves – and then there’s the alarmingly tall pile beside the bed – on each side. I did some quick figuring and named a suitably large sum thinking that would be the end of the conversation.
There was an abrupt flurry of activity which somehow included me gulping down the last of my coffee as we headed out the door and a short while later my shed started to look worryingly like we had just transferred the entire Timber Department from Bunnings!
What a satisfying trip to the toyshop!
Tomorrow: how to make a book case in two hours – and built-in book cases within four days ๐
Cheers
Jerry
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