Back to the Shop, Continuing the Bookcase: Friday Update
I spent the end of the year with family in California. The weather wasn’t much better than Oregon with rain in the forecast, but it was good to get away. I got to disconnect from the real world for a few days.
Upon returning, I had a mountain of emails from my full time job, month end reports, and a slew of activities which could wait until after the holidays. I also had a project sitting on my bench, ready for the next steps.
Before I left I started on a bookcase for my daughter. I created a general design but no full plan. Instead I got started and built the case and planned to make the legs, route the details, sand, and finish.
This week’s update will cover those activities I completed over the last 2 weeks since last week’s blog introduced my announcement of the weekly update.
Legs
I started off the new year by designing the feet for the bookcase. I had no plan, but knew I wanted them to raise the case no more than 4 inches off the ground. I knew I wanted them angled so they matched the angle of the case. I knew it needed to have the right proportions to look sleek, but still be sturdy. And I knew I wanted to use a bridle joint.
So I drew out on a piece of stock what I thought looked good. Then I cut one out using a combination of the table saw and miter saw, cleaning it all up with a hand plane. This first leg I used as a template for the last three.
Normally, I would have created a template out of MDF ahead of time, then rough cut each leg and used the template and the router to cut four identical legs. Instead, I created four similar legs. Making a template is great for repeatability for the piece and for future pieces so I could make more of these for clients. But I don’t plan on making another one of these cases so I decided to wing it.
Last topic on the legs, I paid careful attention to the grain direction. I specifically selected sections of my offcuts with straight grain and oriented the legs to have that grain run with the leg. Two reasons why this is important. It looks good and the leg will be stronger this way.
Joinery
Next up was the joinery. My legs were small, so I used a jig with the table saw to cut a slot with it’s bottom parallel to the top of the leg which will accept the stretcher’s tenon. I used an offcut which had the matching angle to keep the top of the leg flat against the table and the back supported. Then I had to flip the piece around and make the cut on the other side, creating a 1/4 slot in the leg. This was trickier because I did not have the proper offcut to support the piece. So I used the backstop on the jig, clamped it in, and hoped for the best.
Once the legs were done I moved on to the stretchers. I used the table saw and miter gauge, setting the angle using the legs, and removed the material with a flat top grind blade. I got it done, but my jobsite table saw isn’t known for it’s accuracy or reliability, so I left the bridles a bit thick and cleaned them up by hand with a block plane and shoulder plane.
While this worked, it was difficult. I think the ultimate problem was not the bridle portion of the joint, but the mortise, which was also cut on my table saw and the blade was likely not perfectly 90 degrees to the table which caused the joint to bind when put together. I wanted to keep the joint tight, so I didn’t remove too much material, but I did cause some gaps to form in final assembly.
Stretcher Assembly
With the stretchers and legs cut and ready to go I could assemble them. I did this pre-sanding because I wanted to sand and route the entire thing while together.
I was ready to glue my front and back leg assemblies together. I saved my offcuts with matching angles to the outsides of the legs to use as clamping cauls which allow for even clamping pressure, but I ran into a problem. The bridle joints I left long, extending through the leg. This will be trimmed later, but caused my cauls to not sit properly on the legs, so I had to forego the clamps and hope the tight joint was enough clamping pressure for the glue.
Routing
I kept the routing simple. Shelves were rounded. Inside of the case was rounded. And the leg assemblies received a round over on the bottom and the outside of the legs got a light bullnose, or as Chris from Foureyes Furniture calls it, a thumbnail profile. That’s where you take a large round over bit and only cut a portion of the round over, keeping the edges, creating a profile that looks like your thumb nail.
The detail I’m most proud of is on the outside of the case. I used a raised panel bit to create a cove cut which visually thins the case down. Before this detail the case felt a little chunky, after it is sleeker, elegant even.
Sanding
With that I was ready to sand everything. Nothing special here. Orbital starting at 120 moving up through the grits to 220. I hand sanded all of the round overs and the cove on the outside of the case to maintain their lines. You can use a power sander on round overs, but I find that can dig in and cause an inconsistent line to form. That’s nearly impossible to do by hand, so by hand I went.
Final Assembly
I started with the base. I needed 2 stretchers to hold the front and back leg assemblies together. For simplicity I went with dowels for the joinery, using my doweling jig to drill out holes in the stretchers and then inserting centering pins into the holes and pressing them into the leg assemblies to mark where I needed to drill for corresponding dowels. Lastly, I cut the legs to final size using the table saw, referencing the fence so each leg was parallel.
Then I could finally put it together, glue, dowels, and clamps and set aside to dry.
The case was a bit trickier. It shouldn’t have been, but my sliding dovetails were not perfect so I needed to shim the top two shelves. I super glued in small shims at the ends of the dovetail grooves and planned to hammer in shims after the shelves were in place. Luckily I did this ahead of actually assembling the case because I accidentally super glued my fingers together. It took half an hour of soaking my fingers in hot water for the glue to release.
Once free I started by gluing in the bottom two shelves because those were tight. The first went in easy peasy. The second I installed half way upside down before I realized my mistake and then installed it properly. The third was a mighty pain. It was much tighter than anticipated and it required some major hammering to knock it into place. Eventually I hit my shim and even the hammer wouldn’t do, so I used a clamp to force the shelf down and into place. At this point I got smart and dry fit the final shelf before applying glue. This final shelf slid right in, which was a relief.
Lastly, I sent the shims home, ensuring the shelves were sitting square to the case and clamped everything down to dry over night.
Redo the Base
On Wednesday my plan was to apply finish, Thursday was my second finish coat. And Friday the case would be attached to the case and I was going to take pictures and move it inside.
But, before finishing I wanted to get the okay from my wife that it all looked good. And she didn’t like the legs.
So after discussing, testing options, drawing new designs, and reaching out to Reddit for opinions, we settled on no base at all. That threw my schedule off a bit. As I write this the finish is still wet on the bookcase so you don’t get final pictures until next week. This week, let me know what you think of the base design? What should I use it for since it won’t be on this bookcase? Leave me a comment below.
Have a great weekend everyone!