The Ellie Bookcase
Click the image to view more photos of the bookcase.
My daughter, Ellie, loves books. Her collection sits in a ramshackle pile in the corner of her room, so it was time to fix that and make her a bookcase. Being a woodworker, I couldn’t just make her a bookcase, I needed to make her one she could keep forever.
I threw a design together, ran the specs past the boss for approval, and after my wife okayed it I got to work figuring out how I would challenge myself with the build. First up, I wanted to try sliding dovetails. Second, I decided to go with bridle joints for the feet/stretcher assembly. I’ll explain why I wanted to go with those two joinery technics in a second, but first, before you get too invested in this article, I wanted to warn you. If you are looking for a step by step build guide, this article is not that. If you want to see how I built the case, check out my video. This article is here for me to explain why I made certain decisions and discuss what I would improve next time.
Sliding Dovetails
Dovetails are strong. They don’t rely on fasteners or glue, they hold themselves together. Pull against a dovetail and you just wedge it in tighter.
Sliding dovetails serve a couple of purposes. They act like a long dovetail and they keep panels flat. The side panel is held flat by the dovetail in the shelf, the shelf is held flat by the groove in the side panel. Add that to the fact that the shelf is locking the sides in place, tight and square, you have a perfect joint for a bookcase. On top of that, books are heavy, but by supporting the shelf with a groove you strengthen the shelf immensely over suspending the shelf on pins.
Dovetail grooves cut with a router. Cut these in two steps, first pass with a straight bit to remove material, second with a dovetail bit to create the angle.
Shelves slide in from the back, grooves are stopped, leaving them blind from the front.
The problem is, cutting the dovetails and grooves are more complicated than a simple rabbet. I used a multi-step process where I routed out the majority of the material in the groove with a spiral bit, then cut the angle of the dovetail with a dovetail bit. The problem is I relied on measurements rather than creating a jig to ensure everything was cut perfectly. This caused my dovetail grooves to be slightly different sizes. I fixed this by cutting all of the tails exactly the same, the smallest size, then shimming the larger grooves to reinforce the fit.
It was not a perfect solution, but I had to do it this way because those varied sizes ended up causing the grooves to not line up perfectly across from each other. By cutting the tail small and shimming, I was able to realign the shelf so it sat at 90 degrees to the sides.
Next Time
I was able to cut my last groove perfectly because I figured out how to setup my straight edge properly. Next time I’d make my life easier when setting up to cut the dovetail portion of the groove by creating a jig where I would set the perfect distance from side to side and use spacer blocks to lock the straight edges in so I could not route any smaller or larger, ensuring each groove was exactly the same width.
Bridle Joint
The feet had options. I could have doweled the feet to the stretchers, that would have been easy. I could have used a floating tenon, such as a domino, but I don’t have a Festool Domino. I could have mortise and tenoned, but an angled mortise and tenon sounded hard.
So instead, I opted for a bridle joint. I chose this option because I could cut it easily, as shown in the video, and because I thought it would be the strongest, longest lasting option.
Unfortunately, after completing the base and putting everything together, my wife and I decided we didn’t like the base design with the case. After much deliberation we decided it looked best without a base at all. I did reserve the right to add legs in the future, but for now it sits directly on the floor.
Luckily, the edge profile and the way the case is angled along with the way the bottom shelf is set back from the edge gives the case a natural “foot.”
Next Time
Someday I will add spindle legs to the bottom. Think of upside down cones. I think that would be simple enough to work with this piece and not detract from the rest of the piece.
If you are worried I threw the base away, I didn’t. I turned it into a step stool for the kids to use.
What Made this Project Special?
I loved making this bookcase. It was a challenge for me because I wanted to learn new skills and test my woodworking abilities by using joinery that would make sure the case is rock solid for hundreds of years because my daughter was invested in what I was building. She wanted to help. She spent time in the shop with me while I was working. I showed her what I was doing and why.
In the video I show a scene where I’m teaching her how to check grain direction and how to use the jointer sled. If you want to know how a jointer sled works in a planer, here’s a blog on the subject.
But what I don’t share is later that day. We came inside and went upstairs to change out of our dusty clothes. I had taken off my belt and she asked if she could see it, so I handed her the belt and asked her why she wanted it. She told me she wanted to see how it worked.
That was the best part of this entire project. Not the designing, not the joinery, not the process, not the finished product, but the spark of curiosity she got when she helped me build and how that spark carried forward such that she wanted to continue to explore the world around her.
For that reason, I’m naming this piece the Ellie Bookcase. Not because I built it for her, not because she helped build it, but because it is a curious little piece containing mechanisms to inspire and spark our curiosity (books), and Ellie inspired me to name it after her and her curious mind.