Back in June, I received an email from Brenna. She explained that she was a friend of Cameron and Emma and had seen the table I had made for them. She was interested in a bookshelf and had a couple examples of the styles she liked. I whipped up a concept in Sketchup and sent over a few pictures. After a few slight modifications we agreed on a design and it was time to go to work. The construction is fairly simple. Four panels make up the case and three more are used for the divider and shelves. Starting with the rough wood, I planed, jointed and then biscuit joined the boards into the panels. The trusty #4 made quick work of the panels and evened out any discrepancies from the glue-up. I've been wanting to do a dovetailed case for a while and this was the perfect piece to do it on. The contrast of the endgrain on cherry really stands out against the milder edge grain on the corners. The simplicity of the rest of the piece helps draw you eyes to the corners and appreciate what went into them. I've really started to enjoy doing handcut dovetails. The process is always the same. Tails first removing just a little triangle - over and over again. It's actually therapeutic, it's become automatic enough to not require constant overthinking but still remains technically challenging. This case has 4 feet of dovetails. I should really be keeping a tally somewhere of my lifetime total. The pins are cut by first tracing the mating tails, sawing down the lines, removing the bulk of the material with a coping saw and then chiseling away the remaining material. After a few test fits and minor tweaks the boards slide together with just the right amount of effort. The shelf and center support both sit in stopped dadoes in the frame. I built a jig for the router that can accurately cut dadoes at any width so the boards fit just right in the groove. The dado stops short of the front of the case so from the front the shelf and center look like simple butt joints but they have the strength of being dadoed in. Once the case pieces were done it was time to glue it up. Getting four dovetailed corners assembled before the glue starts to dry is definitely a challenge. Once the glue was dry I test fit the shelf and divider as well. After the case was done, it was time to move on to the base. The feet started as a cutoff end from an 8/4 slab leftover from the chest of drawers project. It took a couple tries to get the angle right but once I settled on the look it was quick to batch out four feet. The rest of the base went together quick as well. Simple mortise and tenon joints hold it all together. Finishing touches - I sprayed two coats of dewaxed shellac to make the grain contrast pop and followed that up with two coats of waterborne poly for a protective top coat. The base is held to the case with tabletop fasteners to account for the small amount of wood movement the 12" wide panel might experience. I love how this bookshelf turned out. It is so simple it really puts emphasis on the small design elements that brings the piece together.
Thanks again Brenna for working with me on this awesome project!
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Aaron Whalen:A blog about woodworking in Southwest Wisconsin Previous ProjectsArchives
February 2024
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