I finished these matching book cases in November, having started them in January 2012. I based them off of the heirloom bookcase at Wood Magazine (link) with some modifications to suit our tastes. Namely, I chose to omit the scroll work on the head casing of the upper case and the stretcher of the bottom case. I opted out of the cabriole leg, too, because it wasn’t something that fit our space. Some of the dimensions are a little different, too. Mine are about 6” taller and a few inches deeper than the Wood version.
The middle shelf is fixed; the upper and lower shelves are adjustable with shelf pins and sleeves. I like the sleeve inserts because they give a more finished look. The main case work is birch ply and the trim is birch, which I had purchased from an online auction from a cabinet shop that was going out of business. I’ll explain the finish below.
The drawers slide in the cases without drawer hardware, just like “in the old days.”
The cornice was constructed from built-up milled pieces. I chose this construction to match the window and door head casings that I made when I refurbished the room.
On to the construction details!
My basement shop doesn’t have a good space to breakdown sheet goods, and it was winter when I started the project. I used a cull sheet of MDO ply on my workbench as a platform and affixed with double-stick tape dots a 1” thick sheet of pink foam as a backer for cutting through the ply so I didn’t gouge up the MDO ply.
I made both bookcases at the same time, so that meant double the parts. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t mess up the cut order and didn’t want to mix parts from one sheet with those from the other. I used painters tape to lay out the pieces and to make sure that the parts for each bookcase were labeled throughout the project.
I used a spacer and a straight edge to guide my circular saw. In the following photo, note that I let the tape wrap over the side to show my cut line (approximately ¾” over final). I flipped the sheet so that the good face was down to reduce any chip out.
I had to use a long board as a guide for cuts longer that exceeded the length of my 50” straight edge clamp.
That yielded pieces I could safely cut to final dimensions on the table saw.
There wasn’t anything spectacular involved with cutting the pieces to final dimension, cutting the dados, and dry fitting the bottom cases.
Still, it’s nice when everything comes together and the dados are snug and gap-free. The plywood sheets I used were uniform in thickness, so I didn’t have to fiddle with adding or removing spacers when I cut the dados.
Next up, some lumber milling, starting with the legs!
The finished legs are 6/4, but I didn’t have stock thick enough. I chose to laminate 4/4 stock (actually 7/8”) to make leg blanks. I like the look of straight grain for furniture legs, so I chose stock that had mostly straight grain and marked out leg blanks.
The final milling shows how the straight grain looks on the face. Yes, there are more than 8 leg blanks; I chose to make 10 so that I had one for test cuts and one as a potential replacement for an ugly leg.
The next picture shows a better visual of the end grain of the leg stock. I marked them so that I could keep the stock from each board (1, 2, or 3) matched with each other. The subscript helped me keep the blanks within each board matched. I drop stuff sometimes and things get mixed around.
An even better visual of the effect is shown in the next photo. By using straight grain, and “book matching” the edge grain, the glue seam is barely noticeable. I had to put a little sawdust between the pieces to make the seam visible.
You need a supply of clamps (only a representation of my arsenal) and a good staging area for face laminating 10 furniture legs!
I used clamping blocks to help keep the pieces aligned so that I didn’t have glue slippage.
This is what 10 furniture leg glue-ups, parts for 2 lower cases, and parts for 2 upper cases looks like.
While the legs glue-ups dried, I dry fitted and then assembled the lower cases. You’ll notice pocket holes in the sides of the lower cases. The Wood plans only used glue to hold the legs to the lower cases. I was nervous about that construction being too weak to support an upper case loaded with books, so I added the pocket hole joinery, which remained hidden. The drawer guides also are visible. They are held in place by screws only, in over-sized holes, to permit adjusting if necessary. At this point of construction, I was in the early parts of summer.
While the glue was setting for the lower cases, I dry fitted and assembled the upper cases. Having enough long clamps sure helped, and so did the right angle brackets.
I probably didn’t need to use mortise and tenons to fasten the stretcher to the legs, but doing so gave me a chance to “skill build” with my Delta mortise. I learned to drill slower and not force the bit into the wood so that the bit doesn’t snap. I learned that the hard way. The following picture gives you a visual of one front and one back leg attached to the sides of the lower case.
Then I had to make a tenoning jig! The plans were from an advertisement for Delta in one of the woodworking mags; I don’t remember which one. I probably didn’t NEED to make a tenoning jig, but now I have one that works great.
The next picture shows all four legs attached to the lower case, and the stretcher between the two front legs.
Next, I cut trim pieces to cover the plywood edges for the fronts of the drawer openings. This was probably the fussiest part of the whole project and required a lot of sanding, scraping, more sanding, and more scraping to make sure the edge trim was flush with the faces of the ply so that the drawers wouldn’t catch.
I used frame and panel construction for the back panels of the upper cases. I added the middle stile, which was different from the Wood plan. I think it looks better than the expansive field without the middle stile.
The millwork for the cornice moulding of the upper casing came next.
I strengthened the shelves by cutting rabbets into 1” strips of birch hardwood and gluing them to the plywood shelves.
I chose rabbets on the ends and edges of the drawer fronts to thin the profile. I also made sure to make them from single boards so that the grain matched and flowed from left to right.
I used the original Incra jig to cut the half-blind dovetails.
After much sanding, fussing, fixing, sanding, scraping, and touch ups, it was time for the finish. I used Transtint Dye for the color, mixing 1 ounce red mahogany and ½ ounce of cordovan to one gallon of water. I ended up having to wipe everything with water to dilute some of the dye because the color initially looked too purple in the natural light.
I used General Finishes Satin Gel Polyurethane for the top coat. By the time I applied three coats of polyurethane, after the applying the dye and wiping off the excess dye, I pretty much was weary of the whole project.
It sure is nice to have the shop back in order! Thanks for looking, and I’d be glad to answer any questions about the project.
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