Advice re connecting shelves

[scotty38]

I am replacing the shelving in our farmhouse pantry and I need to understand the best way of cutting the joints.

At the moment, if you can imagine shelves on three sides of a long narrow room, the LHS and RHS meet the back wall and at that junction are "rebated" into each other. For example the RHS consists of 2 x 8inch wide boards and they meet a board on the back wall at 90 degrees. That joint is a lap joint where the RHS board is cut at the end. I can picture using a saw and chisel to create that but where it meets the side of the other board how do I create that joint?

I may not have painted the picture in your mind so please fire away and ask me.....

Thanks in advance......

 

[AndyT]

I think I get what you are describing. The shelf at the end goes in first, with a "stopped" rebate at either end of its front edge. On each of the sides, a shelf is "through" rebated across its whole width. The stopped rebates on the end shelf are as long as the side shelves are wide.

The rebates on the ends of the shelves make protruding tongues which rest in matching sockets on the sides of the other shelf.

The stopped rebate is an easy job to cut with either hand or power tools. By hand you would mark the depth and width with a marking gauge. You would then make a series of sloping cross-grain saw cuts, to define the ends and to divide up the wood to be removed into easy bits. These cuts go almost down to full depth and almost as far back as the back of the rebate. You then chisel out the unwanted wood. It's the same as letting in a hinge, but on a bigger scale.

With an electric router you would set the depth and rout out the wood, within your preferred system of guides/ stop blocks / marks. This would leave a curve in the internal corner equal in radius to your cutter, which you would square off with a chisel.

Alternatively you could connect the shelf ends and sides with dowels, but that would bring its own challenges!

 

[scotty38]

Hi Andy, I think you have it spot on. So if I have three side shelves at 8" wide the stopped rebate on the end shelf is 24" wide and will be roughly 1/2" deep and 1/2" high. So you are saying I'll make a series of 1/2" saw cuts along the 24" width?

If that's the case then that's the bit I just can't imagine doing successfully with not much room to manoeuvre the saw.

Is that what you meant?

Thanks

 

[AndyT]

The most important saw cut is the one at 24" as that defines the end of the rebate. All the cuts are the same, across the edge of the wood, going down to the hypotenuse of a triangle joining up the back edge of the rebate and its bottom edge. You need the whole square to be cut out but a saw cut will only take you halfway. The rest is just chiselling.

To define the long grain cut (24" long at the back of the rebate) I would just mark deeply and use a wide chisel, working along the cut. You could saw it down if you prefer but assuming this is softwood it's hardly worth it.

There must be a good diagram somewhere!

 

[scotty38]

Ah, got you now, I had assumed a 90 degree cut the whole depth and height of the rebate rather than as you say to the hypotenuse of the triangle....

Marvellous, thank you!

 

[AndyT]

It's not exactly the same as yours but this video by Richard Maguire is good on the basic chisel techniques that you need.

http://www.theenglishwoodworker.com...ing_wp_cron=1432309586.0454490184783935546875

 

[scotty38]

That's brilliant, other than the fact I'm not going the full width that's exactly what I'm doing. Nice one!