Bookcase and Chair

[gc]

Hi,

I started last week to make a small bookcase for our daughters room to fit at the end of her new bed (will upload pics of bed build when i get a chance). Bookcase is 18mm mdf and will be painted eggshell white to match the finish used for the bed. It will also have a pine stained top made to finish it off.

Decided since i had enough mdf i would make a wee chair for her aswell.

Anyway forgot to take pics during build so heres what we have so far.

Bookcase and chair top both primed.




Nothing fancy just functional. Probably wont get chance to do anything further on these until next week now.

To secure the top on i planned to put a dowel in each corner and glue the top down, would that be an ok way to secure the top? The top will be made up of 20mm thick redwood strips joined with biscuits and will over hang about 15mm all round.

Cheers

 

[jimmy]

Hi,

I started last week to make a small bookcase for our daughters room to fit at the end of her new bed (will upload pics of bed build when i get a chance). Bookcase is 18mm mdf and will be painted eggshell white to match the finish used for the bed. It will also have a pine stained top made to finish it off.

Decided since i had enough mdf i would make a wee chair for her aswell.

Anyway forgot to take pics during build so heres what we have so far.

Bookcase and chair top both primed.




Nothing fancy just functional. Probably wont get chance to do anything further on these until next week now.

To secure the top on i planned to put a dowel in each corner and glue the top down, would that be an ok way to secure the top? The top will be made up of 20mm thick redwood strips joined with biscuits and will over hang about 15mm all round.

Cheers

that is really smart well made

 

[AndyT]

To secure the top on i planned to put a dowel in each corner and glue the top down, would that be an ok way to secure the top? The top will be made up of 20mm thick redwood strips joined with biscuits and will over hang about 15mm all round.

Cheers

That could work, but is potentially difficult to line up, unless you drill right through the blocks into the top. Also, if one dowel does come unstuck, it would be hard to stick down again.
In the spirit of keeping it simple I would use metal table top brackets - this sort of thing:

fitted so the slots are at right angles to the grain of your redwood top.

 

[gc]

Thanks guys, only problem with the brackets is that the redwood top needs to b fitted on top of the 18mm met. To use the brackets I would need 2 fit at ends where they would b visible.

 

[AndyT]

Sorry I'd thought the redwood was going to be the seat of the chair. I see now I've re-read your OP. It goes over the mdf bookcase which already has a solid top.

In that case, I'd just use screws going up through the mdf into the redwood. You could slightly elongate the holes if you thought the redwood would move much.

If you prefer dowels, here is how to mark the centres of the holes:

Put a fine nail (a panel pin) in each position where you want a dowel. Clip the heads off with wire cutters leaving short sharp points. Carefully position the top and press it down. Remove.
Use the pinholes left in the top to drill dowel holes. Pull out the pins to leave similar starting marks in the base.

 

[gc]

Thanks for the tips Andy about the dowels. Don't no why I didn't think about just screwing it from the inside that would b so much easier, think I'm trying to over complicate it for some reason so thanks again

 

[gc]

Managed to get time to continue with painting the bookcase. Bookcase now fully painted with 3 coats of satinwood (changed from eggshell) after the primer, had hoped to only need two coats but ended up needing a further one.

Also got chair primed.

Cut the wood (33mm x 20mm) strips for the bookcase top. Strips all joined using biscuits and glue.

 

[gc]

Bookcase and chair now completed and put to good use.

Top for bookcase given two coats of antique pine stain and then clear wax applied.

Time to get back to finishing off the under bed storage drawers.