Looking around our house, there seemed to be nowhere left to fit another bookcase. But then my wife realised that where we had a single shelf behind the top of the bed, there was room above it for some more. Fortunately that meant that the bookcase had to be a bespoke job, which would have the nice side effect of using some of those old tools I seem to be accumulating nearly as fast as the books.
I took the easy option and bought the wood planed to size. It was all decent straight stuff, with no wastage, which was a good start.
Here is the kit of parts, with some of the bits cut to size and most of the joint work done:
The design is simple. Two uprights about 6ft tall, with lap dovetails for a top cross piece, and an bottom shelf held in by sliding dovetail housings. Two intermediate uprights stop housed into the horizontals, with the other nine little shelves supported on pegs. A plywood back rebated in.
Stopped, tapered, dovetailed housing here:
with the corresponding end to fit into it:
This view shows the only spot in the house where I could clear a space for assembly - fortunately it's in the basement, next to the workshop:
The ends have been glued and slid into place. This was my only major blunder - the joints were too tight and would not go all the way together. Cue larger mallet and much bashing! It might have been ok in softwood, but I'd got to the point where there was no give left, and I couldn't get it apart again either. (It looked worse close up.)
Fortunately the housings for the uprights were an easier fit. Here I've used a couple of corner clamps to make sure they don't fall out while I fit the dovetailed top.
After about an hour of scrabbling around on the floor, I had it all together. One advantage of the joints I'd chosen is that they don't need clamping, which is just as well, as my 4' sash clamps wouldn't have been big enough.
This shot is a reminder of the effort I had to put in the next day, planing and chiselling after assembly to cope with the joint that didn't slide all the way home. Fortunately, on a piece this size, an eighth of an inch here and there doesn't really show, especially in an old house where nothing much is horizontal or vertical.
The intermediate shelves were held on pegs in accurately drilled holes. This pic shows my cheap and easy device for internal measurements for fitting the shelves: it's a piece of plastic mini-trunking. The lid is a nice tight fit onto the tray part, with just enough give in it to make it easy to adjust. I much prefer direct measurements like this to anything where you have to convert a measurement to a number and back again.
I cut the back to fit but left it unattached until the bookcase was safely upstairs - it's much easier to manoeuvre an open structure.
This shows the finished article in place:
You can't see it, but the sides go down behind the bed as legs to support the whole thing. The top is tied back to the wall with a couple of screws through mirror plates in the corners.
All ready for filling up over the next few months! And the only power tool used was the vacuum cleaner when I was sanding the finished piece.
I took the easy option and bought the wood planed to size. It was all decent straight stuff, with no wastage, which was a good start.
Here is the kit of parts, with some of the bits cut to size and most of the joint work done:
The design is simple. Two uprights about 6ft tall, with lap dovetails for a top cross piece, and an bottom shelf held in by sliding dovetail housings. Two intermediate uprights stop housed into the horizontals, with the other nine little shelves supported on pegs. A plywood back rebated in.
Stopped, tapered, dovetailed housing here:
with the corresponding end to fit into it:
This view shows the only spot in the house where I could clear a space for assembly - fortunately it's in the basement, next to the workshop:
The ends have been glued and slid into place. This was my only major blunder - the joints were too tight and would not go all the way together. Cue larger mallet and much bashing! It might have been ok in softwood, but I'd got to the point where there was no give left, and I couldn't get it apart again either. (It looked worse close up.)
Fortunately the housings for the uprights were an easier fit. Here I've used a couple of corner clamps to make sure they don't fall out while I fit the dovetailed top.
After about an hour of scrabbling around on the floor, I had it all together. One advantage of the joints I'd chosen is that they don't need clamping, which is just as well, as my 4' sash clamps wouldn't have been big enough.
This shot is a reminder of the effort I had to put in the next day, planing and chiselling after assembly to cope with the joint that didn't slide all the way home. Fortunately, on a piece this size, an eighth of an inch here and there doesn't really show, especially in an old house where nothing much is horizontal or vertical.
The intermediate shelves were held on pegs in accurately drilled holes. This pic shows my cheap and easy device for internal measurements for fitting the shelves: it's a piece of plastic mini-trunking. The lid is a nice tight fit onto the tray part, with just enough give in it to make it easy to adjust. I much prefer direct measurements like this to anything where you have to convert a measurement to a number and back again.
I cut the back to fit but left it unattached until the bookcase was safely upstairs - it's much easier to manoeuvre an open structure.
This shows the finished article in place:
You can't see it, but the sides go down behind the bed as legs to support the whole thing. The top is tied back to the wall with a couple of screws through mirror plates in the corners.
All ready for filling up over the next few months! And the only power tool used was the vacuum cleaner when I was sanding the finished piece.
