Help Me With Designing My Shelf Please

[J_SAMa]

Hi all,
I'm designing a shelf/desk organizer that I'm going to make as a school project. It's going to be set on a desk top. It's mainly for books, sheets and whatnot but also small things like keys. The outer carcass is going to be 18mm spruce, dovetailed. The inner dividers are going to be 12mm plywood, all fit in dado joints.

I came up with a design in Sketchup and hell... It looks complicated... I'm not sure if I can build something with so many dadoes and still get everything right.

a. is it too big to be a desk organizer :?
b. the dadoes in the outer carcass are 6 mm deep and those in the long, vertical, 12 mm divider are 4 mm deep. Are they strong enough? They are gonna have to be able to take some pretty heavy books...
And lastly, should this be considered structurally complicated? I mean, will I mess up the whole build if I just make one joint slightly out of squareness? I'm doing every with hand tools (that's why I posted it here).

Thanks
Sam

 

[carlb40]

What about just building the carcass with the upright fixed. Then have adjustable shelving? That way you can practice and gain experience without over complicating things. Plus as a desk top organiser fixed shelving may prove more of a hindrance than help?

Some simple shelf pegs such as these could be an option?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100-X-5MM-SPO ... 2ead68f9c8

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SHELF-SUPPORT ... 41699d88ff

 

[johnwc812]

Hi Sam
Good ideas from Carl.
Perhaps less shelves /dividers.
To my eye it is a bit chunky and square,
Perhaps wider and/or less tall, the ends could taper from bottom to top.
If you could cut down on the dado (housing) joints it would be nice
if they were "stopped" at the front so they were not visible.
Possibly a ply back rebated in?

Good luck with it. Cheers John

 

[AndyT]

You don't say how wide and tall your project is but the mix of 18 and 12mm sounds about right.
Some of it is a bit similar to this bookcase I made, which was also a hand-tools job:

(see https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/hand-tooled-bookcase-in-ash-t51016.html)

I used lap dovetails at the top and sliding dovetails on the lower shelf. From your diagram, the dovetails look as if they might be the wrong way round for tying the sides together.

I had to fit the inner verticals into housing joints at the same time that I assembled and glued the outer frame. I am very glad I did not have any more bits to assemble at the same time. Assembly was definitely the most stressful part of the job! I agree with the suggestions to use pegs for the shelves - the ones I found were quite inconspicuous and were not expensive.

With the housings/dadoes for the vertical parts I prefer the look of making these stopped - they are not much harder to do.

Have you thought about putting a back on it?

 

[J_SAMa]

You don't say how wide and tall your project is but the mix of 18 and 12mm sounds about right.
Some of it is a bit similar to this bookcase I made, which was also a hand-tools job:

(see https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/hand-tooled-bookcase-in-ash-t51016.html)

I used lap dovetails at the top and sliding dovetails on the lower shelf. From your diagram, the dovetails look as if they might be the wrong way round for tying the sides together.

I had to fit the inner verticals into housing joints at the same time that I assembled and glued the outer frame. I am very glad I did not have any more bits to assemble at the same time. Assembly was definitely the most stressful part of the job! I agree with the suggestions to use pegs for the shelves - the ones I found were quite inconspicuous and were not expensive.

With the housings/dadoes for the vertical parts I prefer the look of making these stopped - they are not much harder to do.

Have you thought about putting a back on it?

Hi Andy,
It's 420 mm wide and 380 mm tall (still haven't decided yet, since John pointed out that it should be less tall and wider).
So the dovetail pins have to be on the vertical sides?
If I were to make the stopped dadoes, how much material should I leave in the front? 10 mm?

And yes, I will simply glue a 12 mm back to it.

Sam

 

[AndyT]

Hi Sam

10mm would be plenty for the notch at the front of stopped housings.

At the size of your unit, I'd go down to 12mm surround and 9mm inner parts to stop it looking too heavy (and being very heavy!) The back only needs to be 3 or 4 mm thick.

As a comparison, the ash in my much bigger bookcase was 18mm for the uprights (well, 3/4" really!) and 12mm for the shelves.

And forget what I said about the dovetails - if you stick with all those housings, you will only be able to assemble it if the last pieces to go on are the top and bottom horizontals, so they have to have the tails, sliding down onto pins on the vertical sides.