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Bookshelves in a Day
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Bookshelves in a Day
BY STEVE LATTA
tached under the bottom shelf and along
the top shelf should do the trick.
have boards wide enough to make the ver-
ticals (mine are 10 in. wide at the bottom),
you can glue them up from smaller boards,
but make sure the front piece is wide
enough that you won’t expose a glueline
when you cut the taper on the front edge.
For the pine shelves, I bought more width
than I needed so that I could cut around
knots and defects to end up with clear
front edges on all of them.
The shelves and the verticals lock togeth-
er with what I call a housed lap joint (see
the drawing on p. 34). The shelves are
notched wherever they meet a vertical, and
the verticals are notched and dadoed on
both sides so that the shelves sit firmly on
the shoulders of the dadoes. I cut the da-
does slightly wider (
1
⁄
32
in. or so) than the
shelf material is thick. That way, the pieces
slide together fairly easily, even after a fin-
ish has been applied to them. Don’t be ob-
sessive about getting a microfine fit. The
joy of this design is lost if you end up hav-
ing to put together the unit by beating it
with a block of wood and a hammer.
In figuring sizes and spacing for the
shelves, I kept it simple. The bottom shelf
I
get the most pure enjoyment from re-
producing 18th-century furniture, but
every now and then it’s nice to break
out of that mode and dive into a project
that I can knock out in a day or two. This
set of bookshelves is just such a beast, and
it will cover a lot of wall in the little amount
of time required to build it. I’ve made three
versions of this design since I built the first
one about 10 years ago. The first has lived
in three separate homes, but now it fits the
dining room in our new home.
There are some nice features about this
design. When you combine the simplicity
of the joinery with the absence of hard-
ware, you have a bookcase that can be tak-
en apart and reassembled in minutes. The
angle on the bottom of each vertical makes
the case lean toward the wall, so the more
weight that you put on it, the more secure
it is. In most cases, there is no need to tie it
to the wall. Although, if you have kids, you
may want to add a few fasteners as a pre-
caution. A couple of corner braces at-
Choose your wood and size the joints
This is a great project for using up old
scraps. For these units, I used some less
than perfectly clear leftovers of walnut for
the verticals and dimensioned #2 white
pine 1x12s for the shelves. If you don’t
BOTTOM DETAIL
Notch for
baseboard
Bottom is angled
so that the
bookcase leans
into the wall.
Flat,
2 in.
wide
32
FINE WOODWORKING
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
Knockdown unit is engineered for stability and speedy assembly
sits high enough off the floor (7 in.) to clear
the tallest baseboard in an old house
where we used to live. The spacing be-
tween shelves decreases in 1-in. incre-
ments from the bottom to the top.
Cut the dadoes
before tapering the verticals
Shoot for a thickness on the verticals of
around 1
1
⁄
8
in. to 1
1
⁄
4
in. (Make sure you
leave some extra scrap pieces to use in
setting up the joinery cuts.) You can cut the
joinery using a router, a radial-arm saw or
a tablesaw with a carriage jig like the one
I used (see the photos on pp. 34-35). If
you use a tablesaw, you’ll need a long
auxiliary fence to keep the stock steady.
You’ll also need to support the weight of
the stock that hangs out over the end of the
saw table.
Before cutting the joints in the verticals,
make a practice cut halfway through a
scrap piece of shelf stock. Use this sample
to set the depth of the dadoes in the verti-
cals. To be sure all of the verticals are da-
doed correctly, first cut them all to length
and then use a story stick to mark the loca-
Photos: William Duckworth
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
33
A HOUSED LAP JOINT CONNECTS THE PARTS
6 in.
Latta chose this joint for its ease of construction and its strength.
Shoulders created by the dadoes in the verticals give full support
at the intersection with each shelf. The interlocking shelves and
verticals fit together without the need for hardware.
Dadoes,
3
⁄
16
in. deep
Verticals, 1
1
⁄
8
in.
to 1
1
⁄
4
in. thick
Dado one side at a time.
After setting the
blades to the right height, make all of the da-
do cuts on one side of the verticals. Transfer
the cut lines for the dadoes on the second side
with a square and a sharp pencil.
Shelves,
3
⁄
4
in.
thick
Size the
notches so
that the
shelves slide
in easily.
tions of the dadoes on the front edges of
the verticals. A pencil line provides a refer-
ence to cut to, and a blue chalkline indi-
cates on which side of the line to cut.
To set the depth of the dadoes, take a
scrap from one of the verticals and set it
against a stop block on the carriage. Raise
the dado blades, make a cut, flip over the
scrap and make another cut opposite the
first. Adjust the height of the dado blades
until the notched shelf sample slides easily
onto the dadoed sample without excessive
play. Now begin making the dadoes on on-
ly one side of each vertical. Then use a
small square and a sharp pencil to mark
the dado cuts across the front edges of all
the verticals. Flip over the verticals and, lin-
ing up the pencil lines with the kerf in the
carriage, cut the dadoes on the other sides
of the verticals. Hold-down clamps keep
the boards from sliding out of position.
After cutting the dadoes, lay out the taper
on one of the verticals and mark each da-
do for where a chunk of waste needs to be
taken out to receive the shelf. Use a saber-
saw to cut away most of the waste. Stay
about
1
⁄
16
in. from the edges of the dado and
clean up using a router with a bearing-
guided, flush-trimming bit.
Cut the taper on one vertical using the
bandsaw and then, with a jointer or a hand-
plane, clean up that edge. Use the first ver-
Depth of notch should
be just under half the
width of the vertical.
Distance
between
verticals,
20 in.
1 in.
Shelf spacing
decreases in
1-in. incre-
ments from
bottom to top.
84 in.
Angle the
bottom 5°.
13 in.
Flat,
2 in.
wide
7 in.
10 in.
60 in.
34
FINE WOODWORKING
Drawings: Michael Gellatly
Cut away the wood you don’t need.
Housed
lap joints require you to remove some wood
from all of the pieces being joined. In the
verticals, remove most of the waste with
a sabersaw.
Clean up the sabersaw cut.
Use a router equipped with a
bearing-guided, flush-
trimming bit.
tical as a pattern to mark and cut the others.
The radius on the top front corners of the
verticals (and on the ends of the shelves)
can be cut a number of ways. If I’m doing
lots of shelves and supports, I make a tem-
plate out of medium-density fiberboard
(MDF) and flush-cut the pieces using a
router. Once the verticals have been cut to
shape, soften the outside edges with a
1
⁄
8
-in.
roundover bit. Finally, notch the bottom
back edge of each of the verticals to clear
any baseboard on the wall where they will
live. Now use a sliding compound-miter
saw to make a 5° angled cut on the back
edge of the bottom of each vertical, leaving
a 2-in.-wide flat at the front.
any necessary adjustments in the length of
the notches so that the shelves line up with
the back edge of the verticals. When you
are done notching, radius the ends of the
shelves and round over the front top and
bottom edges. If your layout and machin-
ing have been accurate, all of the pieces
should slide together easily. At this point
they’re ready for a final sanding and finish.
You can assemble this bookcase by your-
self, but it never hurts to have a second pair
of hands to help out. Lean the verticals
against the wall and slide the bottom shelf
into place. One by one, work your way up
to the top. This process should take only a
few minutes. Use small shims with double-
sided carpet tape to level the case. If the
unit is installed on a slippery wood or tile
floor, you can mount a few small metal cor-
ner braces beneath the bottom shelf.
Steve Latta teaches woodworking at the
Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in
Lancaster, Pa.
Notch the shelves to fit
After ripping the shelves to width, mark
out the notches from the back edge. Cut the
notches for the shelves using the same
dado setup you used for the verticals, and
set up the carriage with a stop block. Use
the hold-down clamps on blocks to grip
the shelves firmly. Raise the dado blades as
high as possible to get the flattest cut on
the downward arc. Setting the dado blades
at full height is dangerous, so keep your
hands completely away from the cut. After
cutting all of the shelves at one setting, re-
set the stop block and repeat the process
until all of the notches have been cut. Make
Notch cuts require
clamps.
While plow-
ing out the notches
for all of the shelves,
Latta clamps the
workpiece in place
for each cut, being
careful to keep his
hands well clear of
the exposed dado
blades.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
35
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