Bookshelves in a Day.pdf

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

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

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

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.

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

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