first coat of paint on.....

I almost went in the other direction and used shellac for this. In end, after see-sawing back and forth, I got the first coat of paint on. I am not a fan of painted wooden furniture. I like seeing the wood in it's natural state but sometimes the wood looks good and the joinery looks like crap. Paint hides a multitude of sins. Here, it covered a boo-boo but no real sins.

book gauge set up

It's still square on the inside and the outside.

gap on the inside

It looks like I didn't clean the bottom of the slot mortise that well, at least not on this end of it.

the other end is a wee bit better

The important thing is this came out good for me. It's square on the inside/outside and I can use it for it's intended purpose. For a hand sawn joint, I'm pretty happy with this in spite of the gaps.

2 hairs high here

This is the only spot that isn't dead nuts flush. I was not expecting this joint to be as flush as it is.

all the shavings to flush this up

I think I'm ready to try this out a  project. I would like to try it on 1/2" stock, but I'll stick with 3/4" for now and once I get comfortable with that, I'll switch to 1/2".

left side wedges

I didn't need these as the through mortise was pretty good. I used them to keep the ends from pulling away from the shelves. The front shelf wedge is close to opposing the grain but the back one could go either way. I could have used wedges on the ends but I did it this way to maintain consistency.

hodgepodge of wedges on the left side.

Last night before I went to bed I put 3wedges in the gaps at the ends. Everything cooked overnight and it is rock solid now.

it's rocking

I find a project that rocks to be incredibly annoying. I especially dislike going out to eat and sitting on a chair or a table that rocks. This was round one. I scribed a pencil line on the legs to guide me.

not much to remove

I used my small block plane on this. I just left a whisper of the line on all 3 legs and checked it. Lucky me, I got to do this 2 more times before the rocking was gone. After this one there was still a tiny bit of it so I went back and scribed another line. With the second round the rocking disappeared but reappeared when I turned it 180. Round 3 was a charm and I had no rocking in any direction.

all this to remove the scribe line on the front

I was going to leave the scribe line and fill it with Durhams putty but that wasn't necessary. All the joinery is done and it doesn't matter if this edge is off from the other. I doubt that these shavings add up to more than a 32nd.

I'm not hating this

It's all planed and cleaned up. The through tenons on this side don't look that bad to my eye.  I would have thought with the extra set of wedges on the ends of the mortise that it would look like crap. The wedges blend in well and I had to get up close to see them.

I went back and forth here trying to decide on paint or shellac as my finish. I took a break and went to get a coffee and when I came back, paint had won. I can't get past the differences in the ends. One is full of grain and the other is bland with sapwood edges. I don't have any problems with sapwood and if both ends had it, I would have used shellac.These two aren't even in the same solar system of looks.

shellac first

This end besides being grainy is also full of pitch. Paint would have a problem sticking to this. I will put on two coats of shellac first to seal this.

chip repair

I tried to super glue this chip on 3 times before I taped it. The only thing I did here was superglue my fingers to the end. I could glue my finger to the chip but not the chip to the end. I thought super glue was an instant grab and set type of glue. I am going to buy some accelerator and see how well that works.

one coat of shellac

I put a quick coat of shellac on the through tenons just to get a look at them. If the ends were even remotely close in looks, I would have gone with shellac.

first coat on and dry

some putty action next

Finding something to mix the putty in can be a real major PITA. I found medicine cups that were being thrown out but they had a raised bottom. It was hard to mix the putty and to get it out of them. I cut the bottom off of this cookie cup and used it. This had a slightly raised bottom but I was able to mix the putty ok in it. Once the putty remaining in it has set I'll pop it out and save it for the next time.

putty done

I gave the putty an hour to dry, sanded it, and applied the second coat of shellac.

bookstand is done 100%

I want her to know that this is hers and it was made just for her and no one else. I put a couple of coats of poly over this and hopefully my daughter won't paint this.

where I want to put this

I think it's too big for my desk. My cats won't be able to get by this and my laptop (that will be a major problem). I am going to make another one and try to scale it down to about 2/3 the size of this one.

putty dry and second coat of shellac is on

The putty doesn't stand out that much but there wasn't much to fill in neither. Time to paint.

plans for the DVD/Book shelf.

These aren't carved in stone measurements. These are what the finished project dimensions were. This is an easily scalable project that can change up/down and increase/decrease R/L. You can decrease the complexity of the joinery for the shelves and use a butt joint, biscuits, pocket holes or dadoes. I am not a draftsman so if anything is confusing, drop me a comment and I'll see if I can UN-confuse it.

accidental woodworker

trivia corner
What is the national bird of Canada?
answer - Canada doesn't have a national bird (they are voting on one)

Related Posts by Categories