Building Some Stuff: Kid's bookshelf

[JohnnyEgo]

I've been building my own furniture for about 15 years now, more or less. I was pretty well set up at my old home for woodworking, but since I moved here, I haven't done anything with it in two years. Part of my problem is that a lot of my stuff is in a bunch of boxes all over the garage, so I can't ever find anything and I don't have the space. I wanted to get back into the hobby, but I wanted to start out with something with limited emotional investment if I screwed a bunch of stuff up. So in addition to making shop furniture and some other odds and ends, I decided to make my kid a small bookcase. Figured I'd post my progress so far, especially because this case involves a lot of pocket holes, which have come up recently in the hidden weapon storage threads. Hope this is helpful to someone.

Everything started with a truckload of wood:

I've got most of the stuff to complete six projects here. Of course, there will still be 87 more trips to the hardware store in my future.

Cheap(ish) Ply panel:

Since this is going to be painted, I bought a relatively cheap 4'x8' utility grade sheet with one sanded face. It had a crap-ton of 'lemons', or places where the thin veneer had holes patched with another piece pressed into place. Literally in the shape of large lemons. Because cheap plywood is not pretty.

My Work Table:

I try to work outside as much as possible, because I enjoy irritating my neighbor and I do not enjoy sweeping sawdust out of my garage. I break down sheet goods by throwing a sheet of 1" styrofoam insulation over a spare plywood sheet or a couple of 2x4's. I can probably break down 30 or so sheets on a $10 piece of foam. Easy on the back and less clamping or worrying about what lies beneath. Also, the foam cushions stuff, so less marring issues to worry about as well.

Prep Work:

Cut a bunch of 1x2 (actually 3/4 x 1 1/2 S4S) pine, hereafter referred to as 'sticks', for the face frame of the bookshelf, and cut pocket holes in them with a Kreg K4 Master.

Face Frames and Clamp Choices :

There are two main styles of Kreg pocket-hole clamp. They are both essentially Vice Grips. One has two large circular pads. The other has a metal rod end that can be inserted into the pocket hole.


They both have their merits, but for face frames, I prefer the one with the pads. It will hold the faces perfectly flush, which is way less forgiving then the ends. In this picture, I have purposefully offset the end by about a 32nd of an inch. More on that later.


The face clamp keeps the faces flush, and the pocket screws will pull the rail into the stile. The other type of clamp with the metal rod is very good for pulling the rail into the style. For certain types of 90° joint, this is pretty much the only way to clamp things. But for face frames, it is less than ideal. It is much easier to fix offsets in the ends than on the faces, and faces that are not flush can cause a lot of problems.


For instance, if the faces of this inside corner were not flush, I'd get an uneven and noticeable change in my edge profile with the router.

The router base needs a flush surface for a smooth transition:

[JohnnyEgo]

Carcass Assembly:

Pocket holes make for quick assembly. Here you can see my first major screw-up. I routed the groove (rabbet) for the backer board of the bottom shelf on the same side as my pocket holes. So they all show. If this were intended to be a more serious piece of furniture, I'd swear up a storm and head back to Lowes for a new half-sheet of ply. But this will be painted kids furniture, so I move on.


Since I have a highly destructive 3 year old who climbs and jumps off of everything, I wanted to make this cheap ply bookcase as strong as possible. So I routed a 1/4" deep by 3/4" wide groove for the top, bottom, and middle shelves. This still gives me a half inch of material for the pocket hole screws where the shelves join the sides, and gives me quite a bit of vertical support. There is also glue in these joints as well.

I cut a 1/4" wide by 1/2" deep groove (rabbet) around the back of the carcass to accomodate a backer board that is a half inch thick. On most things, I use quarter inch material for a backer. In the case of the things I am building now, I am using 1/2" material for two reasons: 1.) I want the extra strength for my Godzilla Child to climb on, and 2.) 1/2" is the minimum thickness for pocket holes.

Mounting the face frame:

Here you can see how I size a face frame. I try to make it approximately 1/8" wider all around than the carcass. I will use a router and a flush trim bit to make it flush after the fact.


It makes life a lot easier if you install the backing after you've driven all the face frame screws into those hard-to-reach corners.

Speaking of the backer board:

1/2" material is pretty thin and unforgiving. I have generally found that whatever direction the face grain runs in is going to be the direction most of the lamination layers run in as well. If you are driving a pocket screw perpendicular to the grain, it can take a little torque.


If you are going with the grain, it really can't. That is why you want to drive pocket screws with a drill with an adjustable clutch, and run a few practice screws on some scrap to get the torque dialed in right. I could fix this with some glue, but I'm not going to for this piece.

[JohnnyEgo]

Time to trim things up:

This is a half-inch, top bearing trim bit. I will use it to make my face frame flush with my carcass.


You can see how much material is being taken off of the frame. About a 16th of an inch. Also, you can see half of one of those 'lemons' I referred to earlier.


All flushed up. Just needs to be rounded over.

Getting There:

So far, I've spent about $60 on ply, trim sticks, and Kreg screws. I could buy something from Ikea for far less money and considerably less time. However, at this point in the build, both my 40lbs kid and my 240lbs ass stood on this book case at the same time and jumped up and down. It didn't move an inch. Try that with particle board furniture.

I wrote a lot about pocket holes because I really find them useful, and I screwed up and redid a lot of stuff before I figured most of the intricacies out. Particularly with hardwood face frames. I made a lot of expensive piles of red oak firewood. I hope that some of this proves useful to other amateur woodworkers out there. You'll never save any money, but it is a lot of fun to have exactly what you want. Thanks for your time.

Still to come: finish prep, prime, and paint.

[spleify]

Nice work.

[Mick-Boy]

Good write up!

One of the (many) regrets I have about my miss spent youth is that I didn't spend more time in the garage with my father when he was working on carpentry projects. It's made for a lot more learning through trial and error but I find I enjoy making things on my own quite a bit.

[Great-Kazoo]

Good write up!

One of the (many) regrets I have about my miss spent youth is that I didn't spend more time in the garage with my father when he was working on carpentry projects. It's made for a lot more learning through trial and error but I find I enjoy making things on my own quite a bit.

The only thing I can do with wood, is make firewood . Metal and mechanical, that's easy. The OP has some very impressive wood projects His peanut butter and chocolate brownies are on par too

[jslo]

Festool, nice. Not your typical DIYer setup.

[kwando]

Nice work very thorough!

[JohnnyEgo]

I do make awesome brownies.



I got the Festool saw as a little present to myself for completing a 5 month work assignment. I wanted one for years, but wasn't willing to pony up $1K for an odd sized circular saw and some rails until now. I regret having waited. My Grandfather was a carpenter, and both he and my Dad could cut a straight line by eye. That gene skipped right over me. The Festool is the ultimate triumph of money over short attention spans; no thought, no calculation, just slap the rail on your cut marks and go. Wonderful for breaking down sheet goods, although I'll have to build about 20 of these $60 shelves to ever come close to justifying the purchase price.

With any luck, it will be warm enough today to prime the shelf. I'll try to get some more pictures up by day's end.

[Irving]

Excellent write up!