Monday, February 18, 2013

Holy sheet, plywood

After calling around town I found a good price on some oak plywood and they were nice enough to cut the sheets in half to fit in my car.  It's really nice stuff but I'm afraid the color match isn't so great. I'm going to have to try some different things with oil or stain to try for a better match.  It's always a gamble mixing real and plywood.

I spent some time this weekend breaking down the plywood the rest of the way.  The next step was to cut some dadoes for the fixed shelves and the top. I would have loved to use the dado blade in my table saw but I'm just not set up for crosscuts on six foot shelf sides.  I did consider building a crosscut sled for dadoes but I just didn't want to take the time and have to worry about storing it.  Luckily the plywood is actually very, very close to 3/4 in so I was able to use the router along with a guide. 




The extra little piece of hardboard on the router is to keep it from rocking off the straightedge guide, worked great. The next task is to get the edging mounted to the fixed shelf, cut the dadoes for the shelf standards, and get the case glued up.  Then its on the the real wood framing and the crown moulding and other embellishments on the top. 

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Bookshelf Build-along

I'm getting underway on a bookshelf for the in-laws new place.  I've been wanting to build something like this for awhile now, but for my own house. It's going to be a mix of "real wood" red oak and some plywood.  It will give me a chance to use up some nice rough sawn boards I've had laying around for about a year now.  I'm working off a plan from Woodsmith magazine. I'm looking forward to trying some new things like the crown and dentil moulding. 




So far I've gotten most of the milling done.  The lumber was really rough so I had to spend some time with the hand planes getting one side flat enough to send them through the planer.  After a couple of sessions at the planer, and watching sooooo much nice lumber be turned into chips here's where I'm at now.  





It turns out that one of the boards has some really nice striping to it. Not too often you see that in red oak. My next steps are to  start practicing some dentil moulding and get the plywood. Hopefully I can find some good plywood that will compliment the real wood nicely.