This was a present for my partner, a very active reader it was meant to contain the overflow for the main bookcase, It currently contains her unread books. There's also a prototype portable ukulele or guitar stand sitting on the top that I need to finalise the design of and put on this page.

Creation

This is actually based on a Jon Peters design. The original design is shorter, and has a full jointed oak on the top, this one instead has an oak glued board (limfog in Sweden), with a real oak mitred border to hide the machined glue joints of the limfog.

The legs are two pieces of oak jointed and grain matched together to the desired size (40x40mm), the more seamless ones are at the front. The frame is pine held in place with pocket holes and glue and some birch plywood around the edges.

The beading pattern on the back is made on MDF using the tablesaw and a shoulder plane. Finally a bead was routed into some thin strips and glued to the edges, providing a more polished look.

Lessons Learnt

The key cockup, I made was that I cocked up the measurement between the shelves, which I realised after I had glued the frame together, larger books would just fit without the beading. So this meant I had to recut the front stretchers making them 20mm high rather than 30mm. Even then it was a tight fit.

There are a few deep plane chatter marks left from using a shoulder plane at a very odd angle to flush the shelf and beading; I was expecting the paint to hide them but it didn't. Really I should have applied some wood putty, sanded it back and then painted.

Materials