I've been making these mini bookshelves for a while now, populating my home with them and making them as gifts for friends and family. They're very handy for putting in your current read items like books and magazines.
So, I thought it would be interesting to photograph the making of one of these for my Etsy shop, so the buyers can see how "handmade" these little buggers are :-)
Basically, I try using my old scrap wood whenever I can. I combined new white-pine wood with some older pieces that I could match. But as always, wood is unique, so before I like to make everything square, I like to flatten an end with my hand plane so my jointer/planer can make the pieces square in a more predictable way.
I like rough cutting each of the panels ahead of time (before jointing/planing), and I love the smell of freshly cut pine! By the end of most projects, I have a nice layer of wood chips and wood dust on the floor of my "shop". I'm just longing to work with cedar wood soon... anyone want a cedar chest?
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Okay, so I have a thing about "precision". I can literally spend more time than I'd like to admit finely "tuning" my jointer/planer... so that it's true and square. But my machinist's square pretty much tames my OCD and I can happily square-up my wood without worrying too much if everything is going to fit nicely.
Yep, that's me again, squaring things up. I'm doing the final dimensioning of the mini bookshelf. These are the final cuts for all the adjacent sides to my jointed sides. I also like to wear a face mask because I'm apparently allergic to some woods (and have to rub my nose for the next week... yay for allergies).
This is where it gets fun for me. I tried to get this picture while I was cutting the beveled lip on the base of the mini bookshelf. You can see part of the rounded bevel by my left hand. Needless to say, I set the camera's timer to go off while I was cutting... and that this was the best image I could take. Nothing says safety like snapping pics with power tools :-)
Here, I am sanding old-school with some 120-grit sandpaper. This sanding is the start of long process of hand sanding the bookshelf to a glass-like surface. I progressively work up to 600-grit sandpaper (dry and wet sanding) until the surface feels like glass. I've found that my stains absorb very nicely to this kind of surface (especially pine since the pores are so... well porous).
Here's my floating router jig I use to cut the 3/8 inch grove across the base for the bottom slat. I've found that I like to use this over router tables (in a handful of applications).
Marking and cutting my tails. For thinner wood, I prefer a 6:1 slope for the tails.
These are the matching pins to the tails I cut on for the sides of the mini bookshelf. I'm paring away the waste wood to a perfect fit.
The tails and pins joined together. I love to see my measurements and markings coming together in joining two pieces of wood perfectly together. This is proof in the pudding of your attention to detail (and conscientiousness) in working with the materials, and not against them.
Everything is square for the final glue-up, and I'm really please with how the box-carcass fits together. I'll finish the hand sanding after this step.
I took this picture right after I applied wood conditioner for the stain-prep. This also was taken in the afternoon after a long day of hand sanding the exterior with 600 grit paper. My thumbs are always sore after such an ordeal :-)
I applied a red-mahogany stain and tried not getting any stain on my camera to snap this picture. I succeeded in both.
Here's after the final coat of stain. Looks pretty good if you ask me, something I'm proud to sell. I'll later apply two coats of polyurethane and one more sanding session. The results are a very nice looking mini-bookshelf. You can place them on any indoor surface and you can easily move them to fit your decor design. Handy, attractive, and practical :-) If you want to see the finished product, just scroll to the top of this post, and you can see what these look like. I hope you enjoyed this little how-to!
