A lot of people have been asking me lately, why woodworking? How did you get into this? Why cutting boards? Amongst these questions and many others I wanted to give everyone a little insight as to why I'm trying to "monetize" my woodworking.
Without getting into to much detail, I'm on the cusp of leaving the job I've had for most of my adult life (military). And for most of my adult life I've enjoyed doing one thing more than most (besides spending time with my beautiful wife and family); flying! I've been a pilot for the better part of ten years and now you're probably wondering what flying has to do with woodworking? Well as a pilot, I seek out jobs as a pilot, because, like the age old adage, "it's not work if you love what you're doing".
Now that I'm nearing the end of my time in the military I've been working towards getting a job, as we all do! I'm fortunate in that I found a job as a pilot and I'm very excited to start the next chapter of my life. However, this next chapter comes with a some costs...mostly monetary if I'm honest. But in the long run it's going to be a great career that will afford me and my family a lot of wonderful options in the future. But this monetary cut has been weighing on me. And this stress got me to thinking about other ways I could supplement my income, while still doing something I really love, and I'm really passionate about....
Here's where woodworking comes into play! I've been restoring and building things out of wood for a while now, and like I said in one of my earliest posts, I have a passion for it. I enjoy creating something from my mind, imagination, and passion. And I take a lot of pride in what I do. Now this led me to want to learn more about my chosen hobby, which lead me to Facebook pages about woodworking.
One day I'm looking at Facebook and I see a video post from one of the woodworking pages I follow, and it's about CUTTING BOARDS. Yep, I saw someone else make this really cool looking end grain cutting board. I did some more research and I found that these cutting boards were all over the place and seemed to be pretty popular. Well I decided at that point that maybe I could create my own unique designs, and maybe, just maybe, someone would actually want to buy one from me. It's a similar story for clocks as well. Although I haven't made any recently, just today I started two, and I expect to finish them this week. I'll post about those tomorrow, so stay tuned for that!
Back to this post. I set a modest goal for myself, I want to bring in just a little bit of extra money each month, and I want to do it by doing something I really enjoy doing.
So there ya go folks! I've had a couple of sales, and I hope I have many more in the future!
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Monday, March 27, 2017
Expanding Operations!
It's been a few days since I posted. So I just wanted to bring everyone up to speed on my most recent projects. I'm sticking with the cutting boards for right now. I broke down and added a jointer to my repertoire, which has really helped improved the speed and quality of my products. I had some exciting news as well, I sold a cutting board! No big deal :). In all seriousness, that sale enabled me to turn around and invest in some new hardwoods to make larger cutting boards. And by larger I mean at least double the size of the next biggest one I had made up to this point.
The first one I made from Ash and Peruvian Walnut. I kept it pretty simple with this design, slight checkboard or zipper pattern, .25 inch round over on the top, and a couple of finger slots for gripping at the bottom. Simplicity turned out to be a great answer because this cutting board turned out beautiful.
The next one I did featured a little more variety in my wood selection. I used Jatoba, Red Oak, and Poplar. I also went for a little book matched design as well. This one is my largest yet, coming in at 22.25 inches long, 11 inches wide, and 1.5 inches deep. I'll probably cap out at this size because this thing is a beast!!! Unless of course someone wants to custom order a larger one haha. This one was also a pretty simple striped design, which I think turned out well. It's pretty heavy as cutting boards go, that's largely due to the Jatoba, which is a very dense hardwood. Reading up on Jatoba I read that it was hard to glue, so I made sure to focus on covering every edge with my food grade (FDA approved) glue, and I made sure to let it sit for at least 12 hours. The end result turned out really well. I stuck with the .25 inch round over and the finger grooves on the base as well. Sometimes simpler is better! Thursday, March 23, 2017
Thoughts on Woodworking...
When does your garage become your woodworking workshop? I've been mulling this over for days now.... Is it after you've completed a certain number of projects? That can't be it... Is it after you have a certain number or a certain type of tool? I can't see that being the answer either... Maybe it's after you've received at least one complaint about the amount of sawdust being blown out of your garage on a daily basis? Or maybe it's after you've sold something that you've made yourself????
I have to admit upfront, I don't know the answer to this question. I've completed many projects (admittedly recently they've mostly been cutting boards). I have all sorts of tools, from a table saw to my newly acquired bench top jointer, never mind the countless hand tools I have at my disposal. Fortunately I haven't received any complaints about the saw dust, although I will say I've been more focused on vacuuming up after I finish a days work in the garage (vice my historical leaf blowing technique). Lastly, I have yet to actually sell one of my products. Though I do think it's just a matter of time (fingers crossed).
I think what makes a garage a wood working workshop depends on the individual. For me my garage became my workshop the day I started on my first refurbishing project many moons ago. I found that I really enjoyed the work that day, and I use the term work loosely. I can't answer that question for you. But I do know that everyone who engages in the innumerable kinds of wood working that exist out there has a workshop they do it in. For me, it just happens to be my garage. And hey, I'm ok with that. I don't need a fancy shed in the backyard to work out of (my wife will tell you otherwise). All I need is a little space and the passion to keep learning and trying new things.
Today I finished up two new cutting boards, like I said earlier, I haven't sold a darn one! But I think they sure did come out pretty! And I did all of it from my workshop!
As always, if you like what you see, please check out my Etsy page at https://www.etsy.com/shop/NicksWoodworkDesigns?ref=hdr_shop_menu.
What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from you!
I have to admit upfront, I don't know the answer to this question. I've completed many projects (admittedly recently they've mostly been cutting boards). I have all sorts of tools, from a table saw to my newly acquired bench top jointer, never mind the countless hand tools I have at my disposal. Fortunately I haven't received any complaints about the saw dust, although I will say I've been more focused on vacuuming up after I finish a days work in the garage (vice my historical leaf blowing technique). Lastly, I have yet to actually sell one of my products. Though I do think it's just a matter of time (fingers crossed).
I think what makes a garage a wood working workshop depends on the individual. For me my garage became my workshop the day I started on my first refurbishing project many moons ago. I found that I really enjoyed the work that day, and I use the term work loosely. I can't answer that question for you. But I do know that everyone who engages in the innumerable kinds of wood working that exist out there has a workshop they do it in. For me, it just happens to be my garage. And hey, I'm ok with that. I don't need a fancy shed in the backyard to work out of (my wife will tell you otherwise). All I need is a little space and the passion to keep learning and trying new things.
Today I finished up two new cutting boards, like I said earlier, I haven't sold a darn one! But I think they sure did come out pretty! And I did all of it from my workshop!
As always, if you like what you see, please check out my Etsy page at https://www.etsy.com/shop/NicksWoodworkDesigns?ref=hdr_shop_menu.
What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from you!
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Learning Lessons....
Today is a test of who actually reads my post and who doesn't. Why is that? Because this post isn't about finishing a project, it's about the mistakes we learn from along the way. Today's post isn't about an active project I'm working on. It's about a project I started, but failed at! I haven't taken any pictures of why my project failed.... YET!
Everyone knows I'm working on cutting boards a lot lately. And I'm doing it with the hope of selling them and bring in some extra money. I feel like I have a pretty decent skill, and the tools to put it into practice, so monetizing on that isn't a bad thing. In line with that, I was working on a larger cutting board similar to one I've already put together (and posted about). Here's a shot of it in the early stages.
By the way, that shot also has a pretty sweet shot of my toes. No big deal...Anyways, I decided on this particular project to utilize my biscuit joiner. I thought it would make a stronger joint and a better connection across the board. Everything came together well, I had no issues with putting it all together, but just when I thought everything was nearing completion.... DISASTOR!
Nearing the end of this project I decided to put a thin trim on the edge of this board, I'm into the trim right now, I think it looks really nice to have one solid border all the way around the final piece. It gives my cutting boards a really nice sense of....closure? I dunno, I just think they look cool!
Now we get to the meat and potatoes. After I put the trim on and having given the glue ample time to set, I decided to run my cutting board through my brand new planer! Some of you reading this post may be thinking "NOOOOOO Nick, DON'T DO IT"! And to that I say... "where you you when I was making this decision?". All joking aside, I ran my cutting board through, and the first thing that happened was it ripped the back edge trim right off the cutting board. This didn't panic me to much, I can repair that. But why did it rip the edge off?
It ripped the edge off because of the way the planer works. It has a clockwise spinning blade with an edge on it, that edge is what does the work on solid surface. Planing things out. Well in my effort to level off the board, I tried to take a little to much off, and that spinnning edge caught the lip of the trim and flung it right off! Like I said earlier, I wasn't to worried about it, it wasn't expected, but I knew I could fix it. However, I still needed to level out the board so I ran it through one more time.... This is where things get interesting...
Remember earlier when I mentioned that I used my biscuit joiner? Yeah well that was a HUGE mistake.... Anyone who uses a biscuit joiner knows that it leaves gaps in the wood. This is a result of cutting a larger oblong shape into the wood, with which you would ultimately place a biscuit. The result of that is you end up with weak points in the wood. In a cutting board that is already less than 1 inch, this weak points become rather substantial. When I ran my cutting board through the planer one more time, those weak points were uncovered. A large section of the weak wood was chipped off (caught by the edge of the planer along a slightly taller surface). You can actually see the biscuit that I used in that section of wood!
I don't wanna drag things on. I know most people probably don't want to read super lengthy articles... Buuuuut. I learned a lot from this project. And the lesson is simple...don't use biscuit joiners all willy nilly! And if you do... think about how those will affect your project! Here's where I learn how many people actually read through my articles...If you read this article, all you have to do is post a one word comment on what you think of this post! I.E. "boring, informational, fun" etc. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Carrying On!
This post is more or less a follow on from yesterdays chevron cutting board. Before I made yesterdays cutting board, the original slab of wood I had, I cut in half. So I ended up with two halves to make two unique cutting boards. I did this because I don't have a jointer (as I mentioned yesterday) nor did I have my planer, so I needed a two smaller, more manageable pieces. Part of me wishes I had the ability to mill the larger piece of wood because I could have made one larger chevron cutting board. I think part of the reason mine aren't selling right now is because they are smaller... But they still look really cool, and they are certainly functional! Just not as big as I think some people are looking for.
So with today's cutting board I cut larger slabs, at 1.5 inches vice yesterdays 1 inch. I also cut these pieces at 20 degree angles instead of 15 (like yesterdays). This gave the chevrons a wider, but more angular look. I also added two pieces of trim, one mahogany and one birch. I did this initially because I wanted to give it some more size. Doing that caused the final size to come in at 12 inches long, 7 inches wide, and just under .75 inches tall. Again this one is on the smaller side, but definitely larger than yesterdays, and more functional.
One thing I'm still working around is the fact that I don't have a jointer. I think I'm still managing, but I still end up with small slivers between the wood at times. I still think the final products come out well. But I look forward to the day where I can joint the wood as well as plane it. Maybe if I can tempt some people to buy these cutting boards I can buy my jointer! We'll see!
Here's the final product as well as a lineup of the three most recent ones I've made.
Like I've said before, these are all for sale on my etsy page, which can be found on my blogs home page at the top! So if you're interested, go check it out!
Friday, March 17, 2017
Another Cutting Board!?
That’s right folks, another one! I’m churning these things out now, I’ve really got the process down. And I got a new tool to help in the process! Thanks wife :). This one is a chevron style cutting board. It’s on the small side at about 10.5 inches long, 6.5 inches wide, and about .75 inches tall. You may be wondering why I’m making these smaller right now. The answer to that is pretty easy, I don’t have large pieces of wood to work with. When I make these end grain cutting boards, they get turned, you guessed it, on their end. So in order to get a taller cutting board, you need wide pieces of wood, around the two inch mark, this gives your more height across the cutting board when you glue it together.
Here some shots of the board coming together.
You know one of my favorite thing about working on these projects is to see what the project looked like at the beginning and compare it to the final product. With this cutting board you can definitely tell a difference! As you are about to see. But before you get to the pictures, I wanted to explain how I get a bunch of pieces of wood together to make it look like it does.
See up until today I was missing two semi important tools to really get a fantastic, perfectly joined cutting board. Today I got one of the two tools I needed, a full thickness planer. What does a planer do? It basically makes two sides of an object parallel each other. So if you have a flat surface on one side, you’ll end up with a flat surface on the other. This cutting board didn’t get that kind of treatment, everything was done purely by hand, and with the use of my table saw to make straight edges.
The other tool I need, and will ultimately get, is a jointer. A jointer will basically take any surface and make it nice and flat. Why is that good? Without a nice flat edge, you can’t really get a good seal/bond on your wood when you go to glue it together (like above). Now I still don’t have a jointer, but I still get my pieces pretty darn close. So how do I do it? Well that’s a great question person reading my blog. I use my table saw! I built some sleds which are basically just platforms, check out the picture below.
I took painstaking efforts when building my sleds to make sure that they were as close to square as I could make them. I’ll grant you they still aren’t 100%, but they are like 98%. So using my sleds, I’m able to control my smaller pieces of wood, and make each edge pretty much perfectly square. So when I place one edge up against the other, you guessed it. It comes out flush. Using my table saw definitely works. But it’s a bit of a pain, especially when you start working with pieces that aren’t square, like the chevron cutting board in the post. So for that particular set up, I had to come up with a rig to assist me in straightening the edges. Again, pretty painstaking, but I love the work, and though it may not be perfect. I’m really proud of it!
Like I said earlier, this one is on the small side, but I think it’s very functional. And can be used as a cutting board, or even a serving dish! I use food grade mineral oil to prep the board, then a butcher block conditioner, and finally a coat of beeswax that I let soak in and then polish up. This cutting board will be for sale on my etsy site (on my main page). As always, let me know what you think! I look forward to hearing from you.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
A new End Grain Cutting Board
As you can probably guess by now. I'm really getting into making these end grain cutting boards. Today I finished another one and guess what? It's for sale! Just check out my etsy site, which can be found on the main page of my blog.
As far as the construction went, this one was a lot smoother. I will say that after making this one and another one from the same materials (still working on that one), I decided to purchase a bench planer. I'm able to joint the wood pretty well using my table saw and sleds, but I think having the planer will really make life easier, it'll save me time, I'll use less over all material, and I won't have to sand nearly as much! These all sound like pluses to me! I'm really happy with how this one turned out. It's a little bigger than my previous cutting board coming in at 8 inches wide 10.5 inches in length and 1 inch tall. I rounded off the trim and used Howards Butcher Block Conditioner, which really made the wood pop! In terms of materials, I used mahogany, red oak and white oak (white oak on the trim), and birch.
I have another much larger cutting board that I'm in the process of finishing. It's the same materials, just put together a little differently. Take a look at the pictures and let me know what you think!
As far as the construction went, this one was a lot smoother. I will say that after making this one and another one from the same materials (still working on that one), I decided to purchase a bench planer. I'm able to joint the wood pretty well using my table saw and sleds, but I think having the planer will really make life easier, it'll save me time, I'll use less over all material, and I won't have to sand nearly as much! These all sound like pluses to me! I'm really happy with how this one turned out. It's a little bigger than my previous cutting board coming in at 8 inches wide 10.5 inches in length and 1 inch tall. I rounded off the trim and used Howards Butcher Block Conditioner, which really made the wood pop! In terms of materials, I used mahogany, red oak and white oak (white oak on the trim), and birch.
I have another much larger cutting board that I'm in the process of finishing. It's the same materials, just put together a little differently. Take a look at the pictures and let me know what you think!
Monday, March 13, 2017
Making Real Progress
So today I went crazy in the garage! I made a couple of sleds, which really helped speed up the progress on my two new cutting boards.
Above are some shots of my sleds (I actually made a third one that was longer length wise). I can't believe how much quicker I was able to square everything up, including all of the little pieces you see in the left picture next to the smaller sled. Once I had everything squared up, I used my biscuit joiner and lots of glue to secure everything.
So this post isn't going to be super flashy but I just wanted to update everyone on what I'm working on. These will go on my etsy site for sale in a couple of days, tomorrow I should finish them both. If you're interested in buying them they will be available here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/NicksWoodworkDesigns?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Finishing the End Grain Cutting Board (and selling!)
Well, it's only been a few short hours since I posted about my end grain cutting board. But it's nearing completion! This one was a little challenging as I said in my last post, since I did some premature sanding haha! But I got everything leveled out and looking awesome (as I predicted)! I used my router to put some small grooves on the ends to hold/pick up the board. 
Let me know what you think! It's on the smaller side, around 9x7x1.5 inches. I'm pretty pleased how it turned out! Message me if you want to own this one of kind cutting board!!!
Let me know what you think! It's on the smaller side, around 9x7x1.5 inches. I'm pretty pleased how it turned out! Message me if you want to own this one of kind cutting board!!!
Here's a little sneak peak of the next two that I'm making!
- Getting the slabs glued together.
- All milled and nice and straight, used the table saw.
- Two styles using the side grain this time.
These two are going to be a lot larger than the other one. Made up of red oak, maple, and one piece of birch. As always, let me know what you think!
Making an End Grain Cutting Board
I've seen these around a lot lately, and now that my big bookshelf is finally done, I wanted to try my hand at making my own end grain cutting board. Another full disclosure for everyone, I planning on making a lot of these and hopefully, selling a lot too! These are fun to make, they are relatively easy, but the possibilities are endless. Size, grain, stain, patterns, you can pretty much do anything you want with one of these. The hardest part is waiting for the wood glue to dry (like I am now). But don't worry, I'm going to go pick up some more wood soon to start another one haha!
You can see in my pictures above, I kept everything pretty symmetric, with the two outer pieces being the same size, and the inner pieces being the same size. I think my next one will be more varying in sizes, that way you end up with all sorts of patterns and designs in the finished product. So yesterday I picked out my pieces, laid out the pattern I wanted and glued everything together to sit over night.
I know it looks a little hectic, but trust me, it works! So I let that sit last night, and today I used my table saw to square up all of the edges, then I did a bit of sanding. Now in retrospect, I don't think I'm going to do sanding again, because after I sanded and cut my individual squares out, I realized I had to square up each individual piece. Why did I have to do that? Because when you sand something, you inevitably make the surface just a little bit uneven. The end result is that the surfaces would ultimately be glued together where a little off. And having to square up each individual piece again was a pain! So there's another lesson learned from Nick!
Now because I had to square each block of wood up (some of them still aren't perfectly square) each block is just a little bit different in size. But again, that's the cool thing about cutting boards like this, the chaotic pattern can add to the beauty of the piece. Take a look at them glued together and tell me what you think. Later on today, after the glue has had a while to dry, I'll go back out and work on it some more. I'm hoping to get this process down to just a couple of days in total.
I can already see it in my head, and trust me. It's going to look awesome! Let me know what you think, and look for more from my wood shop (aka garage).
Friday, March 10, 2017
Finishing the Clock (and selling as well)
Well it’s finally done folks! I had a lot of fun making this clock. I got to play around with a lot of designs early on, and even after I had the basic set up, I still had a lot of free reign to figure out how I wanted the numbers to look (as you can see I went with wooden tick marks). I used a darker stain to highlight the number tick marks, and a cherry stain for the body of the clock. I have a lot of varieties I can make, but this being my first one, it’s going to be a demo model. Ultimately I want to make and sell these, so if you’re interested, LET ME KNOW!!!! Just a few photos below to show where I started and where it ended up
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Full disclosure, I still have a little sanding to do on the face, but I was so excited to put it all together, I postponed the sanding until tomorrow. The next one I’m going to make will be round and have quite a different look to it. So like I said at the beginning, if you want a home made, real wood, made with love and passion wall clock, send me comment or message me (if you’re on Facebook) and let me know! Until next time folks!
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Full disclosure, I still have a little sanding to do on the face, but I was so excited to put it all together, I postponed the sanding until tomorrow. The next one I’m going to make will be round and have quite a different look to it. So like I said at the beginning, if you want a home made, real wood, made with love and passion wall clock, send me comment or message me (if you’re on Facebook) and let me know! Until next time folks!
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Building my Bookshelf Part 2!
I’m sure everyone has been on pins and needles since my last post about the bookshelf, well fret not, the conclusion is forthcoming! I left my last bookshelf post having gotten the basic shape of the cabinet section completed. From there I moved on to putting a base around the lower portion of the cabinet with a basic design feature, which I used my router for. Using my router and routing table, I was able to run the design along the top portion of the base board, though I did have to clean up some of the rough edges with a bit of sanding. As a side note, I would ultimately put the same design across the top of the bookshelf, as you’ll see in pictures. As mentioned in my previous post about the bookshelf, I also put a frame inside the cabinet section. This will ultimately serve as the mounting point for the doors I intend to install (but have not started yet). I made the frame using corner clamps and wood glue, then I secured them using a staple gun on each corner for added strength and stability.
In my previous post I mentioned some trouble I had with mounting the top portion onto the cabinet, and I’ll explain why. The wood I used for the top section was comprised of two pieces of 1×8 inch pieces of wood that I glued together and then cut to size. By doing that I gave myself a little split in the wood grain, which I thought would make the top portion look a little more interesting similar to my thoughts on using the 1×4’s for the backing. I like the idea of having many different wood grains popping out of the whole piece. What I found after I glued and cut the top portion was that the top shelf wasn’t sitting flush with my cabinet. I had a fairly significant amount of play or wiggle room when I set the top onto the cabinet. This kind of stumped me at first, I mean I used a table saw to cut everything to size (with a fence), so how could my top piece be that far off? Ultimately I think it was a result of slightly bowed wood on the top shelf, but ultimately I tried to sand down the back wall to make it even. As you can imagine this wasn’t the most accurate way of doing things, and I ultimately ended up putting a shim along the back to level everything out. Now you can’t see it, because it’s on the backside, but that definitely annoyed me bit! I used the Kregg joiner to secure the top to the bottom and I ended up with a level platform for the bookshelf.
The bookshelf portion was actually fairly easy to put together. Basically just using my Kregg joiner to make a box, and using the same style as I did for the top shelf on the cabinet to make a top shelf on the bookshelf, with an added design feature using my router. I also made a frame for the bookshelf, because without it, it just didn’t look right at all. I think the hardest part of the bookshelf section was making sure my shelving holes lined up perfectly! I used another Kregg product, which is basically just a jig to help you set up the cabinet holes to get even spacing and accurate depth. I used the same plywood I had for the cabinet shelf but it was here that I discovered another issue.
When I set my finished bookshelf on top of the cabinet, I noticed that the bottom was slightly bulging out. Now the reason for this was fairly obvious, I didn’t have a base on the bookshelf, I wanted the top of the cabinet to serve as the bottom of the bookshelf. This problem was solved once I put the frame in. I used two “L brackets” on each side of the side walls, just under the shelving mounts (to hide them), and I secured the side walls to the frame from the mid point of the side walls down to the base. The effectively pulled everything back into alignment, solving the bulging issue I had.
Above are the shots of the bookshelf with and without frame, you can see the difference it made! Finally I moved onto staining and polyurethane, which was a bit of a hassle, just because I did everything after it was all put together. I’m glad I did it that way, because as I made adjustments to the project, I didn’t have to worry about screwing up parts I may of stained individually as I finished them. That being said, it took me a while to get everything stained, making sure I got every little crevice on the unit. I put a coat of polyeurethane on the next day, and sanded the whole unit with 400 grit sand paper.
I think the final product came out really nice. Of course there are little imperfections here and there (I’m probably the only one who even notices it), but over all I’m really happy with it, learned a LOT, and most importantly my WIFE is happy with it! As always, I’d love to know your thoughts on the process and finished product. So feel free to comment. If anyone is curious about the Kregg joiner/jig I used, they can be found on the link for my amazon store on my main page. Next time I’ll be posting about the wall clock I’m almost done with. More to come!
In my previous post I mentioned some trouble I had with mounting the top portion onto the cabinet, and I’ll explain why. The wood I used for the top section was comprised of two pieces of 1×8 inch pieces of wood that I glued together and then cut to size. By doing that I gave myself a little split in the wood grain, which I thought would make the top portion look a little more interesting similar to my thoughts on using the 1×4’s for the backing. I like the idea of having many different wood grains popping out of the whole piece. What I found after I glued and cut the top portion was that the top shelf wasn’t sitting flush with my cabinet. I had a fairly significant amount of play or wiggle room when I set the top onto the cabinet. This kind of stumped me at first, I mean I used a table saw to cut everything to size (with a fence), so how could my top piece be that far off? Ultimately I think it was a result of slightly bowed wood on the top shelf, but ultimately I tried to sand down the back wall to make it even. As you can imagine this wasn’t the most accurate way of doing things, and I ultimately ended up putting a shim along the back to level everything out. Now you can’t see it, because it’s on the backside, but that definitely annoyed me bit! I used the Kregg joiner to secure the top to the bottom and I ended up with a level platform for the bookshelf.
The bookshelf portion was actually fairly easy to put together. Basically just using my Kregg joiner to make a box, and using the same style as I did for the top shelf on the cabinet to make a top shelf on the bookshelf, with an added design feature using my router. I also made a frame for the bookshelf, because without it, it just didn’t look right at all. I think the hardest part of the bookshelf section was making sure my shelving holes lined up perfectly! I used another Kregg product, which is basically just a jig to help you set up the cabinet holes to get even spacing and accurate depth. I used the same plywood I had for the cabinet shelf but it was here that I discovered another issue.
When I set my finished bookshelf on top of the cabinet, I noticed that the bottom was slightly bulging out. Now the reason for this was fairly obvious, I didn’t have a base on the bookshelf, I wanted the top of the cabinet to serve as the bottom of the bookshelf. This problem was solved once I put the frame in. I used two “L brackets” on each side of the side walls, just under the shelving mounts (to hide them), and I secured the side walls to the frame from the mid point of the side walls down to the base. The effectively pulled everything back into alignment, solving the bulging issue I had.
Above are the shots of the bookshelf with and without frame, you can see the difference it made! Finally I moved onto staining and polyurethane, which was a bit of a hassle, just because I did everything after it was all put together. I’m glad I did it that way, because as I made adjustments to the project, I didn’t have to worry about screwing up parts I may of stained individually as I finished them. That being said, it took me a while to get everything stained, making sure I got every little crevice on the unit. I put a coat of polyeurethane on the next day, and sanded the whole unit with 400 grit sand paper.
I think the final product came out really nice. Of course there are little imperfections here and there (I’m probably the only one who even notices it), but over all I’m really happy with it, learned a LOT, and most importantly my WIFE is happy with it! As always, I’d love to know your thoughts on the process and finished product. So feel free to comment. If anyone is curious about the Kregg joiner/jig I used, they can be found on the link for my amazon store on my main page. Next time I’ll be posting about the wall clock I’m almost done with. More to come!
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