Kicking it into High Gear

Sometimes you just have to get after it. Last week my wife got a phone call that resulted in a major shift in our tempo.

The principal at our kids school called and told my wife she had a teaching job for her, if she wanted it. This has been pretty high on the family goals list for some time, so after a brief talk, she accepted the job.

A few minutes later my wife is out the door, on the way to see what will be her classroom. Here’s a brief transcript of our conversation when she gets back:

Wife: “I need bookshelves.”

Me: “What kind of bookshelves, tall ones or short ones?”

Wife: “Yes”

Today’s lesson is that a single question can have two entirely separate, but equally valid binary solution sets…

She clarified, she didn’t need anything too decorative, just nice functional and sturdy bookshelves.

I can handle that. I wanted to get some ideas for getting the optimum sized bookcases I could from single sheets of plywood.

A quick google search sent me to these plans.

I’ve come across this site before. Many of the plans are simple, with easy joinery. Lots of butt joints and screws. I think sites like this are great for getting newcomers interested in making things for themselves. But, I was concerned I would need more robust construction to hold up in an elementary classroom.

The plans did have the one thing I was looking for, an excellent cut list for getting two 30″ tall, 48″ wide book shelves from one 4’x8′ sheet of plywood. I only had to modify the plans slightly to incorporate the dadoes for installing the shelves instead of screws and a 1/4″ plywood back. I also changed the layout of the top, as the two cases would need to sit together with no gap between them.

That took care of the short bookshelves.

I probably could have found the same thing for the taller bookcases, but by now I had a good idea for how to get a 3′ wide, 6′ tall bookshelf from one full sheet of 3/4″ plywood. I made a scale mode from some graph paper and scotch tape to convince myself it would look right.

One trip to Lowes on Friday, and I’m ready to start the next morning.

I knew I’d be going back and forth between a circular saw and the table saw to get all the big pieces to their final dimensions. I was short on time, so I needed to get it right from the start.

The first step was to sketch out all of my plywood cuts, and figure out the proper order of operations. My cutting order changed a slightly, but the 15 minutes it took to make this sketch saved me lots of time in the long run.

The circular saw came first. Some of the cuts were made with a straight edge to a final measurement, others were made freehand, so I could manage them on my table saw later.

Since I was making two of each bookshelf, sometimes I clamped two pieces of plywood together and cut them at the same time.

I probably could have managed any one of these pieces without opening up my big shop doors. Making all 4 of them at the same time, I ran into a staging problem. My solution was to stack the parts in the bed of my truck.

To make sure the dadoes for the shelves in each side lined up, and to speed things up, I routed them first.

Then I ripped the sides to width on the table saw.

There were 14 shelves for all 4 pieces, meaning 28 dadoes. Routing those first, then ripping the sides, cut the setup time in half.

With all the plywood pieces cut out, I moved on to assembling the carcasses. Glue will hold everything together, but I used a brad nailer to keep it all together while the glue dried.

The shop floor is pretty uneven, so an old sheet of MDF gave me a semi-flat surface to work on. Once the cases were put together, I cut a piece of 1/4″ plywood to fit in a rabbet around the back edge.

With all 4 carcasses assembled, I ripped down some pine 1x4s and trimmed each one out.

Here’s all 4 bookcases, trim installed, sitting in our garage.

Next, came some putty to fill the brad holes and a lot of sanding. Durham’s Water Putty is my go-to or something that is going to be painted.

Not bad for one weekend of work. The next day each piece got a couple of coats of white paint, and I delivered them to my wife’s new classroom once it dried.

I didn’t get any good pictures of the painted bookshelves, but they turned out alright.

You can find the plans I based the short cases on in the link above. I’ll try and draw up a good cutting diagram for the tall cases to publish in the next few days. No doubt, there are plenty of bookshelf plans out there, but these may be just what someone was looking for.