Daughter's bookshelf with drawers

[SawDustB]

Thanks guys! I'm planning to use box joints, so I think they should be plenty strong. I think I'll go 1/2" sides, and bump up to 1/2" bottom on the large drawer, probably just use 1/4" for the smaller one. I got the plywood this morning, so I'm committed now.

[wdwerker]

When in doubt, overkill ! Who can't picture a child standing in a drawer ? Having said that if you French cleat the bookcase  to the wall with a spacer the thickness of your base board it would prevent tipping. 

[SawDustB]

3 hours ago, wdwerker said:

When in doubt, overkill ! Who can't picture a child standing in a drawer ? Having said that if you French cleat the bookcase  to the wall with a spacer the thickness of your base board it would prevent tipping. 

Yes, I've incorporated that into my design after you mentioned it earlier. The top has an overhang of 1/2" to the rear, to allow for a cleat the same thickness as the baseboard. I expect the bottom drawer may be stood in, but I'm not as concerned about the upper one.

[wdwerker]

I guess I did mention it earlier. Do you remember everything from January 6th ? Obviously I don't !

[SawDustB]

Full dry fit! It's square and has no wobble. Unfortunately, two of the shelves were really hard to get in, so I'm weighing my options. I'm thinking of using hide glue for it, but I still think sanding the pins a little would be prudent.

[SawDustB]

So.... I tried to glue the top dovetails tonight. It was a complete failure. I used Old Brown glue, and I don't think it was hot enough. It gelled up into a sticky mess while I was trying to apply it. I attempted to close the joint anyway, but it wouldn't seat the last 1/32" because of the glue. I ended up knocking it apart and scraping all the glue out of the joint. 

I think I'll try again in a day or two. That was not fun. Does anyone else use this stuff? I was going to use it because it's supposed to slide better for the sliding dovetails, but right now I'm not sure about it at all.

[Alan G]

Sorry to hear your glue up went bad. At least you were able to get it back apart and nothing broke. 

I have never used the old brown glue. However on the last dovetailed drawers I made I used epoxy. Long open time and very slippery. 

I have previously used PVA and it made the glue up difficult. Not enough open time and it swelled the joint a tiny bit to make it harder to assemble.

[SawDustB]

4 hours ago, Alan G said:

Sorry to hear your glue up went bad. At least you were able to get it back apart and nothing broke. 

I have never used the old brown glue. However on the last dovetailed drawers I made I used epoxy. Long open time and very slippery. 

I have previously used PVA and it made the glue up difficult. Not enough open time and it swelled the joint a tiny bit to make it harder to assemble.

Thanks. I was VERY relieved to get it apart. I read up on it more afterwards and it want the glue to be HOT (120-140 F, or around 65C) and I don't think the hot water I was using was anywhere near that, never mind the glue. I've only used it once before, when I was gluing leather for the Roubo, but that was in the summer so the air and wood temperature was also much warmer. I think I need to try making some test joints with it before I go anywhere near a project again.

I considered epoxy, and I still may end up going that route. The two things that stopped me are that it's expensive to buy the kit, and it requires solvent clean up. The old brown glue appealed since it doesn't cause finishing issues and it cleans up with water. My joints are probably too tight to be using PVA without doing some more work with a chisel or file, since they require a dead blow hammer to seat properly.

[SawDustB]

Success! I was able to get the overall case glued up. I put my old Brown glue into a baby Glu bot (4 oz size) and was able to get it completely liquid today. I did waste about half an hour cleaning the joint out first, but it all worked out. I've currently got the top glued, along with the three bottom supports. That upper shelf is slid in there just to give me something to clamp the top down.

Tomorrow, I'll try to do a second glue up and get the shelves in. I'm a little nervous about that just because the sliding dovetails are a little tight, but it should be doable.

 

[pkinneb]

Great job! Definitely a lot going on there in one glue up.

[SawDustB]

3 hours ago, pkinneb said:

Great job! Definitely a lot going on there in one glue up.

Thanks. There was no way I was going to add the stress of the sliding dovetails at the same time as trying to get the main case glued and square. I took the clamps off this morning and aside from a 1/16" corner to corner wobble, all looks good. I'm going to glue the shelves in tonight as a second step - fingers crossed that the hide glue makes them slippery enough to prevent any issues.

[Coop]

Mix you a loogie or two in with the hide glue to give it a little more slide. Good luck. 

[SawDustB]

So far so good on the shelves. I put in the full width shelf and the tighter of the remaining two. The second from the top isn't glued yet, since I just had it in there to help hold everything square. I glued the length of the sliding dovetails, and had to use my parallel clamps to pull it in all the way (along with some vigorous mallet blows). It worked, but I was sweating by the end.

The good thing is that adding these shelves helped square up the book case, so it's now sitting flat on the floor. I'll get that remaining shelf in tomorrow, then I need to clean up my glue and fit the back to it. I'm thinking I'll prefinish the back before assembly, letting me spray in the shelves.

[Coop]

On 4/21/2018 at 8:30 PM, SawDustB said:

Full dry fit! It's square and has no wobble. Unfortunately, two of the shelves were really hard to get in, so I'm weighing my options. I'm thinking of using hide glue for it, but I still think sanding the pins a little would be prudent.

I had to go back and see how you did the shelves. Then back to this pic and zoomed in to see that the “kick” in the back is actually created by a shadow. I’ll blame it on old age

[SawDustB]

The last shelf slid into place for me this morning. It's clamped up and square, and I'm leaving it until tomorrow to cure. I was pretty happy with how things went, but I learned a couple of things:

1) Too much glue is better than too little when doing this, or it will tack up and seize. I did glue the entire length of the dovetails, which certainly contributed here.

2) The glue is slippery when warm, but it cools quickly. It went better when I turned up the heat in the garage.

3) When it's warm, this stuff drips everywhere. Good thing I can go back and clean it off with a wet rag later.

4) Having the joint a tiny bit loose (before glue) is better. The two that were pretty tight required a lot of banging and cranking down with clamps to get them positioned.

Overall, I think I'm happy with my choice to use the hide glue. PVA would have been a disaster. An alternate like epoxy would have worked, but it would have been more expensive (and I wasn't going to mess with polyurethane glue squeeze out).

[Wood Basher]

1 hour ago, SawDustB said:

I did glue the entire length of the dovetails

Would you do it that way again? Would it be OK to just glue a short length at one end of the dovetail?

1 hour ago, SawDustB said:

PVA would have been a disaster.

Why is that? What problem do you think PVA would cause?

[pkinneb]

1 hour ago, SawDustB said:

1) Too much glue is better than too little when doing this, or it will tack up and seize. I did glue the entire length of the dovetails, which certainly contributed here.

2) The glue is slippery when warm, but it cools quickly. It went better when I turned up the heat in the garage.

3) When it's warm, this stuff drips everywhere. Good thing I can go back and clean it off with a wet rag later.

4) Having the joint a tiny bit loose (before glue) is better. The two that were pretty tight required a lot of banging and cranking down with clamps to get them positioned.

Overall, I think I'm happy with my choice to use the hide glue. PVA would have been a disaster. An alternate like epoxy would have worked, but it would have been more expensive (and I wasn't going to mess with polyurethane glue squeeze out).

 

I really need to give hide glue a try one of these days. Project is coming along great!

[SawDustB]

33 minutes ago, Wood Basher said:

Would you do it that way again? Would it be OK to just glue a short length at one end of the dovetail?

I glued the whole length of the dovetail for a couple of reasons. I ended up having to make the dovetails only a little over 1/4" deep, rather than the 3/8". That, combined with the fact that I used a 7 degree dovetail bit, left them feeling a little weaker than I liked against being pulled out. I know that lots of sources say you can slide it in most of the way and just glue the last couple of inches. It probably would have been fine, but I fully expect my daughter to stand on the shelves at some point and I don't want to add screws. Also, with the liquid hide glue, it actually lubricated the joint until it started to seize up near the end, so there wasn't much penalty to gluing the whole thing. Had I used PVA I would never have tried gluing the whole length, but I could have with something like epoxy. I didn't use a tapered sliding dovetail, but that would have also solved these issues.

33 minutes ago, Wood Basher said:

Why is that? What problem do you think PVA would cause?

If I had used PVA, I never would have been able to slide the dovetail all the way in. It would have swelled the joint, making it tighter, and it would have probably seized up with them halfway in. PVA seems to be the glue being discussed when people talk about gluing the last two inches of tail and socket and then driving them in.

33 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

I really need to give hide glue a try one of these days. Project is coming along great!

Thanks! I was reasonably happy with how the glue worked, although it was critical to have a bucket of hot water for the glue to live in between using it. If it cooled off even a little, it became much harder to use. I think the Titebond glue is a lot more forgiving in that respect, but the Old Brown glue seemed to be what people recommended when I bought it.

[SawDustB]

After a lot of messing around with a crude box joint jig (William Ng style) I have the start of some drawers. I'm using 1/2" ply for both drawers, including the bottoms. The box joints on the smaller drawer aren't perfect because my jig slipped and I had to recut some of the sides to make them mesh together. The large drawer came out really well. I need to put in grooves and cut the bottoms to fit. My plan is to rabbet the bottom to fit in a 1/4" groove, with the bottom almost flush. This should maximize my drawer space.

[Coop]

And are we looking at the drawer as it will be oriented, opening at the top? Pretty deep drawer? Well done on the box joints. 

[SawDustB]

6 hours ago, K Cooper said:

And are we looking at the drawer as it will be oriented, opening at the top? Pretty deep drawer? Well done on the box joints. 

Yes, the lower drawer is in a 12" high opening, so it's around 11 5/8". It's replacing a small toy box in her room, so it's going to have blocks, stuffed animals,etc piled in it. It's a bit of an odd form factor, but I'm building to my wife's request here. The box joints worked well, once I bolted the jig firmly to my miter gauge. I just had it on with a quick clamp for the upper drawer, which is why it slipped.

[wdwerker]

I put the 1/4" dado for drawers up 1/2" from the bottom edge. I wouldn't cut that down below 3/8. The plywood layers can separate under a load.

[SawDustB]

18 hours ago, wdwerker said:

I put the 1/4" dado for drawers up 1/2" from the bottom edge. I wouldn't cut that down below 3/8. The plywood layers can separate under a load.

Thanks Steve, good to know. I'll revise my plan up by 1/4".

18 hours ago, wdwerker said:

 

[SawDustB]

So following along from Steve's suggestion, I left 1/2" of wood below the drawer bottoms. I cut a 1/4" groove, stopping just short of the ends. The drawer bottoms are 1/2" BB plywood, rabbeted 1/4" in on each edge to 1/4" thick. The drawers seem like they'll be nice and solid, but I need to finish sand all of it before assembly.

[Coop]

Those look great!