Popular Post Chestnut Posted October 12, 2020 Popular Post Report Share Posted October 12, 2020 I promised to make a bookshelf for a friend, in trade for some help with wedding related items. She wanted the shelf to be decent in size so the shelf would function as a visual barrier for a work space. I was provided a picture for the design and used that and dimensions desired to make a final "plan". The desired end product would be accessible from both sides so I can't use a back for rigidity. The wood desired was maple, and she wanted it dyed to a light tan orange that would match the rest of her house. The width i was shooting for was 12" so i edge jointed boards and got roughly 12.5" that I'll trim down. Smoothing with a hand plane was not working as maple and I don't really get a long for some reason. I struggled managing the tear out and eventually gave up and just used a card scraper. The maple I used was some soft maple that had heartwood mixed in. Adding dye later will even out the color variation and make that a lot less noticeable. To make the shelf unit. Each horizontal shelf will be full length with spacers and the left end and 12" in from the right end. The design dictated the construction method. Normally I'd make the vertical pieces full length and do dados but that wouldn't work here. For joinery I'm going to do floating M&T where the tenon stock goes through the shelf and ties the 2 adjacent vertical members together. This would be possible with traditional M&T but probably not feasible as it'd waste a lot of wood. A strait edge and square were used to locate the mid field mortises. In case there is some variation in board length all measurements are taken from the same edge, the edge that will be against the wall. To mark the mortise locations the vertical is brought in and lines are transferred. This ensures that there are no "mistakes" in measuring. You can see my purple heart and curly white oak strait edge below. That was the edge that I used to reference the domino off of. To make construction clear here are some pictures. First is verticals in place with floating tenons sticking up. The shelf is then hammered over those tenons, leaving a good amount of tenon sticking out for the next verticals to tie into. Then more vertical pieces are placed and rinse and repeat. I took a huge risk with this project. The tenon stock was TIGHT in the shelves and almost loose in the verticals. Why this was I'm not sure but I didn't want to make it too lose in the verticals so I stopped my dry assembly at the above stage. Normally I'd assemble the whole thing dry prior to glue to get an idea of how long everything would take but i was worried about causing damage. So i verified all the mortise locations, cut all the tenon stock i'd need from my home made blanks, mixed some epoxy and went for it. Assembly took me almost an hour. I used a caul to hammer everything together and there was a LOT of pounding required. In the end the whole shelf unit is STURDY. There is hardly any racking, after it's attached to the wall via the left side in the picture above this will be a very sturdy shelf unit. I used it as a ladder to check shelf sag and with my weight in the center of the shelf there is minimal deflection. It makes for a terrible ladder though. Prior to finishing I wet the whole shelf to raise the grain and then sanded smooth. I applied a dye via HVLP, the dye was 2 parts dark walnut, 1 part light oak transfast powder. I was shooting for a nice amber tan but it ended up a bit more grey tan. I'm not too concerned about that. When the the maple and the finish yellow with age and uv exposure the color will yellow out a bit more and be more inline with the intent. The main goal to make the client happy was achieved so we'll just leave that one to rest. Beings that the shelf will be attached to the wall there needed to be an accommodation for the base trim. I attached a 3/4: piece of maple on the "spine" that will act as a spacer. The space also made the shelf even more rigid, not that it needed it. I didn't take any good pictures of how I did that but it was simple. There are mistakes present but won't be mentioned, the final product is nice and both I and the client are happy with it so they don't matter. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan McCully Posted October 12, 2020 Report Share Posted October 12, 2020 Nicely done Drew. Can't believe I never thought about doing through tenons in this way with dominos. Glad to see that it came out as sturdy as you wanted it to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chestnut Posted October 12, 2020 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted October 12, 2020 1 hour ago, Jonathan McCully said: Nicely done Drew. Can't believe I never thought about doing through tenons in this way with dominos. Glad to see that it came out as sturdy as you wanted it to. It is worth noting that the top did not have tenons that went through. I could have done a through tenon there the traditional way but it's above most people's eye level so it'd be wasted effort. The domino has a lot of good uses that probably don't get much attention because the tool often gets trapped in it's own system. The method I used wouldn't have worked with the DF500 tenon stock as I needed 8mm tenons that were 72mm long. I also use wider tenon material. The flats of festool's domino stock is only 14mm wide where the stock I'm using is over 20mm. I guess i could have used their cut to length tenon material and done 4 instead of 3 but that's more expensive and would take more time. I take scraps and run them through the drum sander for tenon stock. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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