Barrister Bookcase

[Coop]

 

I made one of these several years back for our son and his late wife, using walnut as the primary frame material and cherry for the side panels. I’ve accumulated several books over the years that I would like to keep and decided to make one for our house. I used and will be using plans from the WoodWhisper for the build.

 

I decided, or should I say that my budget made the decision to use cherry as the primary frame wood. The panels are up for discussion. Several years ago, I built a project using qtr. sawn sycamore and really liked working with it and bought some from @Spanky, which I’m sure you guys remember. I still have a 12”x10’x8/4 slab and thought about using it for the side panels. If you’re not familiar with sycamore, it’s not as light as maple but not nearly as dark as cherry. I questioned @Chet about using it and he replied that it might look like “ a circus tent” and I tend to agree. I bought some 4/4 walnut for the panels but I am also hell  bent on seeing what the sycamore will look like so I’ll do a dry fit with both.

So, after buying 28 bf of cherry, I broke several boards down for the end panel frames with my jig saw  and sliced them into rough widths on the bs. Instead of labeling the pieces on the surfaces, I marked each piece on the ends; rails, stiles and center stiles. These marks are also noted on the ends that will go thru the jointer and planer first,  for grain direction.

Tomorrow I’ll get closer to correct dimensions. 

 

[B1rdhunter]

Gotta say I love quartersawn sycamore and still have several hundred feet of rift and quarter. I mainly use the rift for making nice drawers.

[wtnhighlander]

Cool project, @Coop! Chet is on-point about too much figure & contrast being risky, but the double-panel sides will break things up enough to show a little flash, without being overwhelming. IMO, at least.

[Mark J]

11 hours ago, Coop said:

Instead of labeling the pieces on the surfaces, I marked each piece on the ends

Smart.  

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Looking forward to this ride along!

[Coop]

I set aside this afternoon after lunch to mill the side panel frames to thickness and hopefully to length. There are 30 pieces total, not including the panels. Two of the boards I’m using for the frames are almost 5/4 so as to spend less time at the planer, I decided to use the jointer to remove most of the waste. Even after waxing the jointer table, the first few boards were a little sluggish going thru and I remembered a new set of knives that I had and decided now was a good time to change them. Boy was I ever wrong. I used the little mechanical height gauge that came with the jointer, ignoring the digital Multi-Gauge that I bought a few years back and have never used, I set the height of the knives. After running 4-5 boards thru, I noticed one side of each board was thinner than the other side. One side of one of the knives had not seated properly and two of the boards were less than the desired 3/4” before sending them to the planner. And no, I didn’t bother to make spare parts but I bet I do when I remake the new ones. 
 

[Coop]

Sorry. Not sure why the above fonts was larger and couldn’t correct it? 

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

I feel your pain re: jointer knives @Coop. That's one machine where a helical head is a massive upgrade. 

[Coop]

Back at it with the jointer tuned to perfection and the misfortunate boards replaced and some extra pieces milled as well. 
I cut all of the rails and stiles to width and length on the table saw. As the panels fit into grooves in the frame, I cut the grooves into the sides on the ts using a flat tooth full kerf blade and fine tuned them with a router plane. 

 

The rails and stiles get a 1/2” groove and the center divider stiles get a 1/4” groove. As the divider is only 1 1/2” wide, the shallower groove allows for a more substantial tenon.

The tenons were cut on the ts with a dado stack and sacrificial fence. I used my test pieces to gradually ease up on the depth and length of the tenon and when satisfied, I ran both ends of the rails stiles and one end of the dividers thru using both the miter gauge and the fence.

With the rails and stiles dry fitted, I measured for my cut on the other ends of the dividers using a marking knife for an accurate cut.

That should do it. All of the inside pieces get a slight chamfer which I did at the router table using a 45* bit and guide bearing. . As we don’t want chamfers where the boards meet, I marked the joint locations about 1/4” shy. The center dividers get the chamfers the full length on all four sides. For the rails and stiles, I used my marks to guide me where to start and stop the cuts and repeated this on both sides.

That’s a bunch of chamfers!

Next up, milling the panels. 

[wtnhighlander]

Looking good, @Coop! You have a keen eye, if you chamfered up to those guide lines without using stops.

[Coop]

I did. On my test cut pieces, I noticed that if I started and stopped the cuts just to the right and left of the guide bearings, it put me right where I wanted to be. I was dreading using multiple blocks for that many cuts.

[Coop]

Sorry for the couple of duplicate pics. I guess I got tap happy on my iPad! 

[gee-dub]

Great stuff Coop and beautiful material.  I am digging the stopped chamfer details.  Looks like you are really moving along.

[Coop]

So, still I doubt about the panels for the side frames, I re-sawed an 18”long  piece of the 8/4 sycamore and a piece of the 4/4” walnut and dry fitted them into the frame. 

I was not at all happy with the grain on the walnut and after turning the slab of sycamore over, this is the grain that it will become.

Nothing like the other side. So instead of trying to find a more desirable piece of walnut and the fact that I think panels should be of a lighter color than the frame, I took two more cutting from the end of the sycamore and re-sawed them into 3/8” slices.

From the slices that I took from the three sections of the sycamore, I was able to get 6 panels with the matching grain for one end of the bookcase and 6 that are acceptable for the other end. I don’t think anyone will ever notice as they are not viewed together. The front stack will go on one end and the back stack on the other.

With all 30 frame pieces and 12 panels cut to size, sanded to 180 and labeled, I started the assembly. A wise ole fellow that contributed immensely on here, @wdwerker, advised using a dab of Lexel in the grooves that the panels rest in, and that’s what I did. Using Titebond III, slowing setting, I assembled the panels and they are resting comfortably over night.

 

[B1rdhunter]

That is a fine piece of sycamore, send the walnut to me and I shall dispose of it.

[Chet]

Those are going to look nice.

[gee-dub]

Yay for the sycamore.

 

[Coop]

The side panels each receive a 1/4 dado, 1/4” deep, 1 1/4” down from the top. This was done on the router table using a stop block to stop the cut 1/4” from the front. The little wavy hiccup on this one was intentional.  This groove receives a 1/4” dowel pin that will be located on the  top edges of the door that allow the door to rise up and slide back into the top of the cabinet. The panel also receives a 1/4” dowel pin that helps pivot the doors and is used as a rest when the door is open. The 1/4” holes were drilled on the dp. The side pictured here is of the inside face. The sycamore panels on the show face have a more symmetrical pattern.

 

The tops and bottom case pieces are made of cherry ply. I broke the sheet down to manageable pieces using a borrowed track saw. If I was 20 years younger, I’d have me one of these!

 

To the table saw, using the fence, I cut all of the pieces to the correct width and using the panel sled, I cut them to length.

After giving each piece a good sanding, I have a nice stack of tops and bottom strips.

 

i decided to take advantage of the daylight left to address the door pieces. Using the jig saw, I was able to break down my last cherry board and get all of the frame pieces from it. 

At the bs, I ripped the pieces to rough width.

then to the jointer and planer, they were milled to 3/4”thickness, seen here on my stack of ply.

And now to go catch up on a couple episodes of Landman! 

 

[fcschoenthal]

On 11/23/2025 at 7:40 PM, Coop said:

And now to go catch up on a couple episodes of Landman!

Having grown up here in Fort Worth, I recognize several of the places they're filming. Wish I could catch them in the act sometime.

BTW..those sycamore panels look great.

[Coop]

The side frames are attached to the tops and bottom strips with dominos.

First to dry fit the pieces together to make sure all of the mortises were cut properly and to mark the locations for the stopped chamfer cuts on the inside of the side stiles and the rails.

With the chamfers cut, it’s time for a glue up. I glued all of the tenons into the end pieces first, to make assembly a little smoother, making sure to wipe off any squeeze out.

With the case out of the clamps, I added the 1/4” cherry ply back. Fortunately the other side of the ply looks more like cherry. The open slot with be filled in later with a piece of hardwood, screwed into place to facilitate removing the door from the back side in the event of glass breakage. 

Now, two more to go.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Looking great @Coop!

[pkinneb]

Dang Coop you are moving right along looks great!!

[Coop]

Next up is the base. The legs are made from 8/4 stock Or, in my case, laminated 4/4.

Out of the clamps, I milled them to 1 3/4” and cut them to 8” length. Joinery of the rails to the legs is with mortise and tenons. I cut the 3/4” deep mortise on the dedicated mortiser with the aid of a stop block and knee pad.

 

The inside faces of the legs are tapered and I cut them on the ts with a tapering jig. These were later refined with a hand plane and sanding block.

With the help of a scrap piece, I eased up on the depth of the tenons for the rails on the ts using the dado stack and my fence as a stop block. 

 

The rails receive a slight arch on the bottoms so I drew these out with a drawing bow and made the cuts on the bs. and smoothed them out with a cabinet scraper and sanding block.

With all of the pieces sanded to 180, they went to glue and clamps.

Now the doors. Taking measurements from my case openings, I cut the door rails and stiles to their final widths and lengths. Construction on the door pieces is very similar to the case side panels with a 1/4” groove cut down the middle on the inside edges and tenons cut on the rail ends. The exception to the panel build is the inside remaining piece of the stiles and rails must be removed to accommodate the glass fronts. The waste on the rails is removed using the ts as they go from one end to the other. The waste on the stiles is removed up to where it meets the rail tenons. I cut the waste out on the router table with a 3/8 straight cutting bit, fence and stop blocks. Well, I did one. While cutting the second board, I noticed the bit coming up thru the surface. Not a good sign! I think this happened with this bit before or, I was taking too big of a bite at one time. Either way, the bit went out with the garbage this morning.

 

I re-milled this piece and with the help of a new bit, I gradually eased up on the cuts of the remaining pieces with better success.

Finally, it’s time for glue and clamps.

 

it doesn’t take an eagle eye so let me explain. All of the door edges receive a small chamfer and the stile chamfer should have stopped short at their juncture with the rails. Obviously I failed to do so on this stile. Fortunately, I used a 45* chamfer bit so scrap to the rescue.i figured it beat the groove.

 

With a flat tooth saw, block plane and sanding block, I smoothed it to the surface.  This door will definitely go on the bottom.

Enough mistakes for one day. Until tomorrow. 

 

 

[treeslayer]

wow Coop I don’t know how I missed this one, great work as usual my friend