Hi,

I'm planning on making a set of shelves in blackwood that look like the attached sketch.

Can I get some advice on the following?

1. I was planning to cut out a profile at the bottom back so that it sits against the wall (there is a skirting board at the base of the wall). But if the floor isn't flat or the walls vertical then I fear a thin, widening gap that draws attention to itself. Should I worry about this?

2. Weight - I made a small bedside table from blackwood that was pretty heavy - will something of this size be unmanageable as a one-person lift?

3. Do I need to have a back to the shelves (I was thinking of leaving them open) to keep the whole thing rigid?

Any other tips or hints before I start?

Tony

Attached Files

shelves.pdf (25.0 KB, 263 views)

I would personally have a back in the shelves, but for stability I think if you have a partial back behind the drawers you would be fine with a small unit like this one.

1. No, not really. Sooner or later it'll be moved to somewhere where this is a problem. Trying to avoid it is pointless in my opinion.

Still, it might be a good idea to give it small adjustable feet, so that you can tweak it to sit "right" wherever you place it.

2. Unmanageable? It depends on your timber choice, but probably not. Unwieldy, perhaps, but not unmanageable.

3. A backer would be the simplest and most effective way to prevent racking. Putting a backer behind just the drawer section could be almost as effective. There are other methods, but they start becoming less effective and more expensive.

Edit: beaten to the mark by Astro!

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If you put thin packers 10-15mm square on the front of your shelves to tilt them back a little you will take care of the skirting board issue. You may need to test how thick they need to be as this depends on the hight of the shelves,some furniture makers make an angle cut on the bottom edges to make a tilt back but this can somethimes can go wrong if floor and wall are not square and if you get that angle wrong it gets a bit hard to correct when the job is finished. The packer method allows you to adjust if you are on carpeted floor.
Good luck ,let us know how you go.

1. Don't worry about cutting a profile at the bottom back.
2. You do need another person to lift it. Unless you have long arms, super strong and like to do thing the hard way.
3. I would add a back for sure. It looks more professional.

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I agree with the others who say put a back in it. Looks better IMHO and stops the books from being pushed back against the wall.
Now the weight of this unit sans back and drawers, and assuming a dry density for the blackwood of 640Kg per cubic meter and a timber thickness of 20mm, is going to be around 22Kg .
Now while this is over the OH&S limits , a fit young falla like yourself should be able to manage it around your workshop on your own. . I reckon I could

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OK, everyone recommends a backing so I will heed this advice.

Wongo - the gap would be 35mm if I don't do a profile and with kids around I can just see stuff accumulating behind. Why do you suggest I ignore this idea...is it just not the done thing because a general piece of furniture would typically be moved around and it might end up on a wall that doesn't match the profile? I've got a very specific location for this bookshelf and don't plan to move it while we live here.

I've attached a photo of the current bookcase I'll be replacing.

Skew - adjustable feet sound like a neat idea, although I'm not sure how this would fit in with the bottom of the cabinet without introducing some kind of gap at the bottom.

Thanks for the input.

Tony

Attached Images

DSCF0991.jpg (252.9 KB, 55 views)

I agree with the others that cutting out a profile to match your current skirting board is going to look odd. However, if you want it to sit against the wall, you could make all the shelves project front and back by 35mm and call it 'designer'. A bit like this hall table I made earlier this year with a projecting top for exactly the same reason.

Attached Images

Hall table IMG_1135.jpg (227.8 KB, 89 views)

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Cheers, Richard

"... work to a standard rather than a deadline ..." Ticky, forum member.

Good Morning Tony

A divergent view.

My wife is an academic so we have heaps of books, and bookshelves. We actually moved house because we ran out of wall space for more bookshelves!

All our bookshelves are of celery top pine which is slightly less stiff than blackwood. Individual shelves are between 900 and 1400 mm long and are 32mm thick so they will not bend. Books are heavy and after up to 30 years all shelves are still strait. Earlier shelves made from 18mm radiata pine bent badly and were junked last century. All joints are sliding dovetails - quick and easy to route one you make a couple of simple jigs - and the bookshelves simply slide together - no glue, nails or screws - so the can be dismantled if necessary.

Weight is not an issue with bookshelves, you rarely move them, and you want stablility.

We added a safety wire to the top of each tall bookshelf - a screw in the back of the shelf, another screw in the wall and a short bit of picture wire between them to stop the shelves being pulled over. Quick, cheap and effective.

Finally, we deliberately did not put a back on our bookshelves to facilitate ventilation of the books. After 30+ years we have never had any mold, and we have never had issues with the shelves racking. But they are built heavy.

Good Luck

Cheers

Graeme

I'm about to start work on this project.

Now regarding the backing: what do people use for this? I see other threads where people have used the same material as the body of the shelves but I'm using 20mm blackwood and this would increase the cost significantly (shelves are 800 wide x 1200 high).

If I try and use something like 6mm ply then

1. how to make it look similar (stain?)
2. how to make the edges look neat (ie if I tack it to the rear of the shelves then how to avoid seeing this line when looking at the side of the shelves?) Or do I have to route a groove in the vertical sides and slide the backing sheet in and then nail this to the horizontal shelves?

Tony

If you use ply get some that is a light in colour as you can,you can then add stain to match by adding more or even a differant colour stain till you match the other timber,you most likely will not get it a perfect match but as it is on the back you can get it ok.
if you make a rebate the same thickness as the ply that should hide the backing when looking sideways
Do the stain matching before you fix it to the shelves

Why would you put the drawers at the top and risk the problem of over balancing, particularly when you open the drawers.???

The drawers also appear to be very deep. 280 mm ? If you need them there make sure the unit is fixed to the wall at the top.

mick

If its just a 'loose' piece of furniture, generally you dont worry about cutting around skirting and levelling the cabinet. If you are fixing it to the wall permently, I would go to the effort of levelling and scribing for a professional look.

Here are some photos of the finished piece.

Bookcase

The basic bookcase was relatively straight forward. I bought the blackwood from Anagote Timbers all thicknessed and dressed. So I just had to biscuit joint the boards together and cut to length to form the main carcase.

The drawers were a different story: I don't have any fancy tools to help make dovetails apart from a table and hand-held router. So I spent ages using multiple blocks of pine to get the right distance from my routers fence to cut consistent dovetails. Then I'd carefully cut 4 of the 5 tails only to stuff up the last one. Finally succeeded just before I ran out of timber. The final face of the drawers was not quite perpendicular to the base but by that stage I could not face doing anything too drastic in case it all ended in tears so I just sanded it down for a while and then put a bevel on the edges and it looks OK.

The finish was 3 coats of wipe on poly. I started using some EEE ultra shine but it started to produce a slightly sticky, whitish surface so I stopped using that and just used U-beaut wax.

I was going to screw it into the wall (especially with the drawers at the top) but there is no need: now that it is in place it is so solid that there is no wobbling when the drawers are opened. I used 6mm ply for the backing, stained as per the earlier advice in this thread and that worked well. For the drawer bottoms I also used 6mm ply but stuck on some material that is solid as fake leather (I dislike the hollow sound of objects hitting thin ply) - again this worked well.