Thread: Bookcase with Bifold Doors WIP

Hi all no doubt some are wondering where I have been well with business and all the rest I haven't had much time of late online. Also I have been pretty busy in the shed with my new creation. It is a bookcase that I am going to use to hide the phone socket in my photo studio. The socket is halfway up the wall and there is a power socket 75cm to the side. When I got ADSL2 the modem needed to go as close as possible to the socket so there is is balanced on a chair looking ugly. I need some more storage space too so I thought what about a bookcase with doors?

The timber I had was 140mm x 34mm although that varies a little some pieces as little as 32mm others just a touch over 35. This is the timber Bruce got for us last may. I think I am well on the way to finishing my stack off. Anyway I built the carcass and realised that 50cm door width was a lot so I decided to put a runner in top and bottom and make them fold. So it is a metre wide and 900 high. Shelves are spaced to hold an A4 folder with the top shelf being a little less as it is intended for software. Also I had to be able to transport it in the back of my Mazda 3 so I made the height to suit that. It's a little shorter than it was going to be.

Seeing everyone else here bookmatches their timber I thought I had better get with the programme and do the same besides it looks good. However you would not believe how hard it was to plane this stuff. Lots and lots of reversing grain. I really had to take a course in planing. Getting a 6000 grit stone helped.

Once I got that far I thougtht I should dress it up a bit so the track on top and bottom were routed to become nice mouldings. I was short on timber by this time so I had to rip a reject piece into strips and laminate it to get the thickness I needed. The bottom moulding is butted on but I have cut a corner out of the top one so that it gives some extra support underneath as well. Never know when a beautiful woman will drape her body over the thing, you have to be prepared. In this eventuality I cut some bracing that is in the back dadoed to fit the shelves and glued to the sides this stiffened it up a lot.

Isn't it funny when you are trying to do something you seem to find one more thing you can improve all the time. Anyway got it to this point yesterday. Seeing I have a ton of Black Jack I used that for the insides but went with EEE on the top and sides before using a coat of Shellawax on the top. This is what it looked like after the EEE but before the Shellawax. I'll fiddle around with the doors tonight and post some more pics in the next few days

Studley