Children's bookcase in Walnut

[mouppe]

Had a lot of fun making this bookcase for my youngest son. Children's books come in all different sizes so I graduated the shelf heights.

I dovetailed the shelves, and used the domino- what else?- for the whole carcass. The domiplate by RonWen was so useful in making offset mortises as in the photo below.

I used shellac for the whole bookcase, and french polished the top. Even though this is children's furniture the advantage of shellac is that is very easier to repair and I wanted to learn how to do french polish anyway. Took hours and hours but it's a gret-looking result. The downside is that it is not the hardest finish, but it's a bookcase, not a kitchen cabinet! Obviously the birdseye maple gets significantly yellowed, but I like its muted tone. (I also shot the photos at night so the lighting makes the piece look yellower than it actually is.)

The birdseye maple diamond, and bloodwood and ebony inlay was done with the TS55 and the OF1400. I actually prefer a medium-sized router to a small router to do inlay as I find it easier to balance.

Once I calibrated the MFT fence to cut the angles, the pieces on the top fit together exactly. No need for a table saw once again.

Thanks for looking.
Richard.

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[peter halle]

Richard,

Your post and project is just another example of why I came to this place years ago.  Great work!  That being said, a couple of questions:

Is the maple, bloodwood, and ebony typical veneer thickness or thicker?

Did you consider letting the ebony and the bloodwood continue all the way down on the edges to the bottom of the top at the front and sides?

Loved it!

Peter

 

[tbellemare]

Lucky Kids, Richard!

Lovely design and execution...

Tom

 

[mouppe]

Thanks guys.

Peter,

I didn't describe it very well in the original post. The birdseye maple is the same thickness as the walnut. The top is made up of 4 pieces of walnut and 4 wedge shaped pieces of maple. The angles have to be exact and the cut lines exactly straight for everything to meet up. This is why you see the maple extend all the way to the bottom at the edges.

Once it was all glued up and squared off, I routed the grooves for the inlay. The ebony and bloodwood stock was thicker than veneer, perhaps 3/8" thick, but there is no way to curve it down the side. 3/8" is plenty of thickness to leave it proud of the maple, and finish sand it with the rotex. It is impossible to hand plane this surface as the grain is going in every direction possible. Would be a tearout nightmare.

Hope this explains it better.

 

[Wood_Junkie]

Really, very very pretty!  And such clean lines.  Lucky kiddo!   [thumbs up]
Good job on the French polish!  I haven't dared even experiment with that!   [scared]

Just a minor future-project consideration:  The walnut would be enhanced, if from a single board so the grain lines ran from end to end.
Is the BE maple cut from a single sheet/panel?  It looks like it is and is oriented in its original configuration.  Looks great!

 

[peter halle]

Thanks guys.

Peter,

I didn't describe it very well in the original post. The birdseye maple is the same thickness as the walnut. The top is made up of 4 pieces of walnut and 4 wedge shaped pieces of maple. The angles have to be exact and the cut lines exactly straight for everything to meet up. This is why you see the maple extend all the way to the bottom at the edges.

Once it was all glued up and squared off, I routed the grooves for the inlay. The ebony and bloodwood stock was thicker than veneer, perhaps 3/8" thick, but there is no way to curve it down the side. 3/8" is plenty of thickness to leave it proud of the maple, and finish sand it with the rotex. It is impossible to hand plane this surface as the grain is going in every direction possible. Would be a tearout nightmare.

Richard,

After your explanation - EXTRA WOW!  Full thickness- great job x 2!

Peter
Hope this explains it better.

 

[DavidCBaker]

Absolutely beautiful. Too beautiful for a kid's room.  ;D

You've gone a great piece of work, there. I especially like the contrasting wood on the edges of the top.

 

[Mac]

This is lovely Richard, I've been thinking about making something similar for one of my kids so this has given me some very welcome ideas and motivation!

Thanks,
Rick

 

[mouppe]

Really, very very pretty!  And such clean lines.  Lucky kiddo!   [thumbs up]
Good job on the French polish!  I haven't dared even experiment with that!   [scared]

Just a minor future-project consideration:  The walnut would be enhanced, if from a single board so the grain lines ran from end to end.
Is the BE maple cut from a single sheet/panel?  It looks like it is and is oriented in its original configuration.  Looks great!

Hi WJ,

I totally agree with you. As it happens I made the top from leftover pieces of walnut from several boards, and a single piece of birdseye maple. I didn't have a wide enough piece of walnut to make the top from one piece. I was just messing around trying to do some inlay with leftovers. When it turned out well, I decided to build a bookcase underneath it!

The French polish was actually really easy although it took a couple of hours. I think too many of the youtube, fine woodworking videos etc. over-complicate the process. A friend showed me how to do it and cut out a lot of the unnecessary steps.

 

[Wood_Junkie]

The French polish was actually really easy although it took a couple of hours. I think too many of the youtube, fine woodworking videos etc. over-complicate the process. A friend showed me how to do it and cut out a lot of the unnecessary steps.

Please post a summary and/or a video tutorial!  I completely agree, the writeups in magazines make it seem very onerous... tooo much elbow grease for the amount of time I have.    [embarassed]

 

[mouppe]

I think the "too much effort" reputation of french polishing is a bit like saying Festool is too expensive. We all know that the extra cost of festool pays for itself very quickly.

It's the same with shellac. Here is what I mean.

There is no clean up. There is no nasty smell. There is no spray. No booth to set up or concerns about ventilation. It dries within minutes so you can re-coat many many times a day. It is a non-toxic product. You can re-finish it the same way easily years later.

Once you factor all these things in, it's fair to say it's a pretty quick finish. I wouldn't use it for many things but I certainly would not be worried about "hassle factor." Hassle to me is wearing a respirator, cleaning my airbrush, messing with nasty solvents, dealing with overspray, etc.

I'll take a quick video to show the setup later.

 

[honeydoman]

beautiful book case  thanks for posting.

 

[harry_]

I think the "too much effort" reputation of french polishing is a bit like saying Festool is too expensive. We all know that the extra cost of festool pays for itself very quickly.

It's the same with shellac. Here is what I mean.

There is no clean up. There is no nasty smell. There is no spray. No booth to set up or concerns about ventilation. It dries within minutes so you can re-coat many many times a day. It is a non-toxic product. You can re-finish it the same way easily years later.

Once you factor all these things in, it's fair to say it's a pretty quick finish. I wouldn't use it for many things but I certainly would not be worried about "hassle factor." Hassle to me is wearing a respirator, cleaning my airbrush, messing with nasty solvents, dealing with overspray, etc.

I'll take a quick video to show the setup later.

I would love to see it!

 

[brussveins]

Wow,different tipes of wood [big grin]. I like it. Its VERY,VERY nice job.

 

[mouppe]

Finally, I made a little video of the shellac finish that I am currently applying to a maple box I am building. It seemed like a good little project to showcase a shellac finish.

This is part 1 and shows the first few coats going on. It is 10 minutes long. I will record two or three smaller videos later on to show the rubbing out stage and the polishing stage.

If anyone has any questions, write them here and I will try to answer them in the next video.

I am definitely not an expert, but I don't believe you need to be to get a really amazing shellac finish. And I promise that a Festool will appear very shortly. It's not part of the traditional shellac process but it is really useful.

Shellac finish on a maple burl box

 

[Pete Pedisich]

Hey, I really like this!
Love the construction methods, the top edge detail, and the grain on the back is very nice.

Thanks for showing the in-progress shots.

Pete

 

[mouppe]

Here's part 2, only 3 minutes long. After the first coats of shellac had dried, I came back in the afternoon, and "rubbed them out" using 400 grit sandpaper very lightly. Leaving the dust on the wood, I then polished up the panels with more shellac using a circular motion.

This morning, I assembled the box with the Domino, and this afternoon, I will sand the outside smooth and apply a shellac and wax finish to the outside.

I hope you can see from these videos how straightforward it all is, with minimal clean-up. And it is easy to rectify any mistakes.

Shellac finish on maple burl box part 2

 

[fdengel]

There is no clean up. There is no nasty smell. There is no spray. No booth to set up or concerns about ventilation. It dries within minutes so you can re-coat many many times a day. It is a non-toxic product. You can re-finish it the same way easily years later.

I just want to point out that Shellac is not 100% non-toxic once disolved.  The Shellac itself may be (solid form, before it is dissolved), but to get it onto the surface, it is generally dissolved in a denatured alcohol, which is definitely toxic... some of them can cause permanent blindness, among other symptoms.  Fumes aren't always safe either, depending on the specific poison that was added to the alcohol.

Just before someone reads that and goes and tries to drink some or something...

 

[mouppe]

Point taken. Don't drink it.

Here is the finished box using all domino joinery. I will add a few coats of wax later, but the shellac is done. It really brought the maple burl to life as you can see, and the shine is a deep lustre, not a plastic-looking polish.

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[Ken Nagrod]

Richard,

Another beautiful creation of yours!  Keep up the good work.