国外家具制作

英文我也不太精通，大家看图说话吧。
Classic Bookcase in Cherry

My brother and his wife were married on June 19th and their gift is shaping up to be about 4 months late. At first this bothered me but I've gotten over it. They have full permission to send me to the thank you note 4 months late too. :-)

We went through several gift ideas until we finally landed on this bookcase. It was easier to build from plans because designing anything over the phone can be tricky. The idea of giving them a handful of choices and letting them pick their favorite turned out to be a good way to simplify things.

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The first step was the select the stock. This can take me several hours as I pick the pieces out for the proper grain pattern and a decent yield. Rather than run all the pieces through the planer when they are still 9' long I like the cut them down to rough length first. I did something new this time by cutting right on the assembly table with a circular saw while using a few pieces of plywood scrap for support. It worked well, I'll probably do it again. Previously I used a hand saws but supporting both sides of the cut was cumbersome. It's too bad, I liked the work.	I used tongue and dado joints for the base and top, which require case joints. I cut the dado on my table saw. BTW, This isn't actually an action shot. I wouldn't put my daughter in the way of a kickback.
This is another shot taken by my daughter. The best give-a-way is that she's less than 4' tall. :) I used my router table to make the rabbet. I could have used a hand held router but the dust collection and large table top make the router table my preference.	I was pleased with the fit of the tongue and dado joint. I sometimes try to leave a very small amount of play so that I know it will fit together. However, this time I went for perfection and it fit like a machinist would expect it to.
At this point I've assembled the top and attached some of the trim. This is me chamfering the edges. This is not only decorative but chamfered edges are less prone to denting.	Since the router bit leaves a round edge in a corner like this one I used a sharp chisel "fix" it. I had to do this on four corners.
I ripped up the cherry to 3/8" by 3/4" and used a 3/16" round over bit on each side to give me a rounded bead. It's quick work with a router table.	I had a ton of corners to miter around. It took me a few hours to get it all cut to size.
This is me cutting one of many miters. I cut extra stock because some of it was trial and error. My technique was to fit the longest pieces first then to work everything else around it. That worked out pretty well.	To mark the oval for the top I made two circles with a compass. Next I enlarged the compass so that it touched edges of each circle while passing through the center dot. It's hard to see but the oval came out well.
This is the main piece for the top of the case (the piece with the oval). Because I was making such a large taper on a long board the far end kept hitting the fence. To get around that I built up an auxiliary fence with scrap wood in the shop. This is a cheap tapering jig that I bought a few years ago. Someday I'll get around to making something nice but since it does the job I never make replacing it a priority.	I used my jigsaw to cut the oval while the piece was mounted to a pair of saw horses.
You can't see it here but I've become a big fan of using the rounded scrap that I just cut out as my sanding block. It does a great job of removing all the little bumps created during sawing.	This is the glue-up for the front piece.
It's a little blurry but I'm happy with the way the miters came out. Prior to this project I always struggled to get them just right. I feel like I'm really getting the knack for it now. The main change is a willingness to take it a little slower and "sneak up" on a good fit.	I used a hand plan to remove the burn marks that a tables saw can leave on cherry. Sometimes I use planes so that I feel a nicer connection to the project. Other times, like this, there is simply no better way to clean up an edge.
This is me routing the cove in the top piece of trim. Feather boards take a minute to set up but they make the routing safe and error free.	The top piece of trim is mounted. Now I'm ready to start the sides.
The next step was the build the fluted end caps for the sides of the bookcase. The first step was to build this jig. It's pretty straightforward except that the spacers underneath the jig need to be "exactly" 3/4" wide. To use the jig you mount the square rectangular plywood to the plunge router and get the spacers nice and tight around the board. Then you slide a spacer over and make another pass. I used this scrap piece of wood to get a little practice and to get the height dialed in to where I wanted it.	There was a little chip out from the planer caused by grain that changed direction. I used a hand scraper to get it all cleaned up before I routed in the flutes.
This is an action shot of me actually routing the flutes in the end caps. The specs in the picture are caused by dust in the air and on the lens. I know my mother reads this site so if you see this, thanks for the router Mom. It was a great Christmas gift. :-)	It's difficult to crosscut a long board on the table saw so I used my bench hook and a hand saw. (If you don't know what a bench hook is, here's a link.)
After I routed the flutes in the end caps there were little burn marks at the ends of each flute. I tried to remove the burn marks using a carving gouge, the router bit held in my hand, and sandpaper but the best solution was to file an old hacksaw blade to the shape of the flute and to use that as a scraper. This is me shaping the hacksaw blade on a file.	Here I am scraping out the burn marks.
After I scraped away the burn marks the edges of the flutes lost their crispness. I used a hand plane to remove about 1/128". That brought the flute edges back and it also removed the pencil marks I made as a guide for the flute stopping points.	The last step for the end caps was to route two 1/4" grooves to receive the tongues I'll create on the sides.
I had to take a few weeks off because of a bad back but I'm in the shop again now. :-) The sides of the bookcase are not just a piece of wood. Instead, it's a sandwich of plywood with ribs in between. This is the glue up.	Here's a close up of the sides getting glued up.
This is the top. I've screwed in alignment blocks to receive the sides. There are three screws and two holes to received the bolts that secure the top to the sides. The bottom is done the same way.	Here is a shot of the sides attached to the bottom. The project must weigh close to 275 lbs so it's critical that it comes apart for transportation.
This is me bolting the top to the sides.	The plans called for simply gluing the trim to the shelf. However, with just glue there is a chance that it could "pop" off if the shelf bends under load because it's plywood to hardwood with doesn't glue as nicely as hardwood to hardwood. My friend lent me his biscuit joiner so that I use them for extra strength.
These are the five shelves with their trim drying in the clamps. Aside from a little hand sanding the woodworking portion of the project is complete.	Now that the woodworking is complete it was time to apply the finish. I sprayed a sealer coat of shellac followed by three coats of lacquer. I sanded between each coat of course.
A finished shot from the front.	Another shot from the front.
Most of the piece is made with this book matched figured cherry plywood.