Awesome Dovetailed Bookcase With (mostly) Hand Tools!

hey what's up guys welcome back in this build i'm going to be showing how to make my rock solid bookshelf using mostly hand tools the case is dovetailed with a nice mitered molding the shelves are in a dado with a twin mortise and tenon at the front frame and panel case back mitered base trim so let's jump in i'm going to start by marking out my rough dimensions and crosscutting it with a crosscut saw i feel like going with a handsaw over a skill saw or circular saw is a good way to get warmed up to do some hand tool woodworking it's really just some low stress practice for sawing to align [Music] rinse and repeat until i have the boards for the top and both sides these boards were machined but they still need a little bit of work before gluing up the panel you can see a gap of light at the front and that'll be just quick work with the hand plane paraffin wax by the way makes the plane glide reduces friction reduces heat makes your blade last longer you know it's sharp when the shavings stick to everything and now this board is flattened and ready for the glue up [Music] joint line looks good and i always like to check it like this before i add glue and clamps now i was a little bit heavy here on the glue but i guess that's better than the opposite and i glued this up right over my bench top what what can i say channel's not called frank's pretty workbench [Music] after these have dried overnight the glue line needs to be planed off and some of these panels if they've copped or twisted need to be re-flattened after i flatten them with the hand plane i take a jointer plane corner to corner and check for twist if there's a gap of light or a hump in the center then it's twisted this board in particular cupped up really bad overnight so you can see there's a huge gap of light in the center and i've got to plant it down on the edges this center part is the low point and it's really easy to want to just push your plane down to make it cut right there but you really have to fight that urge and just scoot the plane across the board and let it cut where it wants to cut if you bear down a lot of weight on it then you're never really going to get your board flat next i'm going to take these boards to final length of the shooting board and i use my fingertips to feel for any discrepancy to see if they're all the same length nice and square to go to final width i just mark it with a straight edge and i'm going to saw down that line [Music] next i'm going to plane off the saw marks i take my time on the first board to try to get it perfect and then i use that board as a reference board when i'm taking all the other boards to final width [Music] i put a little bit of upward pressure right at the toe of the plane so that way it ends up being straight and doesn't dip down at the far edge for the dovetails i'm going to mark the base lines with a marking gauge and my half pins are going to be a quarter inch on this one and my plans i believe they're 3 8 but i decided to go with quarter inch i've been liking that dimension lately and then i want six tails so i'm just going to step this across six times mark it out and start a saw and i went with the gent saw and all the joinery cuts on this build gent saws don't really get a whole lot of love and i'm not sure why because they're really good easy to use and they don't cost an arm and a leg on tails i started on the far edge and then saw it all the way down to the baseline [Music] and then i just pull out the waste with a coping saw this shoulder line was scribed with a marking gauge so i deepened that with a knife cut before flicking out a little bit of waste and then i just chopped down to the baseline using a chisel taking one or two passes depending on how far away my coping cut was to the baseline flip the board around chop out from the other side and see if my bench is going to get any new tattoos [Music] after i've laid my tail board on top of the pin board i mark out with a dovetail knife when i saw the pins i start on the far side but then i kind of saw it down the line that i can see on my side like that by dropping my saw down and then once i've taken it vertically i finish it up this is definitely the easiest way i've found to get a vertical cut on the pin board which can sometimes be a little tough to do you can even take a little engineer square and check see how you did just like on the tail board i'm going to saw the tail recesses with coping saw and chop down to the baseline with a chisel clean it up and it's gonna be ready for the test fit after it's been cleaned up i'm gonna go ahead and assemble it as long as you don't split any boards then you're good i was pretty happy with the way these ones came out but of course it's always going to look better after it's been glued and planed up next i'm going to lay out for my shelves make a little knife mark 2 inches up square that across and stop 3 8 of an inch from the front edge i only knife out the bottom of the dado and i do both shelves on only one side piece i'll then transfer this to the other side piece later i set my gauge to 3 8 of an inch and i'm going to mark both of the mortises the front mortises and i'm also going to mark the front of the shelf after one side has been fully laid out i'm going to go ahead and transfer those marks to the other side piece and the pencil mark here is just a ballpark line not definitive these are going to be an eighth of an inch deep and it doesn't take very long with just a chisel after doing one side i'm going to mark out and do the same procedure for the top edge of the dado once i start getting close i'm going to switch over to a router plane i do final depth for all the dados with the router plane at the same time and then i just use a chisel to square off that front edge of the dado a little bit of careful work and it comes out really square and clean and of course i'm going to do a little test fit and by transferring everything from one side piece to the other these should line up perfectly i'm going to use the 3 8 inch mortise chisel to lay out for the mortises and the quarter inch chisel to lay out for the space in between the two 3 8 inch mortises until the layout looks like that then i just bang metal into wood until i've got a couple of holes [Music] i'm not super aggressive here i take my time taking multiple shallow passes i'm going to go about halfway from the inside the back side however you want to think of that and then flip it around and finish it out from the front i generally chop in the direction of the bevel and then once i get to the very far edge i'll flip it around and use the flat side of the chisel right on the line the through twin mortise and tenon is only at the front of the shelf this allows for seasonal wood movement of the shelf and the side of the case even if they expand and contract at different rates and for the same reason you'll see later i'm only going to glue at the tenon mortise and tenon and the first one or two inches inside the dado just to allow for wood movement to occur inside the dado now with the mortises chopped i'm going to go ahead and seat the shelf in the dado and mark out for the tenons a marking gauge set from the outside of the side piece to the floor of the dado will be transferred to the shelf pieces to remove the bulk of the waste i cut the very last tenon line and then i saw down that marking gauge line with the hand saw very carefully really trying to stick to that marking gauge line then i just pair away anything that i think will obstruct the fit the rest of the twin mortise and tenon is pretty straightforward [Music] i love it the only difference on the bottom shelf is that a notch gets cut away so that this thing will sit flush to the front of the case that notch is marked right off of the tail board baseline so you can see that lines up perfectly with the flush front notch cut away this thing is seated into the dado marked and cut the exact same way as the middle shelf next i'm going to turn my attention towards making the back frame with the quarter inch groove running down the middle the groove is knocked out with this plow plane which is just probably one of the nicest tools to ever use until you go against the grain [Music] i'm gonna mark out for a one inch tenon i saw a little notch in the front edge then on the back edge i connect those two that keeps a nice square line at the base and same thing for sewing down the cheeks i trim the tenon down with a router plane until it fits nicely inside the quarter inch groove then mark out for the haunch using a quarter inch chisel and a one inch chisel [Music] i use the flat of the pencil against the side of the tenon to mark for the mortise and chop it out with a quarter inch mortise chisel [Music] next i'm going to fit the molding trim support rail i'm going to cut this a 16th of an inch over and trim it down afterwards [Music] first i need to plane down the height of this so that it will slide into that shallow dado and once that's nice i'm going to take this to final length this is gonna sit proud until i flush it up at the very end as mentioned earlier i only glue the tenons in the first one or two inches of the dado this allows for seasonal wood movement of the shelf to expand and contract within the dado and i'm using hide glue which does not creep like pva glue so i think this is a necessary precaution even though the shell from the side piece will expand and contract in the same directions this molding trim support rail is going to be glued to the underside of the top after the glue up has dried i'm going to go ahead and flush everything up with a hand plane this for me is one of the most rewarding points of a project besides putting on a finish now i plane flush the trim support rail i check frequently to make sure it's square in all directions so that the molding will attach without gaps the case back which was cut a sixteenth of an inch oversize is screwed on and then flushed up with a hand plane [Music] the top molding trim gets a quarter inch facet on the top and bottom edge i attack this with a scrub plane followed by a jack plane on this long piece i use my fingers underneath the trim to prevent it from flexing away from the plane blade all these miters will be right off the saw the nobex miter saw is sort of like a block plane it's not really a go-to tool but when it comes in handy it comes in really handy the trim pieces are long and i cut them down to size [Applause] [Music] i knock out the bass trim and basically the same way as the top molding glue up these miters and i use the miter spring clips to secure them i'm going to glue up the front edge and the first one or two inches of the side and attach it i use inch and a half 18 gauge brads for the rest of the side which allows for seasonal wood movement of the case top it's really important that the base trim gets elevated on some popsicle sticks before attaching because it's not a weight-bearing component of this case elevating it will also provide some scoot and drag protection if this case is ever set on carpet again most of the side trim here is secured only with brads to allow for wood movement i'm gonna wipe this bad boy down with a coat of tried and true varnish oil man i just love this part my gopro really doesn't do it justice i know i'm gonna get some comments regarding the plywood back and why didn't i use pine tongue and groove or shiplap and i do like that but i like this too and the solid appearance and contrast of the plywood back looks really good to me really happy with these twin mortise and tenons really the whole thing i'm really happy with all of it if you guys want to give it a shot check out the plans take it easy y'all

Channel: Frank's Workbench

Views: 43,994

Keywords: woodworking, hand tools, workbench, hand plane, hand tool woodworking, franks workbench, traditional woodworking, craftsman, woodworking projects, woodworking plans, hand tool, handtool woodworking, woodworking hand tools, woodwright's shop, wood by wright, minimal tools, rob cosman, chris schwarz, hand tool woodworking projects, rex krueger, how to build a bookcase, how to build a bookshelf, wooden bookcase, bookcase build, paul sellers, build shaker furniture

Id: 8h_a8Oc9wO8

Length: 17min 21sec (1041 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021