How to Make a Simple Bookcase | I Like To Make Stuff

hey I'm Bob and I'd like to make stuff today I'm gonna make a really simple adjustable bookshelf you see me completely build out this office you've seen me build the desk and some speaker stands and now it's time to make a super simple bookshelf to replace that old one I'm gonna make it fit underneath the window I want the shelves to be adjustable and height and I want to take all of that audio equipment and actually mount it in one of the shelves this is a simple project that anybody can do and actually you could do the entire thing with a circular saw if you wanted let's get to it for the main body of the cabinet I used 3/4 inch plywood I picked birch but you could use something cheaper and if you wanted to go super cheap you could even use MDF as long as you're gonna paint it you wouldn't be able to tell that it was MDF when you were all finished I started out by cutting out all the pieces out of one sheet it helped a lot to have a stop block on the miter saw so I could cut several pieces the exact same size [Music] I swapped out my table saw blade with the dado stack and this just makes it easier to cut a wide slot in one pass you could do the same thing with a normal blade and cut several passes instead I set this up about 3/8 of an inch so that my shelf would have a little bit of a lip to set in and the fit was really really nice I also cut down some 1 by 4 pine to use as strips underneath the whole cabinet when it was put together I drilled pocket holes into the top edge of each one of the upright pieces these are mostly going to be hidden unless you're looking from the ground up into the bookcase this makes it really quick and easy to put the case together I added some glue to the dedos and slid in the bottom shelf if you're patient you can let that dry and it'll be plenty strong but I wanted to keep moving so I added some Brad nails to that to hold it together while the glue dried to put the top piece in place I added some glue and drove in the pocket hole screws if you wanted to avoid the pocket holes altogether this entire thing could be made with just dedos it be plenty strong and there'd be no visible fasteners notice I'm using a long clamp to hold these pieces in place when you drive in that screw it wants to separate the joint so having that clamp to hold it tight and straight makes it really easy to get them screwed together the placement of the interior upright pieces is really up to you it depends on what you want to put on the shelves and in my case one side was gonna hold audio equipment so I set that gap to be a specific size and then split the remaining area into three equal parts I drove screws right up through the bottom panel into the bottom of the upright and then used a square to make sure that this upright was squared to the rest of the case then we measured out the other two uprights and put them in the exact same way this thing's pretty strong and sturdy as it is but once you add weight to the shelves it'll eventually start to sag unless you support the middle and to do this I put on a piece of one by four spanning the entire gap I pushed it back from the front edge 3/4 of an inch using a spacer and for this one instead of using Brad nails I just added glue and a lot of clamps to hold it in place until the glue dried [Music] I cut down another one and did the exact same thing for the backside but the placement doesn't really matter because you won't see it I just got it roughly in place and clamped it as well while those dried I started drilling the holes for the adjustable shelves I used a jig made especially for that you could actually make your own jig to do this but this was a pretty inexpensive option and came with all the bells and whistles that you need and the instructions with it are super easy to follow so I'm not gonna rehash them here I wanted to frame out the plywood top with a small strip of solid wood and for that I used a piece of pine I cut one piece down with a 45-degree angle to fit on the side of the bookcase once I got this fit right I used it as a template to cut another piece the exact same size to make the front piece I cut a mitre on one end of the piece and held it up against the bookcase to mark the other end theoretically this would give me a perfectly sized piece that would fit right across there unfortunately sometimes when I do stuff like this I get a little bit off and the lesson there is to always leave a little bit extra because you can always trim it but you can't put it back it took a couple of tries but I finally gotten this cut to the right length and now I'm gonna put it on the front of the bookcase but instead of using Brad nails I'm just going to glue and clamp it on it's not a big deal either way but this will give me a little bit less work to do I won't have any holes to fill because I'm not sure if I'm going to paint this or stain it or just seal it pretty often long pieces like this are not perfectly straight so if you get one end lined up and clamp it in place then you can work your way down the piece adding clamps all along the way making sure that it always lines up you also want to make sure to use enough clamps to close all of the small gaps all along the way and wipe off the excess glue so you don't have to deal with it later after I said that I decided I'm gonna go ahead and paint the top so I just use some Brad nails to put on these side pieces and I'm just filling up those holes with some wood filler of course later on I decided not to paint it but it's still really handy to fill these small holes with some wood filler the shelves are super simple they're drop-in pieces of 3/4 inch plywood with a small piece of pine for the front edge so we set up the stop block and use it to cut both types of pieces [Music] we had to make several of these so rather than clamping them all together we added some wood glue leaving some small gaps in those gaps we put CA glue which will grab right away when you touch it to the activator some pressure squeezes the wood glue into the wood grain and the CA holds it in place while the wood glue dries then we did a few more after I took off the clamps at the top it was time to cover the front exposed edge of the plywood with some wood veneer this is an iron-on edge banding that you can use any iron with it eats the glue on the backside which sticks to the wood and it's a little bit oversized so you can come back and trim it and sand it to make a really nice fit eventually you'll get what looks like a solid piece of wood to finish the whole thing off I did two coats of poly acrylic with a light sanding in between I say this all the time but this is a really simple to put on water-based finish instead of buying a whole rack to mount music equipment you can actually just buy the rails and as long as your opening is the right width you can just screw these to the sides and mount your equipment to make sure that these are perfectly flush with the front edge of the bookcase I just used a scrap piece of wood held against the front face and lined up the bracket then each bracket got a couple of simple wood screws to hold it in place originally I had the idea to put a really thin piece of backing on the whole bookcase but leave this section open for cables to pass through once I got the whole thing put together it didn't need that backing for strength so I just left it off entirely and even if you don't have audio equipment that you need to mount these rails are pretty standard it's the same thing you would use for a rack mount computer either way it's great to get equipment off the top of the bookcase the adjustable shelves are super standard these little pegs go into the holes and the Shelf set right on top of them now note there are two different standard sizes for these so make sure you drill the right sized holes for the right pegs once I got these in place it was time to start filling up all the shelves and here they are I'm extremely happy with how they turned out especially considering how easy they were to build really if you had a circular saw in a straightedge you could build this bookcase and I made it to fit this spot in my room but you can actually make it taller or wider and the construction would be the same one thing to keep in mind though if you're gonna make any of these spans more than about 36 inches you're gonna want to support them from underneath I'd love to know what you think about these so let me know down in the comments if you have any comments or questions about them I am gonna have some plans for this particular bookcase - my dimensions on my site and you can get those and modify those to fit your space the link for that will be down in the description I've also got lots and lots of other types of projects that you may be interested in so be sure to check out those videos and don't forget to subscribe that's it for this one guys thanks for watching see you next time that's it for this paint the top white I think so and I'm gonna put it on the front of the

Channel: I Like To Make Stuff

Views: 499,990

Rating: 4.9590082 out of 5

Keywords: bookcase, book shelf, bookshelf, books, furniture, wood, woodworking, shelf, shelving, adjustable shelf, adjustable shelves, how to, how-to, diy, circular saw, limited tools, beginner, project, iltms, i like to make stuff, iliketomakestuff, electronics, 3D printing, prop making, metalworking

Id: AcIp9W-D3NA

Length: 8min 16sec (496 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 25 2018