Bookcase Plans - Make Your Own Bookcase Design
Building a Bookcase
A lot of the bookcase plans on the Web
seem more suited to building a family heirloom
than building a simple bookcase. The exhaustive
details of the design and fine joinery are nice - if you
happen to be a woodworker.
But for the rest
of us - who don't have the skills or the money
to set up an expensive woodworking shop -
it's a little more tricky to find bookcase
plans that make sense. At most, we simply
want some extra storage space for books, photo
albums, and maybe a few odds and ends. Besides,
even the most simple bookcase designs will
hold just as many books as the more complicated
(and expensive) styles. In other words, we're
looking for function over form.
Bookcase Basics
If you choose the right joinery, even the
most simple bookcase plan design will hold
up to just about any abuse you can give it.
Of course, it's all about figuring out how
to secure the shelves to the sides of the
cabinet - which plays a big part in the overall
strength of the bookcase itself. The easiest
method is to create a small lip support on
each side of the cabinet on which the shelf
can rest. The lip can be made from just about
any type of scrap wood you have available.
Simple glue and screw joinery works fine here
to attach the lip to the inner sides of the
bookcase (you'll need to do some careful measuring
and marking to get the supports even on both
sides).
You might also consider using sturdy, dado
and groove joints - which are easier to make
than you might think. Dadoes and grooves require
a woodworking router, though, which will set
your budget back around $100 or so (keep in
mind that you'll find many more projects to
make good use of a new router in your shop).
The whole trick to cutting dadoes for a bookcase
is knowing how to set up a dado cutting guide
- which you can make yourself with a couple
pieces of scrap wood from your shop. Once
you get the hang of using a dado guide - the
world of woodworking will start to make a
whole lot more sense to you. Dados and grooves
are fundamental to basic woodworking joints
- and it's hard to find any kind of furniture
that doesn't use some version of this type
of wood joinery.
One Sheet of Plywood
If you plan it right, there's no reason
why you can't build a bookcase using only
one sheet of 3/4 inch plywood. If you've shopped
for plywood before, you know that this single
item can easily be the budget breaker for
a wood project. Keeping your plywood material
list at one sheet or less will go a long way
in cutting overall costs. Add a few board
feet of hardwood lumber and a piece of 1/4"
plywood for the back and you've got most of
your bookcase materials covered. Bookcase
Expansion. The best part about starting simple
with your bookcase plans is that you can easily
expand the size by simply modifying the basic
frame. For example, to create an entire wall
of shelves, you can build several copies of
the basic bookcase frame, attach the sides
together, and then add a revised version of
the outer trim to cover the entire width of
the bookcase.
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