Desktop Bookshelf, Part 1

On my desk, behind the computer is a space that collects a lot of dust.  I thought maybe I could make a small bookshelf that could use that space and hold my woodworking book collection that currently resides in various different places.  I had books on the desk, on my nightstand, in the workshop, on a shelf of a side table, and elsewhere.

I also had some spare oak that I bought to make my sister a TV stand, only to hear that she bought one before I had a chance to make it (arrgh!).

Three pieces of oak, each of different length, each over 12" wide

These were some of the widest oak boards I'd ever bought.  And they're also very clear of defects.

13" wide oak

I started making some drawings in Sketchup and settled on a design that I liked.  My first version was similar to that shown below, but without the top shelf and upstand.  The second version  was similar to the first, but had a second shelf a few inches above the bottom shelf.

The third version that I sketched

With this version, I can hold my books and also display an old wooden plane on the top shelf.  In the final design, the sides were 18" tall and 10" wide.  The shelves and back rails are 23 1/4" long between the sides, plus 3/4" each end for the joints.

After cutting to length the shelves and back rails, the first thing I did was to gang them together and knife the lines that would mark the shoulders.

Marking the common shoulders

Then on the back edge of the sides, laid out in pencil the two shelf and three rail locations

Started chopping out the stopped dadoes in the sides

Dadoes complete to depth of 3/8" (sides are 3/4" thick)

First test fit

Here's where it got complicated.  In the sketch shown earlier, you can see that the shelves have small tenons that protrude through mortises made in the sides.  This presented two challenges.  The first was marking the mortises in the 3/8" deep dadoes.  The second was figuring out where to mark a depth line for the shoulders of the little tenons.

It's easy enough to mark the mortises on the outside surface of the sides

My reference edge on the sides was the back edge.  Trying to mark the mortise extents at the bottom of the mortises was interesting.

Started out with this marking gauge, but it couldn't reach the third mortise for the bottom shelf

The end of the gauge also hit the "stop" of the dado and couldn't mark the
further extent of  the upper shelf's second mortise

This gauge could get that extent, but would not reach the third mortise for the lower shelf

I ended up using a panel gauge to mark the furthest mortise of the bottom shelf

With the mortises laid out, I bored out most of the waste

Then chiseled from both sides to the layout lines

Note in the above caption that I said "chiseled from both sides".  If you chisel only from the outside and burst through the inside (in the dado), you will not end up with a clearly defined mortise perimeter.  Even though it will never be seen, this is important when it comes time to place the shelf into the dado to mark the extents of the tenons.  A ragged interior edge will lead to a poor layout line for the tenon.

It's important to get good crisp edges both inside and outside

The second challenge that I mentioned earlier was to mark the shoulders of the tenons and I'll get to that next time.  I'll leave it with a picture of how it has to come out and discuss next time how to get there.

Little 3/8" long tenons fit into the mortises, notch at right covers the stopped dado

Until next time ...