Shoe Shelves, Part 3: Gluing With Hide Glue

Doing those 24 mortises by hand was a bit tiring, but it got done.  There was one more thing to do with them, though.  The tenons intersect inside the legs, so the ends of the tenons need to be chamfered.

You can see the end of the tenon inside this mortise

All 24 tenons needed to have their ends angled.  Note the labels - 
there were too many joints not to have them clearly labeled!

The first dry-fit

Marking the shelf boards' shoulders directly from the rails to which they'll be attached

And a dry-fit with the shelf boards in place
(that's 8 more m&t joints for those who are counting)

The next step was some shaping.  I put a bead on the bottom of each rail.  I just get a real kick out of using the beading plane.  Does everybody feel this way?

Using the old A.C. Bartlett's Ohio Planes 5/16" beading plane and a sticking board

I also did some shaping of the legs, but got no pictures.  The outside corners got chamfered and the bottom 4" of the inside faces were curved to make it look as if the legs kick out a bit.  You can see it in a picture below.

I did at least three dry-fits to figure out the best order to put things together.  It made the most sense for me to first attach the shelf boards to their short rails and set them aside.  Next, assemble the two front legs with their three long rails, then the two rear legs with their three long rails.  With one long rail / leg assembly flat on the bench, add the short rails and short rail / shelf board assemblies.  Finally, add the second long rail / leg assembly.

One of a few dry-fits

Gluing with hide glue (two more clamps still to be added at top) 

Cleaning some excess glue the next day

I have some experience with hide glue, but not a great amount.  For good or bad, I hate getting my hands sticky and if you use hide glue, you're going to have sticky hands.  And sticky everything else, for that matter.  I got a lot of squeeze-out and some of it I wiped away with a wet rag right away.  But for some reason I didn't do that for all joints.  Maybe it was because the clamps made it tough to get to it.  But the next day I was trying to remove the excess with a chisel and it was neither fun nor effective.  But then I remembered one of the great things about hide glue - that it is water soluble.  A toothbrush, some hot water and a rag took care of the excess.  It took a while, but the joints look good now.

Since I had gotten a lot of the project wet, I thought I'd wipe down the entire thing with a damp rag to raise the grain.  I'll lightly sand it before I start adding coats of shellac.

One last thing.  The carcase came out a little wobbly.  After clamping, I checked the top corner to corner for square and it was within almost spot on. But I didn't check the front, back or sides and something must have been amiss because one foot is about 1/32" off the table.  You would think that with all these right angle joints, the project couldn't come out anything but square!  I'll take a rasp to one of the legs to level it, but still, I'm disappointed that I didn't get it square.  It was much better during a dry-fit with clamps.

I still have to cut the top to size and put a decorative edge on it and will report on that next time.  I've got one coat of shellac on the shoe shelf now, and I've already started on the slightly smaller twin to this shoe shelf.  Things are moving along.