JKM Woodworking

I brought all the pieces inside where it was warmer. My daughter helped with the gluing up and the finishing.

First the inner shelves and uprights were glued to each other. This was the type of clamping where if you crank down too much everything will sploosh out.

don't clamp the tar out of it

After that set all day or night we glued the sides, top, and bottom. The bottom also had pocket screws driven from underneath.

Upside down

My daughter said she didn't want to paint it, she wanted it to look like wood. I offered her the options of no finish vs putting on something almost clear that might make it easier to clean or keep things from sticking to it. She opted for that so we got ready to apply shellac. I was preparing paintbrushes when she asked why we can't just roll it. She must remember helping to paint walls.

rolling on shellac. first time.

It didn't sound like a great idea but we went ahead and rolled on Zinnser sealcoat shellac. It went on pretty thick, and some areas were foamy or had ridges. I later went back and tried to smooth some of those areas out.

we laid it on thick shellaced (or is it shellacked?)

These shelves were heavy and large. It took several days to get around taking them up one set of stairs from the basement to the first floor. Then it took another 1-2 weeks and an appliance dolly to get them from there to the second floor. Maybe I should learn a lesson from that and assemble/finish larger projects closer to their destination.

in place in use

Now it's gotten to be too cold to do much else.

where the magic happens (march through october)

I am making this project with my daughter. I have a book from Popular Woodworking's I Can Do That series that is good for beginner projects. We looked through it and decided on the Contemporary Shelves. I think there's more than one project with that name. The one we picked looks like this:

photo from book and adapted drawing

It is made from 2x12 construction lumber. In my plans I made it less wide and removed one of the shelves to decrease the total height. I also carried the sides down to the floor rather than using scrap for feet.

2x12s, marked which side to face up when going through planer

Luckily I had three 2x12s and some offcuts. At the store I try to select ones with minimal defects, but they're never perfect. I try to avoid getting the pith (center), but I missed it on one or two of these as it was only visible on one end.

I wanted them noticeably thinner than basic 2x lumber, but I don't think I achieved that. I ran them through the planer several times until I was tired of it and they were 1 1/8" thick. Planing made them thinner but didn't remove all of the cupping and twisting.

the planer found a staple I put this stuff around the bushes

For crosscutting I used a sled on the bandsaw. This only works if the cut on the left is less than 13-14 inches. So I handcut some pieces until they fit. There's lots of imperfections here that add up. The faces and edges may not be flat or square, the sled has some wobble, some long boards are too heavy hanging over the right side, etc. It's quick and rough.

push the sled through rough cut edges

For joinery I considered long nails or screws. Those would work going through the sides into the shelves. But I couldn't figure out how to fasten the uprights going down the center. Pocket screws would work but leave ugly slots. I decided to domino those pieces, which progressed to using dominos for almost everything.

lining up where the shelves will fasten to the sides domino the center uprights to the shelves dry fit, upside-down

The bottom will have pocket screws going into the sides. I think that will be more secure, as all of the other joints are 'trapped' but the bottom-to-side joint could actually spread apart. Also they won't be visible. Also I wouldn't have to worry about carefully measuring and aligning the domino locations.

pencil line shows where I expected the bottom to line up vs where it actually ended up the top will overhang the sides about 1 1/8"

So I've been paused at that stage for over two weeks. So far my daughter's had more of an executive supervisory role than a participatory role. I've been using noisy, dusty tools. Now I think she can help more with hand sanding, gluing, clamping, and finishing. But it's below freezing in the garage so I will have to find a suitable area indoors.

My most recent medium-to-big project was very frustrating. I had to quit working on it. When tidying up I found these pieces to an older project and decided to put them all together. The project is for a small table or plant stand.

pine legs and basswood aprons

I had made four small legs out of yellow pine, and four trapezoidal aprons out of basswood. I fitted them with dominos and then I set them aside for . . . eighteen months.

I wanted to carve the guilloche pattern that Peter Follansbee demonstrates. I have since gotten his book, Joiner's Work, which includes pictures and instructions. One lesson is to work with the natural curve of the gouges. So I walked some gouges around to see what size circles they would make.

circles made by #7 and #5 gouges

Using a compass set to these sized I drew out the pattern of overlapping circles. In the next picture I've skipped a few steps. The first apron I held in a handscrew.

first one in progress

The next three I lined up and carved all at once. It would have been easier to just carve one long piece and crosscut it into four smaller pieces afterwards.

the next three

I did most of the carving with three gouges. There were some places I went left when I should have went right, or went under when I should have went over, etc.

I decided to apply shellac before gluing up. It's not easy to apply shellac to these carvings. I usually wipe it on with a cotton rag, but a rag can't get into the tight spots. By the end I was flooding the recesses with a squirt bottle and using a cheap brush to thin it out and spread it around.

flooded whorls garnet on the left, blonde on the right

The basswood aprons got three coats of garnet shellac. The pine legs got three coats of blonde shellac. I chose blonde shellac to match the tiled top which I previously made.

I found this in the back of a drawer.

I glued one apron to two legs with titebond genuine hide glue. After doing this twice I added the two remaining aprons to complete the assembly. Sometimes when clamping an angled joint the clamps want to slide off. These clamps stayed in place but the blue ones sometimes left impressions.

glued and clamped

You can see in the above picture and the following one how the tops of the legs are angled upwards. This is because the legs are splayed.

top doesn't lay flat because the corners of the legs are lifted

To flatten them I lay a saw across the tops of the two aprons and slowly cut across the leg:

flattening in line with aprons

The bottoms of the legs or the feet are also angled, but it seemed so minor I didn't bother addressing it.

the feet aren't flat either

All that was left was to attach the top. Since the top is plywood there is no worry about wood movement. I added one pocket screw to the backside of each apron.

It would have been smarter to do this in the beginning. base screwed to top

Tile Top Table or Tabouret

10 1/4" square top, 16 1/2" high

Yellow pine legs with basswood aprons

front view angled view