Shadrac

Hi all...

OK, this is my first experiment in routing, and since the previous owners of the house left a huge hole in the wall that had an old dingy green painted door mounted in it to serve as a sort of dry-bar...it was time to fix things up a bit.

A built-in bookcase seemed like a good idea compared to just drywalling over the hole..and it would provide a good way to break in my first new router(nothing fancy, a Craftsman 17542...but it worked very well on the project).

The wood was just your standard s4s pine from the local home improvement center, and for the back I used a half-sheet of lauan.

I measured various books around the house to get the height dimensions for the different sized shelves. The top shelf with the rail is for rolled up posters/charts or what have you.

The lower shelf with the rail is dimensioned for the average magazine and underneath that is the space for oversized books.

I routed rabbets for the case frame...and used dadoes and stopped dadoes for the shelves and stiles respectively. I also used dadoes for the adjustable lower shelf...a bit unconventional, but it works well.

I was shocked at how much cleaner the dadoes that I did with the router were than what I was able to get out of the table saw!! Almost no sanding was required!

This was the first time I used a bearing bit as well,,,and it was great for making the quarter-round with a 1/16th inch relief on the front of the shelves.

Noah(the beagle) was used to guard the house from neighborhood squirrels.


I did want to say a quick thanks to Mike and bobj3 and DrZook for the tips given in a previous thread. It's amazing to me how versatile a router is, and while I'm not quite ready to throw out the table saw, I do wonder why I waited so long before getting one.

Attached Thumbnails

         

         

         

   

Advertising

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

chippypah

Thats great Shadrac, and for your first attempt at routing it is really great.
Cheers
Pete

__________________
www.chippypah-workshop.co.uk

jerrymayfield

Your bookcase looks great. One little tip about pine, its a difficult wood to stain. Some things that help are :don't stain-just top coat;use a gel stain;apply a thin coat of finish(I use shellac) let dry and then stain.

Regards

Jerry

bobj3

Hi Shadrac

You'er Welcome for my small part ,, you did a Great job , the more you use the router the more you will like it, it's one of the fun tools in the shop nothing I know of can put a smile on the crown quicker than using the router and saying I did that and then put you hands on what you just made and simle from to to ear and say ok who next...step right up and I will route you...... FUN STUFF



==========

__________________
Bj

Shadrac

I especially had trouble with staining the frame... The case itself is much more evened out. And even on the can of finish is says to use a 'MW brand' sub-coat before applying the stain(which is a 'Natural Cherry' stain/poly mix BTW).
In any case, it was a good learning experience.