[NewMontanaWorkshop]

This item was my first woodworking project (beyond slamming 16p nails into a 2x4).....

The shelf was requested by my sister as an item to cover an old stove flue that was located in the corner.

The curved fronts on the shelves gave me some very valuable lessons in routing and how/when tearouts can happen (ripped the front right off of one of the shelves when the round-over bit grabbed it) which required ripping a chunk off the front of that shelf and gluing on another piece that was a reasonably close match to the grain.

Built from Walnut and Oak. To get the width requested a 'post' was needed for the back corner of the shelf. Seeing as how I do a lot of 'dumpster diving' at local construction sites, I decided to build the post from a stack of oak cut-offs I had collected in the past. Various sizes in the stack so I took 25 of them and planed them to 1/2" X 1/2" and built the 2-1/2" x 2-1/2" post. Dado's were then cut for the side panels to attach to.

The curved toe-kick drove me nuts for a long time until a member of another forum I frequent ( http://www.bt3central.com) gave me the hint about creating 'bendable wood' with the use of multiple kerfs. Here's a shot of the toe-kick being glued up to an MDF form to create the base for the shelf.

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All in all, a heck of a learning process for a first piece. I stayed away from building anything that did not consist of all straight cuts for a while.

 

[Glenmore]

Stan some really nice work. Looks like it took a lot of patients to do all the bending for the curved front. I tried a couple of years ago to make a corner shelf it got scaped becuase I couldn't get the angles right to save my life. Didn't have the patients at the time probably still don't. But with your wood combination that's what I'll make my night stand out of walnut and oak.

 

[NewMontanaWorkshop]

Fully understand the patience issues Glenmore... It took me almost 2 months to finish the shelf and I went through a lot of MDF making templates to make 'mockups' of parts while trying to figure out how to cut the final pieces. I pretty much made the shelf twice -- once with MDF and the other with Walnut/Oak.

The nice thing was I sure learned a lot with the one single project.

 

[Billwolley]

GREAT JOB STAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!! It looks great and sure doesn't look like it was built by an amateur. Excellent job. Thanks for the pictures. Can't wait to see your next project.

Bill

 

[rh111]

That is sweet. Love the rounded front. Hope my wife does not see pictures of this while I am on this site, otherwise I'll be begging for some help.

 

[GoonMan]

Great Work Stan I know how those first projects go, I never completely finished my first one because the wife like the way it looked. But I am going to redo it.

 

[Visteonguy]

Nice piece ,,, Stan,, I sure like the looks of that dark wood,,, Seems like most people like the lighter look of wood today,,, but I think the darker tones make it look a lot richer and warmer.. ya got my vote ! Besides ya got some lighter stuff in there to make em happy, too.