Craftsman Bookcase
If something is worth doing, it’s worth
doing excessively.
T
here are many bookcases in my house, but they’re a motley
collection – poor cousins to the rest of the furniture. The really
nice bookcases I’ve made have gone to live with client s , while I have
kept the prototypes and the also-rans. They are nicer than concrete
blocks and pine planks, but not my best work. The cherry bookcase in
my living room was a test case – both of a dovetail jig and the wood’s
moisture content.
It was time for something nicer. This design is an adaptation of
early 20 th - centur y Gus tav Stickley bookcases. I wanted to use nice
wood, and show off a bit with the joinery.
I didn’t have a specifi c species of wood in mind when I went to
the lumberyard, but I knew I wanted something attractive and wide
enough to avoid gluing up individual boards. I found a nice batch of
sapele, also known as African mahogany, and brought home 50 board
feet of wide plank s.
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