Jefferson Bookcses – Art Books Case

I have a bunch of art books that are formatted landscape. They're basically coffee-table books, and they don't fit well in the cases I've built so far, so I decided to make a special case for them. The main problem is that when I figured out the dimensions I'll need, I will need a 1×16 to make the case, and I can't buy 16 inch wide pine here in New Mexico (and shipping a board from the east coast didn't seem especially wise).

Handwritten cut list for the art book case

In case that's hard to read, the measurements are: 2 – 1×14½×30¼ (top & bottom) 2 – 1×14½×15¼ (sides) 2 – 1×8×29⅝ (back)

So I glued up a couple boards. For the sides, I had two 1×12 offcuts left from other cases. I added a piece of 1×4 to the edge of those and was good.

1x12 glued up with a 1x4 to make a 16-inch wide board

1x12 glued up with a 1x4 to make a 16-inch wide board

For the top and bottom, I glued two pieces of 1×8 together to get the needed width, and so that the glue seam wouldn't be in the same place within the board (plus I have more 1×8s on hand – I'm out of the 1×12s except for offcuts).

Two pairs of 1x8s glued together to make two 1x16s

Once the glued up boards came out of the clamps, it was time to flatten them. I did a pretty good job of aligning them, so it went pretty quickly. First some diagonal scrubbing.

Hand-plane oriented diagonally across the seam of the glued-up 1x8s

Then planing with the grain to smooth things out.

Hand plane aimed down the seam between the two boards

Make one side straight, and get the boards to the same width.

Two glued-up 1x16s held in the face vise to put a straight edge on the two boards at the same time

Then square up the ends.

Using a shop-built square to mark an end square to the edge which was just planed straight

Using a low-angle jack plane to plane down to the line drawn in the previous photo

And then cut the dovetails as I have with all the others.

Two boards with the end grain up and the tails marked on them

Three completed cases resting on a piece of cardboard

The only snag is that finishing it is a little trickier because it's so deep, and reaching the inside back corner was a little harder than with smaller boxes.

Next up, the special oversized plinth to hold this case.

Jefferson Bookcases Contents #woodworking #bookcases #cutList #jointing

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