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by
Michel Roy
photos: Roger Yip
illustration: Len Churchill |
CD SHELF |
| Hold
your movies, books or CDs in this easy-to-build shelf |
This
trough shelf is a great easy project. It holds books, CDs and
DVDs, and it looks classy and timeless. Power tools might speed
up the process, but you can build this project with just a handsaw,
a coping saw, a chisel and a smoothing plane. Although the simple
Arts and Crafts theme I’ve chosen usually calls for quartersawn
white oak, most species of wood will do.
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| Learn
how to use hand tools to cut clean, gap-free mortise-and-wedge
joinery when you build this attractive project |
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Before
you get going, think about the 1/2"-thick wood you’ll
need. If you don’t have access to a thickness planer,
there are a couple of options. You could plane standard 3/4"-thick
stock down using a hand plane (quite practical with parts this
small) or use that thicker wood as is, modifying the dimensions
as needed for joinery. Although this second approach would work
well, the completed project might look a little heavy.
Start by preparing all of the
parts as listed. You need two end pieces, two stretchers and
four wedges. The key is to make both shelf ends identical, especially
the location and orientation of the rectangular holes (called
“mortises”) that the ends of the stretchers pass
through. Do yourself a favour: make a tracing pattern to ensure
those parts come out the same.
Draw the outline of your completed
pattern on heavy cardboard, using a “toonie” for
the radius of the outside curves, and a quarter for the inside
curves on the bottom. One of the trickiest parts of pattern
layout is locating the bottom shelf mortises at the correct
angle and position. Use a carpenter’s square to create
the required 90º orientation, laying out mortise sizes
and locations along the square’s two edges.
Cut Your Mortises
There are no shoulders on the sides of the tenons on the stretcher
ends. This means that you must cut the mortises in the end pieces
cleanly, without splinters, since they’ll be visible even
after assembly. You might be able to do this with a chisel alone,
but since the wood grain runs diagonally through the mortises,
it won’t be easy. But I have a trick.
Carefully score the outline of
each mortise with a utility knife to reduce the possiblity of
an unsightly chip. Next, drill out the majority of the waste
wood, then clean up the mortise with a chisel. Because the two
end pieces are interchangeable, if you do get a messy mortise,
you can place it on the inside face of one of the ends, where
your books will hide it. When each mortise is done, use a chisel
or a file to put a slight chamfer on all edges. This helps prevent
chipping when the tenons are inserted and taken apart later
while fitting.
As you work to shape the outside
edges of the end pieces, you’ll find that a coping saw
or jigsaw works perfectly on the curved corners. Use a coarse
half-round file to clean up the cuts, followed by sandpaper.
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PART 1 | PART 2 |
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