How-To: Build A Custom Oak Bookcase
By Sean O'Hara
It’s time to assemble the basic box. Lay out the top, bottom, middle shelf, and sides, and pick a corner to start on. We recommend the top. There are many ways to fasten wood together but we hate waiting so we chose glue and a finish nailer — glue for strength, and the nailer so we don’t have to use clamps and wait for the glue to dry.
Lay down a bead of glue and line up the top, then fasten it to each side. When the glue dries it’ll be much stronger than just the nails.
Next cut a 1-3/4” spacer out of scrap to serve as a guide piece for the bottom shelf.
Attach it to the bottom rear of the sides. Then fasten the bottom shelf on top of it and use another spacer to gauge the same height for the front, and glue/nail the bottom shelf in place.
Fasten the middle shelf in place about four feet up the sideboards, and you’ve put together the basic frame.
Cut and attach the back (1/4″ Oak Ply) to the bookcase using the same glue and nailing method. If you’re going to go crazy with the nail gun, now is a great time. The back piece adds a great deal of strength to the project, and adding a few extra fasteners can’t hurt.
Now it’s time to start hiding all that plywood with trim. The first step is fixing the shelves. Remember that 3/4” decorative trim? Cut a piece to go across the front of each shelf, and attach it. Make sure you do the middle shelf in the bookcase as well. After the front trim goes on, it’ll be very difficult to get to the edges of the shelf.
The front trim pieces will cover the rest of the ply. Cut two vertical pieces of the 3” solid oak trim (which is actually 2-1/2”) to 92”, and attach them to the bookcase.
Add pieces in between on the top and the bottom, and the front fascia is starting to come together.
You could stop here, but we went a bit further and added a little extra decorative trim on the top and bottom and front, by ripping a piece of 3” and routing it with a roman ogee bit.
To make the overall look more eye-pleasing we added a roman ogee edge down the inside of each vertical trim runner as well.
Read on to page three of our project.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:07 am
You should post this on instructables.com . This would be a great instructable!
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:09 am
Actually look for it on Instructables very soon
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:13 am
Good job, Sean. And I’m glad to see the cross-posting to Instructables (another great web site). I need to build a bookshelf and I’ll be cribbing a few ideas from here for sure.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Nice job.
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Thanks for the nice explanation. You have also given me an idea about a plasma TV desk/bench..the retail ones are way over priced!!!!
January 4th, 2009 at 10:50 am
those levels are bowed and shouldn’t be used as a straightedge. that’s what straightedges are for.
January 4th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
@grrk - what on earth are you talking about?
January 5th, 2009 at 11:00 am
You could do the layout manually, but cultist pro is a great tool, and free for something this small. I used to to build my built-ins.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
What kind of profile did you rout on the shelf trim?
February 10th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I did a Roman Ogee on the shelf trim with a bull nose top Rob.
March 25th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Thanks for this article, I’m almost done with my second bookshelf of this design. The first one was a great learning experience, the second one is much better