whole wall bookshelf

[Col]

Been quiet on this for a while so thought I'd provide an update.

Couldn't find a cheap source of oak for the verticals so ended up going to a local mill and paid the going rate for some narrow 25mm (finished thickness) boards which I have now jointed in threes to give the depths that I wanted.

Have now also prepared, jointed and roughly cut all the old flooring (for the shelves and trims). Based on the sizes I have managed to recover from the old oak boards I am now able to draw up the plans for the bookcase in detail.

The oak is now stacked indoors acclimatising. It was originally all kiln dried - how long should I leave it before cutting to final sizes please?

Order of assembly is going to be interesting. The shelves are set behind the front edge of the verticals by a couple of cms and so I was planning to use blind dados. The shelves are also vertically aligned so can only get a hidden fixing in from one side. Needs to be assembled in situ and even one section will need assistance to move carefully into place.
Current thoughts are to build a two jigs that will each support a complete set of shelves. Starting at one end, using one of the jigs, assemble a vertical and a set of shelves(screwed and glued) and fit into place on the base. Using the second jig assemble the next vertical and set of shelves(screwed and glued), bring the two sections together, glue and temporarily clamp (but can only clamp at front edge). Repeat for remaining sections, ideally try to complete whole assembly in one shot so I can take advantage of the bookcase being between two masonry walls and wedge the frame at each shelf level to hold the glue joints tight along their full length. I'll need a glue with a very long open time!

Other suggestions welcome ...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Make sure your shelves are high enough - it is irritating in the extreme to find you've dozens of books 10mm too high for a shelf. I found on mine that on the higher shelves with smaller books on them it worked well and looked much tidier to run off cuts of 18mm ply or MDF 55mm or 75mm wide along the back of the shelf, so the books are pushed in a line towards the front.

 

[Col]

Phil - that's one of the reasons for making this. Fed up with having odd size books lying around - I've measured all our oversize books - especially old photo albums and the bottom shelf is going to be more than adequate. I have also varied the height and depths of shelves as they get nearer the top, planning for the smaller books at the top as you suggest. Thanks ... Colin

Make sure your shelves are high enough - it is irritating in the extreme to find you've dozens of books 10mm too high for a shelf. I found on mine that on the higher shelves with smaller books on them it worked well and looked much tidier to run off cuts of 18mm ply or MDF 55mm or 75mm wide along the back of the shelf, so the books are pushed in a line towards the front.

 

[AndyT]

Interesting project. I like your use of reclaimed proper oak and your planning.

I'd just like to say that assembly is a non-trivial part of a project like this.

You may be thinking that you don't need a system of adjustable supports - after all, nobody adjusts their shelves once they are full and you have planned around real sizes of books.

But a system where each module is an empty box where loose shelves can be inserted makes assembly much less stressful. Getting half a dozen shelves glued into housings all at the same time is hard, even with an assistant.

Choices for supports include

Tonks strip, surface or flush mounted;
Metal pegs in holes, visible or hidden in recesses under the shelves;
Bespoke wooden pegs in holes;
Concealed "magic wires;"
Sawtooth strips with matching battens.

Some of these options can be very unobtrusive, especially if you only drill the uprights in your chosen positions.

 

[Col]

Hi Andy,

Thinking about construction and trying to fix 8 shelves I'm beginning to realise that some loose shelves might be a lot easier, especially since a vertical plus its shelves, plus a jig exceed my comfortable lifting ability! Actually only 7 are shelves but it was easier to design the verticals to overrun into the void above the bookcase and use shorter lengths of reclaimed boards for the top (I was picking from scraps) - with the additional benefit that the overrun of the verticals provides extra fixing support for any trim/moulding that I use at the top.

The verticals will sit on the base (doweled in some way to prevent any lateral movement, and covering some butt joints in a couple of places). In addition to the fixed top, I still think I would need a couple of fixed shelves (one closest to the bottom and one in the middle to stabilise each module. So i'm going to need a jig anyway - hmm. On the aesthetics , I certainly prefer all the shelves to be aligned(but as you say I can achieve this with initial positioning).

The oak will be finished to have a vintage look, matching other pieces of furniture. I currently hadn't planned to have a wider face strip on the front edge of the verticals, and that would definitely be needed to hide sawtooth strips , and actually is also used to reduce the visibility of the front row of metal/wood pegs and holes (which I wouldn't want to see). I would be concerned about the strength of the shelving with magic wires (although they cannot be seen and work with the design). So I'm probably not yet convinced about floating shelves - purely based on appearance rather common sense.

I have a few days to make a final decision whilst the oak decides to change shape slightly and make it even more fun.

Thanks, Colin

But a system where each module is an empty box where loose shelves can be inserted makes assembly much less stressful. Getting half a dozen shelves glued into housings all at the same time is hard, even with an assistant.

Choices for supports include

Tonks strip, surface or flush mounted;
Metal pegs in holes, visible or hidden in recesses under the shelves;
Bespoke wooden pegs in holes;
Concealed "magic wires;"
Sawtooth strips with matching battens.

Some of these options can be very unobtrusive, especially if you only drill the uprights in your chosen positions.

 

[custard]

Andy makes a good point, assembly and glue up really are serious undertakings with a project of this size. Think about Cascamite rather than PVA as that'll give you twenty minutes of open time, and adjusting the cramps to get everything square takes time. You absolutely need a dry glue up first, and use that to double check that the cramps are set up correctly and won't interfere when you come to measure diagonals for square and check for wind.

Personal view, but avoid tonk strip. If it came in decent finishes it might be okay, but tonk strip always seems to be either Austin Allegro brown or Hillman Avenger bronze.

Your Oak won't take long to settle, you'll see after a day or two if it's going to behave itself or not.

 

[Col]

Custard - I hadn't really thought about squareness when dry assembling. What I can do is dry assemble in situ and precut wedges (for between the frame and the masonry wall at each shelf level) so that they that hold the whole structure square (and take out any wind). Reassembling with the wedges back in the right place should then guarantee the end result since the walls won't move! Cascamite seems like a good bet for giving me a longer assembly time.

I had already ruled out tonk strips since they wouldn't fit with the look I'm trying to achieve (even in a decent finish) - they remind me of 70's student shelving.

Thanks, Colin

Andy makes a good point, assembly and glue up really are serious undertakings with a project of this size. Think about Cascamite rather than PVA as that'll give you twenty minutes of open time, and adjusting the cramps to get everything square takes time. You absolutely need a dry glue up first, and use that to double check that the cramps are set up correctly and won't interfere when you come to measure diagonals for square and check for wind.

Personal view, but avoid tonk strip. If it came in decent finishes it might be okay, but tonk strip always seems to be either Austin Allegro brown or Hillman Avenger bronze.

Your Oak won't take long to settle, you'll see after a day or two if it's going to behave itself or not.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I too have mixed feelings about Tonk strip.

We have a beatiful pair of alcove bookcases, built by an old friend: It wasn't ideal to have just two per alcove, but the room didn't leave us much choice. The shelves are 800mm wide and roughly 275 deep. That's too weak for the veneered chipboard shelves, and crucially it's too wide for the Tonk strip.

I had one of the support plates fail, at the point where it was bent to lock into the Tonk strip, depositing half a set of Brittanicas onto the ground from about five feet up. This did them no favours, but thankfully they (and the shelf!) missed the china on top of the cupboard below!

OK we overloaded our shelves (Britannicas were printed on India paper, so very dense and big), but even so, the Tonk strip system is rather fragile. To add insult, etc., if you think about the way it's fixed in, you are creating vertical strips of weakness where it's fitted, and transferring a lot of force sideways onto screws that cannot be very deeply fixed.

In retrospect, I think one of the various peg systems would have been a far better choice. In our last place, we had a kitchen bookshelf, made by another woodworker friend, which had simple "banjo" supports (with brass ferrules fitted into the carcase, IIRC), and they were excellent -- cookery books tend to be big, and heavy in groups.

If I ever get time, I'll revisit our bookcase shelves too, and remake them with thick lippings, front and back, as Custard suggests. They sag, and it does spoil the look.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If I have a long glue up (especially in the summer) whether using cascamite or PVA I mist all the parts with water in a garden sprayer. This stops the moisture being pulled out of the glue quite so quickly and gives you an extra few minutes. It's a good thing to do when using PU as well, as PU reacts with water.

 

[AndyT]

Here two examples. This is Billy, Ikea's best selling bookcase range. The edge veneering isn't great, but that won't be a problem with solid oak.

The nice feature is the way that the supporting pin is hidden in the thickness of the shelf, which also locks it in place so it can't be pulled forward.

And this is a bookcase I built - hand-tooled-bookcase-in-ash-t51016.html

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When you use pegs with flat tabs, and don't have lines of empty holes, the fittings almost disappear. (I've seen some designed to be let into the bottom of the shelf, which came with metal sockets, and would be good for Eric's encyclopedias.)

As for Tonks strip, I'm pretty sure that's what the fine Edwardian shelves have in Bristol Central Library. They must be a heavier duty grade - they have lasted very well.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I know the bookcases of which you speak: I love the reference library - I used to escape there to study as a student (no small children there!). I think they are heavier grade - googling Tonk shows several variants. The weakest part, by far, is the clips themselves though, followed by the strip's fixings.

Pegs are far better, I am convinced.

 

[Col]

Hidden pegs would be my preferred option, but the underside of some shelves would still be visible. It's a room that we will mainly be sitting in so actually quite a few undersides will be seen. So, searching for something that looked good (unfortunately this one's too expensive) I assume that something like the last support on this page : http://optimumbrasses.co.uk/product-cat ... -supports/, recessed into the end/underside of the shelves would still take a good weight? I assume I'd have to also find some matching metal sockets.

A compromise would be to fix the bottom two shelves (where the heaviest books would be). Together with the fixed top that would then give me a cubicle 1360mm high (between 25mm thick verticals). Would that be rigid enough for the rest of the shelves to be floating with that sort of support (shelf thickness 20mm, (shelf depths vary from 23cm to 33cm and spans from 575mm to 770mm)

Thanks, Colin

...
When you use pegs with flat tabs, and don't have lines of empty holes, the fittings almost disappear. (I've seen some designed to be let into the bottom of the shelf, which came with metal sockets, and would be good for Eric's encyclopedias.)

...

 

[John Brown]

Have you considered getting a Kindle?

 

[Jacob]

8 and a few at 10" deep, and about 850mm wide is roughly what I've got on some bookshelves in use for 100 years or so (belonged to grandparents).
They are all pine - ordinary redwood at a guess, and 15mm thick.
The 10" ones show slight sag but you'd hardly notice and they are heavily loaded - encyclopaedias etc.
The 8" show no obvious sag but they are reversible - they sit on 1/2" dowels loose in holes (2 at each end). Turn them over every 25 years or so?
The holes are drilled at intervals so shelf height is adjustable too - no need to buy expensive fittings.
Highly effective, cheap reliable materials, I wouldn't do them any other way!

 

[Col]

Andy, Eric - I stand corrected on Tonks strips. I found Library Case construction in George Ellis's Modern Practical Joinery (1900s) and "Tonk's fittings" is the first described method of fixing the shelves. As you say they don't make them like they used to!

I know the bookcases of which you speak: I love the reference library - I used to escape there to study as a student (no small children there!). I think they are heavier grade - googling Tonk shows several variants. The weakest part, by far, is the clips themselves though, followed by the strip's fixings.

Pegs are far better, I am convinced.

...

As for Tonks strip, I'm pretty sure that's what the fine Edwardian shelves have in Bristol Central Library. They must be a heavier duty grade - they have lasted very well.

 

[Col]

Have you considered getting a Kindle?

SWMBO (who commissioned the bookcase) already has a Kindle so it hasn't helped :-(

 

[Jacob]

As well as simple dowels in holes there various other DIY all wood shelf adjustment fittings - e.g. the "saw tooth" planted-on laths.

This sort of thing though this example is a bit crude, they can be more delicate e.g thinner lath say 6mm hardwood with more but smaller teeth.

 

[AndyT]

Col, I followed your link to Optimum Brasses. They seem to cost £4.16 EACH!

There are some more down to earth options here

shelf-pins-t70779.html

 

[Col]

Jacob - I would probably have seriously considered this if I had faces/pilasters on the verticals (already have a small freestanding bookcase with these supports) but with six verticals, i feel it would look too busy/heavy to have faces/pilasters on all. Thanks, Colin

As well as simple dowels in holes there various other DIY all wood shelf adjustment fittings - e.g. the "saw tooth" planted-on laths.

This sort of thing though this example is a bit crude, they can be more delicate e.g thinner lath say 6mm hardwood with more but smaller teeth.

 

[Jacob]

Col, I followed your link to Optimum Brasses. They seem to cost £4.16 EACH!

There are some more down to earth options here

shelf-pins-t70779.html

If you are going to drill for the pins you might as well drill a bot wider for a dowel and then you don't need to buy the pins.
A pair of plain dowels in a hole are all you need - though this can be refined in various ways