Barrister's Bookcase Construction Notes

Ken Greenberg, Feb 1998

These notes are essentially useless without the four drawings. Make sure you have them in front of you, as

this project is difficult enough to understand with both the drawings and the narrative. I wouldn't even

attempt understanding it with only one of the above.

As noted, these plans are based on a 100-year-old bookcase belonging to my Mother-in-law, who was nice

enough to let me take her bookcase apart and spent an entire evening studying and measuring it. The door

design on mine is much simpler, and is based on material originally presented in Fine Woodworking

about ten years ago. I had to convince the local librarians to make a trip to the basement to fetch it, since

it was about to be discarded. They presented various schemes for doing this and I chose the simplest. It is,

unfortunately, not a very sturdy way to mount the doors. as a counterpoint, it has the virtue of being easy

to build and essentially free to make. You may choose to buy some hardware especially designed for this

purpose instead. Use your judgment; I don't open and close my doors a lot, so this design is adequate for

my needs. You do have to be careful when opening and closing the doors.

Please feel free to adjust the sizes to fit your own sense of esthetics and your living space. Most of this unit

is built of 4/4 red oak, nominally 7/8 inch in size. Sometimes, it's only 13/16; select your wood with care.

It is really important that the interlocking pieces be the same thickness when planed. The backs of some

units and the thin shelves that support the books themselves are 1/4 inch red oak plywood.

The units fit together using a set of interlocking boards, one on the top of each unit and two on the

bottom. The board at the front on the bottom we will call the front base. Its leading edge is rounded over

top and bottom, or bullnosed. The other board on the bottom is hidden inside the unit and towards the

rear. We will call this the back base. The board on top of the unit fits in between the front and back bases

of the unit above it; we call this the key. Clearly, the top of the bookcase has no key (since nothing goes

above it) , but it does have the front and back bases. Similarly, the base unit has no bases (since it sits on

the floor) but does have a key. The drawings will help if you have trouble visualizing this. The end view of

the shelf unit is most appropriate.

The top unit is the most difficult to build. Mostly, this is the result of including an angled fascia strip with

a concave curve. It was on the original, so it was reproduced. It took three days with a gooseneck scraper,

and my thumb has never worked right since. It does look very nice, however (the fascia strip, not the

thumb). The top is built of six pieces of wood: the front and back bases, the two side pieces, the top

surface itself, and the fascia strip. Since the top surface is almost 14 inches front to back, I built it out of

two smaller pieces edge jointed together. While this is drying, you can start on the fascia strip. Note that

the detail drawing shows a dashed line around the strip. This is the original piece of wood from which it

was made. Choose an angle at which it will incline, then cut the bottom and top parallel and at the

appropriate angle. You can then make the concave part of the fascia using any method you choose.

Finally, round over the leading edge (upper right on the drawing of the fascia) to make a smooth curve.

Bevel the leading edge of the unit's top surface to mate with the fascia strip at the selected angle. I used a

butt joint here; there is plenty of glue surface, and this joint does not need to support much weight.

Cut the two side pieces to have an appropriate profile to match the angle of the fascia strip and the curve

you put on it. The side pieces rise about 1/4 inch above the top surface, and extend out past the fascia strip

by a similar amount. Rabbet the inside back edges of the side pieces to accept a piece of plywood for the

back. Prepare the two base boards, placing a bullnose on the front base. Glue the side pieces to the top and

fascia assembly and let dry. Then attach the base boards to the bottom of the sides. Be very careful of the

spacing. The back base on mine starts 1/4 inch in from the back of the side piece. Leave a gap of 4 1/2

inches for the key, plus some room for insertion, probably about 1/16 inch. Then install the front base.

The bullnose should project 1/2 to 3/4 inch in front of the side piece, depending on what your curve looks

like. I used wood screws in countersunk holes to attach the base boards. Finally, glue the back in place.

The base unit is much simpler; it is really just a four sided box with no top and bottom, plus a key. Add

trim as desired. On my bookcase, this is the only unit that has an actual oak back, rather than plywood. It

just seemed like a good idea to give it a bit of extra strength. The back is rabbeted into the sides. The front

board is recessed from the front of the side pieces (or the side pieces are extended, if you prefer) to allow

room for the trim. This is the only place where there are screws in a visible location, but it is very close to

the floor. You could use a dado and glue instead. I chose to simply attach the front board with glue and

countersunk screws inserted from the outside. Naturally, you need to make plugs to cover the holes if you

take this route. Cut an appropriate profile for the sides, depending on the trim your wife selects. (Do this

before assembling the box, of course.) Make a key (just a board 4 1/2 inches wide and of the appropriate

length and thickness) and attach it to the top of the base in the appropriate location. You can use the top

unit to help you place it. Attached it with two countersunk screws.

The shelf units are about as straightforward as the base, and in a way even simpler. They really only have

two sides and a plywood back, plus the usual base boards and key. On my unit, they do have decorative

front trim pieces, which are quite important as they support the doors. Again, the sides are a fairly wide

chunk of wood, about 12 inches. Mine are glued up from two smaller boards and trimmed to an 11 1/2

inch width. These must be planed to be 3/4 inch thick, not 4/4 like the other parts of the bookcase. The

height depends on what you want to store. For a (U.S.) standard binder, I make mine 13 3/4 inches high.

If you use A4 paper, it might be better to go a bit bigger. The inside backs of the sides are rabbeted to take

a 1/4 inch plywood back. The front of the sides is rabbeted on both the inside and outside to make a

spline. This fits into a groove on the trim pieces.

The trim pieces are 1 1/4 inch 4/4 "sticks" the same height as the sides. Note that they are slightly wider

than the sides, by about 1/16 to 1/8 inch, depending on what 4/4 means to you. Make a bullnose on the

front of these, and make a groove in the back to fit onto the sides. Note that these are not symmetrical!

The inside (where the door will go) is supposed to be flush with the inside of the side pieces; the outside is

supposed to project beyond the side piece. Be careful to make the groove in the right place or your doors

won't fit. Glue these onto the front of the side pieces. Make your three interlocking pieces, placing a

bullnose on the front base. Attach them to the shelf unit using the above guidelines for placement. Drill a

hole in the top of each trim piece for a short piece of 5/16 inch dowel. The door will ride on this. Make

two thin strips for the door to rest on when it is opened. You can glue these in when you fit the door. The

dowel hole is placed about an inch down from the top of the trim piece, and 3/8 inch forward (1/2 the

width of the door) from the joint between the trim piece and the side.

Cut a sheet of 1/4 inch plywood to fit inside the bookcase. It should be flush with the back and sides, and

extend just to the joint where the trim and side pieces join. This supports the books, and also makes a door

stop when the door is closed. Cut and fit the back piece of plywood, and glue it in place.

The doors themselves are just four sticks of 3/4 wood about 1 1/2 inches wide. The height is determined

by the shelf height, and the width should allow for about 1/8 inch clearance on each side. I made them

using miter joints at the corner. The inside is rabbeted to take a piece of glass. The outside edges of the

door (left and right, see the drawing) have a channel cut in them for the dowel. The channel is 3/8 inch,

giving plenty of clearance for the 5/16 inch dowel. The approach to the bottom of the door (when closed)

is not critical, but may be used to limit how far in the door will go when in the open position.. The top of

the channel is critical, and must extend to the point from which the door is to hang when closed. If you go

too far, the door will be too low and will scrape the base when closing. If you don't go far enough, the door

won't close at all. The "magic number" for mine is 5/8 inch.

Note that there is an escapement path for the dowel. It can exit from the groove at one point (it needs to be

in the same location on both sides, but is otherwise not critical). Well, how did you think we were going to

get the door on? The placement of the dowel is carefully selected so the doors can be removed by young

law students for cleaning in their copious spare time. You simply tilt the door up, move it in or out until

the dowel and the escapement are aligned, and lift the door on both sides. The door will then gently bump

against the top of the case, where it can be extracted by pulling forward. The door is installed by sliding it

in above the dowel until it gently drops down as the dowel and escapement align. What could be simpler?

As noted above, this lacks the elegance of dedicated hardware, but it works and is very, very cheap to

build.

The door needs to be supported in its open position. I simply took two battens (about 3/4 inch by 1/4 inch),

cut them to an appropriate length, and glued them to the sides of the case once I had built a door and

could install it. Just install the door on the dowels, place it in the open position, and move it around until

it’s about level. Slide the batten up underneath the door and mark the position, remove the door, and glue

the batten in place.

I just took my door to a glass shop and said "Put glass in this," and they did. They did a very nice job for

very little money, and I didn't have to worry about glazing points and such. They use some strange paste

that cushions the glass as well as holds it in place. You can't see it from the outside anyway. I did chamfer

the inside edges of the frame before I took it in for glass because I thought it would look nice (the

originals were not this way, but I like it better).

The entire unit is finished in a tung oil/spar varnish/turpentine mixture, mixed with some very dark oil-

based stain. The unit itself isn't all that dark, but it may darken over time. It fits in with the rest of the

furniture in the room, so that's good enough from my point of view.

Notes:

1. My bookcase is 33 inches wide. This was doubtless chosen to provide the most inconvenient size

possible when purchasing lumber. Since wood is normally sold in eight foot lengths (96 inches) in the

U.S., choosing 33 inches virtually guarantees that you will waste as much wood as possible. (Note that the

interlocking members always come in threes...) Next time, I will choose 31 inches, but feel free to choose

any size that you find appropriate.

2. You should feel free to make the fascia strip straight if you choose, or to place it at any angle you find

pleasing. Mine was about 30 degrees, because it's the only angle (other than 45 or 90) that I actually

understand. When under the influence of appropriate drugs, I will admit to roughing out the curve for the

fascia by running it over a table saw blade at various depths, then cleaning it up with a scraper. It still

took three days to make this one piece.

3. The trim on my base unit is built from several narrow strips of oak glued onto the front. The inner one

is about 3/4 by 2, and the front one is about 3/4 by 1 1/2. Choose a profile that your wife will like. That's

what I did. You can also take into consideration what molding planes you have available, but this is of less

concern. You might have to buy a new one to achieve the look your wife wants.

4. The front of the box that forms the base is positioned so as to line up with the doors in the units above

it. Of course, you haven't built these yet, so you don't know exactly where they will be. It will be

impossible to notice if you are within 1/4 inch or so, but you might want to do better than I did. Mine is

recessed with respect to the doors by about ¼ inch. If you like, just don't attach the front wall of the base

until you have built the first shelf unit.