A shelf for Eden

[Harlan Barnhart]

My daughter asked for a shelf to put her things on. I found several offcuts that looked like they might work together.


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The first piece is white pine. I took it along to my shop and scored the waste on the table saw then brought it home to work in the evenings. Here I am cleaning out the waste with a chisel.


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Cleaning up the gigantic dado with a wide paring chisel.


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Next undercut the sides of the dado with a ryobi. The first cut was made with the saw flat on the floor of the dado, the second with a spacer.



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Some chisel work to clean out the waste...


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And cleaning it up with rasps and files.

[Harlan Barnhart]

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Now it's time work on the other end. I didn't take pictures of the layout but this is a shallow stopped dado being cleaned up with a router plane.


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On the the upright piece. It needs a dado to receive the shelf. This is walnut.


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And the two pieces go together like this...


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With a little chisel work it fits reasonably well.


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Now it looks more like a shelf. It still needs a drawer.

[Harlan Barnhart]

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I failed to document the drawer construction. I built a little box with sapele sides and a maple front, back and bottom. Here I am shaping a curved "pull" on the bottom of the drawer front since there will be no knob.


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Another view of the shaping process showing the groove for the drawer bottom and the half blind dovetails.


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The finished piece.


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The drawer sides have integrated rails to slide in the dado cuts on the shelf. I finished it with a coat of safflower oil and several quick coats of very thin shellac, buffed with 000 steel wool.

This was a quick little project that needed only 7 scraps. I really enjoy letting the materials govern the design. The two main pieces were used basically as I found them, I trimmed them only to clean up the edges.

[Chris Griggs]

What a lovely little piece. I love these little projects that can be done quickly, will be very useful, and add interest to ones home. You took what could have been a pretty dull little project and really made something very cool and creative. Love the drawer. Thanks for documenting it.

I'm working on a little shelf for our bathroom right now that will be similar in size and purpose....not nearly as creative or cool as yours...makes me want to start from scratch and do something cool like you did.

[Judson Green]

Wow, nice job Harlan! Looks so good I might havta make one for myself.

[Paul Saffold]

Nice project, Harlan. I'm not familiar with safflower oil. How is it different from BLO or tung oil? Is it a drying oil? Thanks for any info.
Paul

[Harlan Barnhart]

Nice project, Harlan. I'm not familiar with safflower oil. How is it different from BLO or tung oil? Is it a drying oil? Thanks for any info.
Paul

It depends. It seems there are two different ways of extracting the oil, one which produces high polyunsaturated fats and the other high monounsaturated. The monounsaturated variety can be easily found in healthfood stores but does not dry as well as the more difficult to find polyunsaturated. I started using it because it has no odor or additives, its food safe (it is a food) easy to clean up and seems to dry as fast as BLO and produces similar results. Except it doesn't build as well, the finish is always flat.

[Jim Koepke]

It does look nice.

Does the drawer end attach to the wall?

Maybe something is not being seen. It looks like something heavy in the drawer would cause it to fall down.

jtk

[Harlan Barnhart]

It does look nice.

Does the drawer end attach to the wall?

Maybe something is not being seen. It looks like something heavy in the drawer would cause it to fall down.

jtk

It has a metal brackets inset in the back, on each end to hang on a screw. I set them 16" inches apart so they both catch a stud.