first all hand made project.....

I've been on a kick of sorts making shelves lately. I made two large ones and two smaller ones. I made the 4th small one all by hand, no power tools or anything with a plug was used. The 3rd shelf I did 99% of that by hand. I only made the rip cuts for it and did the rest with hand tools. This 4th shelf was 100% hand tool made.

shelf stock

The shelf stock is a 6 foot 1x8 and a 3 foot 1x12. The 1x8 will give up the two sides, the shelf, and the two cross rails. The 1x12 will give up the top and bottom pieces.

cut the 1x8 so I have a shelf and the two sides (as one piece)

squaring one edge on the shelf - this will be my reference edge

squaring up one edge on the sides

checking the squared edge flat with a straight edge

cross cutting the top/bottom to a rough length

ripped the top/bottom to rough width

This is the first rip cut I've made that came out pretty good. I followed the line until I got to the end but even there I'll take what I did as ok. I'm not sure if I am doing all of this in the correct "sequence". Of all the books I have, none address this part of hand tool work. It's usually just a word or two like, "prepare your stock". Well just how do you prepare the stock? This is the way I did it and it came out alright.

I have no panel gauge so I marked a tic on each end - this is the squared edge I did earlier and this is my reference for everything I'll lay out from here on in

connect the two tics with a straight edge and plane it to the line

just a tad bit off

I am not going to go nutso and try to get these dead nuts even. There really isn't any need to do that. This is the back of sides and everything is referenced off the front. If anything is a little proud of it I can plane it flush and if it's a little short, it's at the back where it won't be seen.

shoot one edge square on the top/bottom pieces

shoot the other edges square

The top/bottom pieces are less than a 1/16" off in their lengths. Again this isn't a deal killer as there is no way the eye can see that small of a difference.

sides and shelf marked for their rip cuts

rip cuts done

The offcuts from the sides will become the cross rails. The start of my rip cuts were good on all 3 and started to go OTL at the end. I think I did this because I wasn't looking right down on the saw cut but looking backwards at it. Next time I rip something I'll use the other sawbench so I can keep the cut line beneath me by pushing the board forward onto the other bench.

squared the rip sawn edge for one cross rail

doing the same for the shelf's rip sawn edge

squared the edge of one of the sides - checking it flat with a straight edge

The two sides were treated the same way I did the top/bottom pieces except that I did go a little nutso trying to get the sides to be an equal length. The width of them isn't a deal killer but the length needs to be the same. The shelf was easy to do, just shoot the two edges square.

the tools I used to prep the stock for the shelf (missing the straight edges)

I got the sides, shelf, cross rails, and the top/bottom finished. Everything is square to my reference edges and ready to put together. I left the cross rails long and I'll cut them to length before I mark them for the shoulders.

shelf dadoes done

I made a full width dado here because I forgot to layout for a stopped one. I'll just have to use this as a practice run for making nice tight full width dadoes that will look good from the front.

like this one

stopped dadoes for the top/bottom done

marking for the side notches

sawing out the notches on the sides

notches fit well

marking for the position of the cross rails

cutting the cross rails to final length

marking the shoulders on the cross rails

mortise done for the stopped dado

through rails mortises done

I got a little blowout on the through mortise on the right. I didn't have anything underneath when I chopped it from the opposite side. For some idiotic reason I chopped one side and then flipped it over and placed it so that it was over an empty space on my wagon vice. No wonder I blew it out so badly.

I cut the tenons with my carcass saw

I cut the cheeks first, now I'm cutting the shoulders

dry fit upcoming

My tenons are a tad undersized and they are loose. When I used the marking gauge to layout the tenons I put the outside pin on the outside of the rail edge. I should have put it on the inside of the rail edge. By putting it on the outside I thinned the tenon when I thought I was making it fat. A tip to put into the brain bucket for future reference.

dry fit looks good

I am not going to put an arch on either of the cross rails. I'm leaving them as they are. This is my take on Paul Seller's design.

square

This is my first all hand tool made project. I am very happy with how this turned out and how it is square every where I checked it. I had a fear that by doing it by hand, I would end up with a piece of unsquare crappola. Not so and it definitely pays to make, and keep throughout the build, a reference edge and mark everything off that.

I'll have to add some wedges in the tenons on the through cross rail to tighten them up. I'll have to plane and sand the shelf to clean it up before I paint it. I think the color will be red. I am also going to use white glue on this glue up and I'm putting miller dowels in the top/bottom.

I had more pics of this build but I edited them again as I posted. I didn't want to make this too long and I didn't want to make two or more posts out of it. What I eliminated were the repetitious pics of me doing the same thing. I think the next shelf will also be done with hand tools only too, but maybe I'll add one more shelf just to make it interesting.

Making this simple project by hand only increases my awe and respect for the old cabinetmakers and what they did day in and day out with only hand tools. I wish that I had learned to do this when I first started woodworking.

accidental woodworker