Help designing first piece of furniture
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We need a storage unit for my son’s bedroom and so I came up with a design which I’ve created in sketchup. The joinery choices are based on what I’ve heard of and probably not necessarily on what is best!
I’d appreciate it if anyone had any comments on how feasible the design looks.
I’m planning on building it in pine and gluing up panels as necessary. The sides are 7/8” thick and all other parts are 3/4” thick.
The unit is 84” long and 24” deep but I’ve really no idea if the joinery I’ve chosen will hold together a unit of this size.
The bottom panel and shelf are going to fit in to 3/8” deep housings in the side panels with through tenons to hold it together. At the top there are two rails dovetailed in to the end panels. The back will be a 1/4” plywood panel screwed to the base and fitted into a rebate. The dividers are fitted in to shallow (1/8”) grooves.
Also I’m not really sure how to fix the top to the unit – screw through the top rails perhaps?
I should also say that my ability to imagine what I wnat to make almost certainly far exceeds my ability to actually make it – so any ideas about simplifying things might also be interesting.
Cheers,
Bill
Your design looks quite complicated. Wouldn’t it be easier to change the dimensions of the bookcase build that can be found on this site?
Wesley
Yes I think you’re right but I did look at the bookcase build but I wasn’t sure about a couple of things.
On the bookcase the top has dados which fit onto the sides – I wasn’t sure if that alone would be strong enough for a piece like I’m trying to make which will probably be heavy and is likely to be picked up / moved by holding the top; hence I decided to use the dovetailed cross rails.
I think the middle shelf can just fit into a dado though instead of trying to make the through tennons as well. I wanted to make sure there was enough holding the piece together to prevent the ends bowing out. I hope the cross rails at the top and the bottom shelf with through tennons will be enough though.
The back panel is 1/4″ ply and I hope this will add stability when it is screwed to the case.
One thing I have realised is that I’m gpoing ot have to try and find some very long clamps!
thanks for the reply @weslee
Cheers,
Bill
You can make exactly what you have designed. It’s complicated if you look at it as a whole. Take it one joint at a time and you will have a piece you can be proud of before you know it!
Thanks @sandy1man I will definitely be taking it one small piece at a time.
I now have the wood for the project which has been sitting in my garage for a week or two and I’ve started gluing up the panels.
So far I’ve glued up what is going to be the 7/8″ end panels – it needs to be cut in half and reduced from 28″ to the finished 24″.
The panel is slightly cupped despite my best efforts but I’ve surfaced planed it and I think I’ll just let the joinery pull it flat; otherwise if I try to flatten it there’ll be nothing left.
Just to round things off, here is a picture of the finished unit. I had a three month gap over the summer when no work was done so it ended up taking a while but I’m happy with the result. I made a few small changes to the design along the way (fewar dividers) but it is basically what I designed.
Lessons learned: get a square longer than 12″ when working on 24″ wide panels; flattening large panels is a lot of work!
This project was great practice at gluing up and flattening panels; as well as m&t’s; rebates; housing dados and half blind dovetails. I think I might try something a little smaller for the next one though.
Finish is danish oil – made with 50% pure tung oil thinned with white spirit and an added drier.
Cheers
Bill
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