Last time we discussed the Plane Storage Shelf I had just finished gluing and assembling the outer carcass. Now we finish off the main part of the build. If youre new to the discussion or need a refresher on where were been all the related posts have been gathered together HERE.
With the dovetails glued up and dried I stood up the carcass to check it one more time for square. I also took the final measurement for the board length to cut for the shelves. A few minutes with a crosscut saw and I could call that done.
The stopped dadoes in the carcass required a notch to be cut in the end of the boards that would face out.
Then I contoured the facing edge into a bullnose profile with a spokeshave, a contoured scraper, and a touch of hand sanding.
Then I went about fitting each shelf into the tight dadoes.
The dadoes turned out slightly narrower than the stock so I took a block plane and gave the bottom edge of each shelf a bevel. narrowing the endgrain to achieve a good fit. It is better to have a narrow dado you can tune a fit to with a couple swipes of a block plane than trying to fix a dado that is too loose to start with.
It is important to keep track of which shelf you fit to which set of dadoes. I use my own brand of marks when I do this.
The shelves all fitted, I secured them all in place with a dab of hide glue in the back of the dado and a finishing nail placed through the side of the carcass and into the shelf towards the front.
I needed a cleat to hang the shelf from. I used a similar idea on the top of the saw till. The difference I was able to create on the shelf was I had picked up a nice little moulding plane that gave me a great excuse to add a little detail to the cleat.
I pre-drilled and counter sunk the holes for the future screws to hang the shelf with. A little glue and a couple pocket screws to secure it in place.
To make the back I re-sawed some pine down to 3/8" thick and gave it a quick smooth with a finely set jack plane. I chose to fix the boards in place edge to edge. This was a solution I had to use because I was running tight on stock when I was building the saw till. Since this was an accompanying piece I decided to repeat the decision.
Everything together, now I had a chance to stand it up and get a good look at it.
And even give it a test to see how everything fit.
