Another shelf, more conventional..

Well, another shelf unit completed.. this one is more recognisable as a shelf, more normal. Better than normal, since normal these days is particleboard with a picture of wood on the surface. You know the type of thing, purchaced in a little box, from a store in a big box, some assembly required. Particleboard has no structure, though, beyond the glue, and sags with use. If it gets wet, it dissolves completely..

The assembly is 36 inches wide, 30 inches tall, and about 10 inches deep. the shelves and top are assembled by glueing plywood splines in routed grooves. I used painted 1/8 inch plywood as a backing surface.

Poplar plywood shelves are faced with meranti strips, glued and nailed. I used a strip on the bottom of the shelf as well, as a foot, for durability. The wood surfaces are sanded to 320 grit, finished with my workhorse finish, penetrating danish oil.

Proportions? Eh, it looks like the top shelf could be a bit higher, so the lower shelf could have some taller items. Other than that, it feels pretty good to me. Any comments?

Knockdown furniture idea...

A friend gave me a store display from Patagonia, made of teak, that he saw on the side of the road on trash day. He knew right where to take it.

I found it in the back of my truck later that day. It fit together in this interresting way! The uprights slip over a bridle joint in the base pieces. It's about 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

Here is my prototype of the system, about 3 feet by 3 feet. It's made out of old scrap pine from a house trim replacement job, old doors, and an old oak futon frame. The shelves are a variety of widths just to experiment with form, utility, and proportion.

The design really grabbed my interest. Next iteration will be made of hardwood and incorporate some changes suggested by folks who have seen it. This mock-up is made of trash wood, 100 year old trimwood, old fir doors, and a futon frame I found two days prior to getting this crazy idea!

It, surprisingly, fit together kind of nicely after disassembly, too..

Here's the joint detail....

Here's a nice frame, large, made out of tropical hardwood rescued from a pallet pile and the landfill, or a woodstove somewhere....

my downstairs neighbor who's a seamstress had a fabric piece from Italy that she wanted to display.

The frame is about 2 1/2 feet by about 6 feet.

Here's a detail.