DIY veneered bookcase

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18th October 2009

With yet another decor change my wife decided that she wanted me to move my main tank to the left of the chimney breast and in its place she wanted a bookcase. Not happy with the prices and quality of modern furniture (in a reasonable price range) I decided I could do better and therefore we come to this write up of me building it.

I am a lover of natural wood finishes and got a reasonable deal on some European Ash veneer. About £35 for 10m2. That doesn't mean it is a large sheet or that it is several sheets. You can see in the pictures below that it consisted of approx 25 strips of rough sawn veneer each measuring approx 2.4m x 24cm. This isn't an exact measurement because the strips taper. The good thing was that this meant I had enough left over to build a matching cabinet for the main tank.

The structural design will be the same as the matching cabinet in that I am using 37cm x 37cm rough sawn wood to make the basic frame, then panneling it with 3mm MDF before veneering over the top. The basic framework design is shown in the first picture below. This unit is copied from a bookcase that I saw for £950 in a shop however mine is 30cm taller, 30cm wider and I intend to use the bottom 'level' as cupboards so it will have doors on it. The total materials cost is £110 including the rough frame wood, MDF sheets, veneer, glue, Tung oil finish and screws.

I screwed the outer of the frame together and in no time I had the basic shell. Then I screwed the shelf 'bars' in. Next some small bars were screwed inbetween the front and rear shelves and in between the front and rear sides to provide support for the MDF when it is pinned on top. If I didn't do this then the shelves could bow in the centre of each shelf if any weight was on them. The final part for the frame was to screw in the upright sections. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the unit at this stage.

Now the MDF was cut to fit each section and then pinned to the frame. The final job was to cut some more MDF just to cover the frontage. This makes the front look like a solid piece. The rear of the unit which will not be seen is left as is. Looks rough but it doesn't need to look good. The last thing I did here was to spray the whole thing. I find it much easier to spot any dents, divots or problems if the unit is 1 colour. The only spray I had was black and as the unit will be veneered that is what I used. it won't be seen at the end. You can see this in the second picture.

After filling any holes or gaps I sanded off the dried filler and the unit was ready for veneering. This would be a several week job as I need to use weight and let glue set before moving onto the next area.

I decided to do the inside of the shelves first so on day 1 I would do the top of the shelves then on day 2 turn the unit on its side and continue. Always veneering so that the piece I was doing was facing upward meaning that I can just put weight on each section and leave it. It would take 4 days to do the whole of the inside. You can see this process in the final picture where I am veneering 1 shelf top.

In the second picture it may look like I have already done the inside of the bottom level but this is just some spare maple vinyl that I used to line the inside of the cupboards. No need to use expensive veneer in there as it will be hidden from view and I don't expect guests to explore my cupboards.









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