This is a (very) preliminary design fro a "bridge" to join two bookcase units I built. The bottom of this unit will be seen; the top and sides will not. It would be approximately 48" x 23" x 12" deep.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdguari...57632376881493

The bottom drawing shows the face frame as it would be seen; the top drawing is the plywood cabinet that would go behind it. I'm wondering if ...

1. The dado layout shown is sensible.
2. The dado layout shown will prove too complex for me to glue up properly in the allotted time.

Regarding (2.), I have made another diagram the shows the order I think I would need to glue up the pieces in:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdguari...7632376881493/

First the 4 Red pieces
Then the Orange piece
Then the two Yellow pieces
Then the two Green pieces
Lastly, the Blue piece.

[aside: Did anyone else learn the resistor color code? And yes, I know I left out Black and Brown. And yes, I have heard all of the various off-color mnemonics for it. And no, I won't be reproducing them here]

Maybe the blue piece should go on earlier? I think maybe it should, but I'm too lazy to redo the screenshot. The clamping would be a little tricky too, especially with my modest inventory. Does anyone ever clamp a box like this with it standing vertically? I'm guessing not; too easy to have it end up twisted.

As always, advice would be appreciated.

Greg Guarino wrote:
This is a (very) preliminary design fro a "bridge" to join two bookcase
units I built. The bottom of this unit will be seen; the top and sides
will not. It would be approximately 48" x 23" x 12" deep.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdguari...57632376881493

The bottom drawing shows the face frame as it would be seen; the top
drawing is the plywood cabinet that would go behind it. I'm wondering if ...

1. The dado layout shown is sensible.
2. The dado layout shown will prove too complex for me to glue up
properly in the allotted time.


Ok, here are the changes that I would make. Eliminate the bottom piece of
plywood that goes all the way across. Going up to the three bottoms of each
section, make that a single piece that goes all the way across to form the
actual bottom and let it set in dados in the outer side panels like the top
panel does. Basically make the top and bottom panel exactly the same and
do not have the bottom panel on the very bottom. It will be much simpler
to cut and dado if the top and bottom panels are identical.

Optional,

Additionally, I would cut dados and groves in the back of the face frame to
accept all of the front edges of the plywood panels that it will be
covering. And I always like to have a back face frame attached the same
way too.

IMHO it is fine for the bottom to not appear all closed in.






Regarding (2.), I have made another diagram the shows the order I think I
would need to glue up the pieces in:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdguari...7632376881493/

First the 4 Red pieces
Then the Orange piece
Then the two Yellow pieces
Then the two Green pieces
Lastly, the Blue piece.

[aside: Did anyone else learn the resistor color code? And yes, I know I
left out Black and Brown. And yes, I have heard all of the various
off-color mnemonics for it. And no, I won't be reproducing them here]

Maybe the blue piece should go on earlier? I think maybe it should, but
I'm too lazy to redo the screenshot. The clamping would be a little
tricky too, especially with my modest inventory. Does anyone ever clamp a
box like this with it standing vertically? I'm guessing not; too easy to
have it end up twisted.

As always, advice would be appreciated.

If you go with my suggestion glue up would be a one step process for the
entire carcass. It would be all dado joints so every thing would stay in
place, starting with the center "H" section an finally adding the top,
bottom, and sides.


Another hint, use Titebond II Extend glue for thus glue up. It gives you
more working time and as always you should do a dry fit first.

I could provide a non scale drawing of how I actually do these type
cabinets if you would like.

As always, advice would be appreciated.

I am not sure why you have the two pieces so close along the bottom. I do see a small problem with dados in perfect alignment on both sides of the same piece at the center. I guess 1/4" dados in 3/4" ply is OK but seems would be good to avoid if possible.

I would assemble red. Then lay blue on table and assemble red into blue. Then roll over so it is on table as if looking down as pictures are drawn, then assemble and clamp the rest.

On 7/1/2013 3:00 PM, SonomaProducts.com wrote:

I am not sure why you have the two pieces so close along the bottom.

The other bookshelves sit on a set of cubbyhole units, and have 1x3
maple as the bottom of the face frame. I intend to carry this same
"design" over for the "bridge", but the bottom of the bridge will be
above eye height and will thus be seen. So the bottom piece of ply is to
make the bottom of the unit flush with the face frame. The pieces above
that will hold books and bric-a-brac flush with the top of the face
frame 1x3.

Leon has suggested that this is not necessary, that the face frame can
hang down below the actual bottom shelf. So far I don't think I like the
(imagined) look of that. But at this point I may redesign the whole
thing a few times before I build it anyway.

That's one benefit of having no spare time; you get to devote a lot of
thinking to the project before there's an opportunity to build it.

So the bottom piece of ply is to

make the bottom of the unit flush with the face frame. The pieces above

that will hold books and bric-a-brac flush with the top of the face

frame 1x3.

OK, knowing this then I would delete the second horizontal piece from your dado'd internal structure design. Then after you have that built and the FF applied you can just drop in some additional pieces, sort of like an adjustable shelves, in the space where that second piece would have been. Either put little legs on these pieces to hold them at the right height or lay in some spacers underneath.

On 7/1/2013 3:04 PM, Greg Guarino wrote:
On 7/1/2013 3:00 PM, SonomaProducts.com wrote:

I am not sure why you have the two pieces so close along the bottom.

The other bookshelves sit on a set of cubbyhole units, and have 1x3
maple as the bottom of the face frame. I intend to carry this same
"design" over for the "bridge", but the bottom of the bridge will be
above eye height and will thus be seen. So the bottom piece of ply is to
make the bottom of the unit flush with the face frame. The pieces above
that will hold books and bric-a-brac flush with the top of the face
frame 1x3.

Leon has suggested that this is not necessary, that the face frame can
hang down below the actual bottom shelf. So far I don't think I like the
(imagined) look of that. But at this point I may redesign the whole
thing a few times before I build it anyway.

That's one benefit of having no spare time; you get to devote a lot of
thinking to the project before there's an opportunity to build it.

Now if you would learn to use Sketchup you would not have to imagine how
anything would look. You could see exactly, at any angle, how it would look.

On 7/1/2013 8:38 PM, Leon wrote:
On 7/1/2013 3:04 PM, Greg Guarino wrote:
On 7/1/2013 3:00 PM, SonomaProducts.com wrote:

I am not sure why you have the two pieces so close along the bottom.

The other bookshelves sit on a set of cubbyhole units, and have 1x3
maple as the bottom of the face frame. I intend to carry this same
"design" over for the "bridge", but the bottom of the bridge will be
above eye height and will thus be seen. So the bottom piece of ply is to
make the bottom of the unit flush with the face frame. The pieces above
that will hold books and bric-a-brac flush with the top of the face
frame 1x3.

Leon has suggested that this is not necessary, that the face frame can
hang down below the actual bottom shelf. So far I don't think I like the
(imagined) look of that. But at this point I may redesign the whole
thing a few times before I build it anyway.

That's one benefit of having no spare time; you get to devote a lot of
thinking to the project before there's an opportunity to build it.

Now if you would learn to use Sketchup you would not have to imagine how
anything would look. You could see exactly, at any angle, how it would
look.

With my (so far) simple designs, I think my ability to visualize is
pretty decent. Having said that, I have done some Sketchup drawings of
various things, and this design would be within my Sketchup skills. But
after having built the main bookcases in the same style, I felt that 2D
CAD would be more straightforward for sussing out the dadoes.

Maybe there's an easier way I haven't discovered yet, but the 3D nature
of Sketchup forces it to "guess" which plane I want to move a component
in, and it guesses wrong all too often.

Just last night I was trying to do a sketch of a simple open shelf with
wooden (kind-of trapezoidal) uprights at each end. I drew one end piece,
with the dado that would accept the shelf. Then I copied it, scaled it
to "-1" to make a mirror image piece (there's probably a more sensible
way) and attempted to fit the piece onto the other end of the shelf.
That must have required four or five rotations of view, zooms and
aborted attempts before I could get the component in the vicinity of the
right location. Sketchup seems to take a perverse pleasure in moving the
piece further and further from where I want it to go.

When 2D will do, I tend to use it.

Just last night I was trying to do a sketch of a simple open shelf with

wooden (kind-of trapezoidal) uprights at each end. I drew one end piece,

with the dado that would accept the shelf. Then I copied it, scaled it

to "-1" to make a mirror image piece (there's probably a more sensible

way) and attempted to fit the piece onto the other end of the shelf.

That must have required four or five rotations of view, zooms and

aborted attempts before I could get the component in the vicinity of the

right location. Sketchup seems to take a perverse pleasure in moving the

piece further and further from where I want it to go.



When 2D will do, I tend to use it.

Moving in 3D on a 2D screen has always been a difficult thing to emulate in any 3D CAD system (Ia m in the business and I know).

For Sketchup, I have found that to move you have to pick an exact point on the object you want to move and move it to another exact point on another object. You do this by picking on a corner and then again a corner. After you move it you can do a controlled rotation or two and maybe a slide move along an edge, etc. Trying to move freehand in 3D space is just too arbitrary on any system.

We are actually right now doing some study for using a paint brush type tool, like in photoshop where the cursor is a circle of a given size. We are scaling the size of the circle in realtime if are able to track the 3D object you are painting and add distance perspective. Difficult but pretty cool and necessary for the operation we are trying to support.