furniture building ... take two part two.

So moving on with building this little bookshelf ... I had left off with having glued the plywood sheets together.

Note to self: use more glue when laminating plywood. Lots more glue.

But after cutting everything down and reglueing some sheets I moved on to planing. Then more cutting. Took 5º off the bottom 4" of each leg by using a jig I had made a long time ago for my chop saw -

Then - in order to cut down the lengths wider than 2' (the widest cut possible on Katie's dad's table saw - a full foot more than mine) - I splurged $18 at Lowe's for a 100" circ saw guide. Best $18 I ever I spent. Seriously. This thing rocked the party -

I would use my drywall square and butt the guide up against it to make sure everything was nice and - well - square. Then clamped it down. Worked like a charm.

(It came with the guide - which could be halved into two 50" sections for shorter cuts - and the two C-clamps)

Then I had my 1-1/4"-thick top that I was 'veneering' the edges with 1x2" fir that I had planed to a width of 1-1/4" -

So I glued those around the front and sides -

My longest clamps are 24" so I had to get creative with the glueing options ... it worked is all I can say. And then - to even the little bits up that weren't perfectly smooth with the plywood - I used my new best friend to get the job done -

But no - I didn't even pay $5.00 like the sticker says - the guy I bought my table saw from at a garage sale just gave me the belt sander. I did have to get a new 80-grit belt for it but it works like a champ. Then some good old fashioned orbital sanding -

Followed by some hand sanding on all the pieces (including the legs as shown here) -

I even broke out a 3/4" chisel and added some knicks and stuff on the edges of the shelfs here and there - I may still 'distress' the wood a little more. But then - finally - time for assembly ...

Like I mentioned - this will involve lots of pocket holes so off I went (I did splurge for the 3" Kreg face clamp to help speed things up a bit) -

In order to screw the legs on I used my 24" clamps and secured them in place before drilling in the screws -

And in short order - the first side was done -

This is going to be one solid bookshelf.

Next - the other side. Then the back (just the 2x2 on top and bottom). Then ... finishing all the pieces before final assembly. We'll see how that goes ... it'll be interesting.