I built this bookcase for myself. I have a small bookcase in my room, but it isn't large enough to house my taller books. I read an article about a non-conventional way to build the case. The standard way is to build a carcass for a bookcase and then build the face frame to cover the edging of the carcass. The article made a good argument for why one should build the bookcase in reverse.
The claim is that the face frame should be joined perfectly with mortise and tenon joinery. The frame is what people see, and should be very well built. It is easy to make a mistake while joining the rails and stiles and can take some tweaking to get everything to match. It is for this reason that the frame should be built first and tweaked to perfection. Then one can take exact measurements to build the carcass.
I thought this made sense - particularly for myself. I don't have a mortiser - I do mine with a chisel and cut my tenons with a radial saw. So my joints often require a lot of tweaking.
I built the frame from poplar, the carcass from laminated oak, and the top from 4 solid oak boards that I joined with biscuits, planed, sanded, routed, stained, and varnished.
The case has a cherry stain and the top is red mahogany. I used a semi-gloss finish.
That's good looking Smann. Did you make the shelves adjustable or did you fix them in place? If you fixed them in place did you route the walls of the case to slide the shelves in from the back? I am really impressed with your handy work. Keep the posts coming.
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