It was time to replace a small cube shaped piece of furniture with a new A-Frame shelf. The shelf will be made from Maple and Walnut. Since the majority of our furniture is dark, black-brown, the maple will get painted. I started with 8/4 maple and 4/4 walnut. The shelf is roughly 80″ tall, 29″ wide, and 20″ deep

The Plan

The shelf is made from three primary pieces. The A-frame supports that are on both sides, shelf supports that are on three sides and house the shelf itself. The front angle is at 10 degrees

I started by rough cuts to length and width, followed by milling

Rough Cuts and Milling

After initially cutting the a-frame supports, I decided that the A-frames were going to be too thick. So, I resawed it and decided to make two a-frame shelves. Now it was time to joint the faces and edges

After the A-frame shelf supports, I started working on the walnut shelves. The shelves are much wider than my jointer, so I had modify my usual routine. First, I started by using my powered hand plane to get the twist and major cup/bow from the boards. After that I used the jointer without the guard to joint one face.

After I jointed the face, I could used a long piece of MDF under this piece of walnut to flatten the opposite face. Then flip the walnut over and remove the ridge that is seen above. I didn’t get any pictures, but I also resawed the walnut to make two shelves.

I also milled the shelf supports around this time and resawed them and final milled them to size

A-Frame Supports

After a couple days, I remilled the long A-frame pieces and then cut them to length. I am using a loose tenons for the A-frames which makes the angles a bit easier to deal with. First I cut the top piece to size and did some trigonometry, yes math, to get the lower stretcher size. The long A-frames were pretty flexible and a direct measurement was way off.

After getting a loose fit together, I started laying out the joinery.

Now it was time to make some mortises. The small pieces required some extra clamping.

After cutting all the mortises, it was time to make the loose tenons. I have a bunch of small oak boards that I used for the loose tenons. Basic process is mill, resaw, plan to perfect fit, cut to width, round over, cut to length.

Before I glued the A-frames up, I noticed I had a good sized check that had to be addressed. Bow tie time

Now it is time to glue the A-frame together.

I put together a video that outlines the previous operations in a bit different detail that may elaborate on the process. Check it out on Youtube

Shelf Supports

The next step in the process was to make the shelf supports. The shelf support will be three sided and then have a small dovetailed stretcher in the bottom towards the front. I started by cutting the rear piece of the shelf support to size. The shelf supports have box joints in the rear corners.

After getting everything cut to rough length, I ripped it all to width and then it was time to cut the box joints.

After the box joints were cut, I flushed up the top and bottom edges since they are never perfect. The next step is to cut the dovetail stretchers. I cut them to final length to include the dovetail and then cut the tails on the bandsaw using a quick jig.

I cut a relief in the bottom of the dovetail stretcher to help with alignment and the fact I didn’t have to route or chop so deep.

The next step was to cut the grooves that will eventually house the walnut shelves. The shelves will have a small rabbet to allow it to fit into the groove. So, I had to account for the panel thickness above the dovetail stretcher. I used a 1/4″ bit and had to cut the groove in two passes due to its depth.

The next step was to perform a dry fit. I drilled where the screws would go and then cut the left and right shelf support pieces to length at 10 degrees. After the pieces were cut to length I added a chamfer on the top edge with a router and the front edge with a hand plane.

Time to Sand

Once the shelf supports came out of the clamps, I glued and screwed them into place on the A-frames. I plugged the screw holes after attaching them. The second part of the build video is also on YouTube that describes the build process in more detail

Walnut Shelves

The shelving pieces were made from book-matched walnut. Then, the panels were edge glued . A couple panels had some checks that had to be addressed. I added some bowties here as well.

The next step was to cut the panels to the appropriate length and ensure I accounted for the rabbet length. After that, I used my router table to cut a rabbet on three sides of the walnut panel. I had to fine tune the fit with a shoulder plane. Once everything was fitting nicely, I cut the walnut panels to final width (fore-aft) with a 10 degree angle. Once again it was time to sand. I decided to add boiled linseed oil to the panels.

The third video is also on youtube that covers the walnut panels and glue up of the a-frame shelf and shelf supports.

Prep For Finish

Now it is time to prep the a-frame and shelf supports for paint. I had to mask the grooves before painting. I used a brush and roller, which worked, but left a bit of a rough finish. After the first coat, I had to cut off some drips and do some light sanding. Then, I applied a second coat. Third coat was needed in some areas. After the painting was complete, I removed the tape and had to clean up the grooves with razor blade and sandpaper. I was impressed with how well the paint color matched our existing furniture.

Finishing

After all the construction and painting was complete, it was time to apply finish. I used Emtech 6000 with a HVLP. Before applying the water based lacquer, I needed to apply a wash coat of Shellac to the walnut shelves.

After two coats of shellac, I sanded it back down and cleaned off the dust.

I sprayed two coats of finish on the shelves and also the a-frame. After it dried, I slid the shelves into place and drove one screw through an elongated hole in the front stretcher.

Adjustable Feet

I needed to add soem adjustable fee to the bottom of the frames. All of the store bought ones are too large in diameter and have risk of blowing out the side of the legs. So, I made my own with #10-32 brass inserts, some all-thread, and nuts. I started by cutting some small maple squares 1″x1″ and then drilled shallow hole that would allow the nut to be pounded into it. I think 5/16″ forstner bit was the one I used, but I don’t recall. After drilled, I rounded off the edges and corners. I cut the all-thread to about 3/4″ long and epoxied the nuts and all-thread into place. Then i drilled and screwed the brass insert into the legs. Finally I applied a bit of felt onto the bottom of the maple piece.

The fourth video is up on Youtube that outlines the finishing and adjustable feet.