Stained American Cherry  Bookcase

General description

A large  bookcase was required that would fit  into an office,  which  would "pick up" the fluting on and also broadly match, the colour of the  existing walnut desk . 

Below; a photograph from shortly after installation, the walnut desk is in the foreground , there is  parquet flooring throughout.

There are 9x discrete pieces to this bookcase;  Two base cupboard  units, two top units sitting on the cupboards, two units to each side and the top surface  running along the two base units.

Below left; You see the two base units  sitting on the bench with the  raised and fielded doors in position. The top "continuity piece"  has been laid  in position with a lip that hides the top/front  edges of the cabinets . 

Below  right - the vertical timber with the fluting disguises the  join.  The skirting has been offered up for fit.  The clamps (aka Pony clamps in North America and much more versatile than traditional English Sash Cramps)  are holding panels in place that represent the side units.

 

Two discrete  base units appear to be one big one.

There are two cabinets  here.

Below; The machining of the fluting   required an appropriate jig. No doubt there are many different approaches  but mine is as follows...  Devise a method of holding the timber. Place stops at each end to  constrain router travel.  Note that these will determine the height of the "capital"  and base on the fluted columns. Because the fluted columns are handed, an exact mirror image of the first column will be required. Harder than it sounds.

Through trial and error ( lots of error) run  two strips of timber through the thicknesser to  run the length of the jig. The two strips are  placed at the back of the jig as per the picture below.

The starting position for cutting the flutes is with the router placed so that the cutter is a reasonable  distance from one side, in this case the r/h  -back of the jig - side.  The two  timber strips are positioned as shown and the  far right hand flute is machined. A strip of timber is removed, the router moved to the left  -or forwards if you prefer - and the left hand  guide - guide at front -  moved in to take up the slack  (using two guides guarantees that the router cannot move any direction except longitudinally).  For the 3rd flute the second strip is removed and the  process repeated . You now have three flutes of equal length, parallel  and equally spaced.

The fluting is not set centrally, the capital and base are different lengths;   the clever part is to now mirror the entire process! The central piece of fluting can be from either operation but  in terms of width, the flutes must be set in the centre of  the timber. It is a good trick when it all works.