Musings of a Tweaker: May 2012

Everyone has stuff!

And ironically this stuff has a tendency to outgrow everything you decide to contain it in. I started by placing my keys, cellphone etc in a small corner of my closet but the place was soon occupied by all sorts of oddities that you can imagine. Have a look for yourself:

The mess! and it renders all the space above useless.

I thought it would be a good idea to have some small shelves to manage this extra stuff. And what do you do when you have some left over pieces of wood board, tools to work with wood, and a problem to solve? :-)

So here we go:
(You may click the photos to get a gorgeous 8 MP view of the activity)

Fist collect all the tools and equipment. Here is what we need for this project:

Tools and tackles needed for the project.

Took some measurements and designed a prototype shelve to get a feel for the thing:

Measuring the width of proposed shelve

Some prototyping. Big word huh? :-)

Hmmm. Seems like it will fit the bill!

Okay. Mark the wood board. Be meticulous in markings. The 'X' ensures that there will be no confusion.

Cut the boards to right size. My dad's 15 year old Jigsaw helped a lot here.

That rail in the above picture was supposed to act as a guide to Jigsaw, however it did not help much because the jigsaw did not had a straight edge to glide on. <Future>But this might suit a circular saw quite well <Future/> :-)

Guided jigsaw. At least that was the plan.

It took some effort but finally all the pieces of the puzzler were cut well. I added some curves to add some glamor to the fixture. Men love curves don't they? ;-)

All pieces cut and ready for assembly.

Each part was numbered because they are going in a specific location of a particular level. Could have remembered all this but just to be sure. The lines mark the mating part on the other side.

Have a look how this works in the image below. Also, some cuts were made to accommodate the supports so that nothing is protruding in the final assembly. This will also allow whole shelve to stay flush with the wall and avoid things dropping off the gap in the back.

Support 2 matches groove 2 on the shelve

Matching the supports to respective shelves

Now for the assembly part. Because the board is 3/7 inches thick, the screws should drive well into the board for a firm grip. I chose 1.5 inch long board screws these are the most common types and are widely used in particle board furniture (ever bought a computer table?)

Thin wood will crack open with screws. Because I was going to drill all the holes on the sides of wood-board, I decided to pre-drill the screw holes so that wood will not crack. Appropriate choice of drill bit size is about the diameter of screw minus the depth of threads on both sides.

Choose the right drill to pre-drill the holes.

This activity is called counter-sinking. Although there is a specific tool for this, I have to use a larger drill bit. Counter sinking causes the screws to go flush with the face of the surface and do not protrude out. Adds to elegance and no protruding screws: