Tutorial: DIY Bookshelf holds Vinyl

My last bookshelf sold at the March Hip Thrift Second Saturday event. I also had a specific request to build another to hold vinyl. As luck would have it, I had exactly enough material to build one nearly identical but with taller shelf spacing.

If you like it, I have good news: the original requester has not been in touch, so this new shelf is still available. As I mentioned in the last post, the record-shelf has been assembled for awhile but apparently needed time to settle down before being painted.

More good news: it's a good starter project if you want to work on some basic woodworking skills. To complete this DIY project, you will need shelfstock, a single bi-fold door, fence slats, and fasteners. Paint or other finishes are optional. Useful tools: speed square, tape measure, carpenter's pencil, safety gear, circular saw, jig saw, drill and drivers / bits, countersink, and brushes or spraygun.

Always start by cleaning, organizing and syncing the pieces you plan to assemble. Shelfstock is squared on both ends and cut to match the shortest length. Mark square lines with a speed square or carpenter square, then carefully cut with a reliable saw. These boards are squared on both ends and cut to a uniform 28 inches.

(Hey look, it's that nifty oval table before it got painted!)

Once the hardware is removed from the bi-fold door, all pieces are uniform and ready to be altered and assembled. First, material is cut out from the bottom rail to create feet. With a speed square pull lines angling inward. I used 12 degrees. With a jigsaw, cut precisely into the corner and stop.

Leave plenty of room to freehand a curve to the top line, starting the saw with the blade already inside the existing kerf. Again, saw into the corner and stop. In this case, the top line is sawn left to right.

Cut out the last corner from right to left. Repeat for the second shelf support.

Determine shelf spacing by considering what you'd like the shelves to hold and sketching to achieve your own concept and a visual harmony. Mark the bottom of each shelf across the inside face of the front and back stiles of the shelf supports. In this case, once the bottom shelf is marked out, you can add marks at 13-1/2 inch intervals: 12-1/2" vinyl + 1/4" clearance + 3/4" shelf thickness. 1/4" is a very tight clearance and requires great precision. 1/2" to 1" clearance is preferred.

On the outside face of each stile, mark (+) for drilling 3/8" above the lines marked on the inside face. The back stiles can be drilled in the center, but the front stile should be pulled slightly (~1/8") to the back since the face of each shelf will not fall flush with the front face of the front stiles. If the shelves were deeper than the stiles, they would stick out past and this would not be necessary. Pilots are drilled for a loose fit but leaving plenty of cover to hold screw heads. Then a countersink is used to ensure uniform depth when sinking the screws. Piloting and countersinking can be done in one step if you have an adjustable countersink bit.

Lay out the bookshelf face up and choose where you would like to place each shelf. This is especially important if you use reclaimed materials. A shelf with a defect on the bottom side can be placed near the bottom where it will only be seen while you do yoga. A shelf with a defect on the top side can be placed at the top of a tall bookshelf where it will only be seen every three years when you dust off the ceiling fan and/or chandelier.

 Right-handed instructions: Insert a screw fully into the pilot so that the tip is flush with the inside of the front stile. Facing as shown, use the left hand to stabilize the bottom shelf and line up the bottom of the front edge with the mark on the inside of the front stile. Use the right hand to drive the screw in with reasonable force, being sure not to angle the screw in such a way as to blow out on the front, top or bottom of the shelf. Twist the back of the shelf into place with the left hand still on the front edge. You can use a foot to brace the back edge but always be sure to keep hands and feet clear of the area where it is possible for the screw to blow through the shelf unexpectedly. Do this along one side before beginning the other.

 Fence slats are laid on their sides to determine the extent of twisting, cupping, bowing or crowning. For this project, crowning would present the largest problem. When laid as shown below, a stiff crown will stand out by raising up in the middle significantly more than adjacent boards. If the crown is placed upside down, the piece will rock like a seesaw. If you encounter a board with a bad crown consider replacing it with a tamer piece of wood. But don't be afraid to force one into place - factory milled wood is never perfectly straight.

Now the entire unit is flipped to face down. Each shelf is already secured with four screws. Remember to lay out the backing in advance before getting too far and noting a problem too late. The application of backing provides cross-bracing and stiffens the positioning of the frame, so be sure you have enough play for adjustments.

TIP: the flange of a speed square can be used to provide a uniform gap between planks. This is very useful when building a deck.

I didn't follow my own advice, centered this gap on the back of the top and bottom shelves, and attached the middle slats before laying out the remaining boards. Since this bookshelf is 2 inches narrower than my last, I need to run the backing without intentional gaps - they must sit tight to avoid ripping down the plank on each outside edge. Good that I caught it when I did - I only had to remove four screws and attach the two boards again with no gap. After the two center boards are on, check the four inside corners for squareness with the speed square. Rack the frame as needed when you attach the third and fourth slats.

Based on the quality of the upcycled wood at my disposal, I decided painting was the best option. I started with a greyish base coat. It was much lighter than it appears in the Goop below.

The base coat is shown in progress. The shelves had previously been hit once with watered down white left over from painting another project earlier.

This is about all I can show of the painting process - don't want to give away my secrets! But seriously, have fun with it, experiment, don't be afraid to take risks. If you don't like the result, you can just paint over it.

Between here and the finished product:
*watery spray (purple gray)
*brush-out
*air spray disturbance
*back spray through the gaps
*heavy orbital sanding
*clear coats

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WARNING: Imminent Departure

Not only am I leaving the country (sort of) on a top secret mission involving snorkeling, I have also left the realm of wood and woodworking for this post.

This is ostensibly the original custom motorcycle 'Black Death 3' from the epically bad Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man starring Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson, albeit in an aged and distressed condition.  While the 1991 flop is considered by some to be a cult classic, it only caught my attention in Middle School for one reason: The Marlboro Man (Don Johnson) defeats the bad-guy by virtue of the fact that his cowboy boots are held together with duct tape.  So yeah, I only remember the ending.  The heavily modified 1989 Harley Davidson FXR however, is indisputably a cult classic in its own right.

Many bike enthusiasts want to feel like they own this bike so there have been a lot of working replicas created over the years, fan-made like the one pictured above, for sale by independents at bike shows, and commercially licensed with the lettering reading "BLACK DEATH MOTORCYCLES."  The latter were sanctioned by Mickey Rourke himself, who is a long time cycle enthusiast and serious rider with rumored ties to the Hell's Angels.

My friend Jay in Tennessee is building one now for a bike show in Florida, and he approached me about doing the artwork on the gas tank.  I've never painted on a curved surface like this before so it was bound to be a challenge.  After a lot of figuring and discussing our ways and means, we agreed that he would supply the tank with rough blocking and I would work from there.

Here the tank is detached from the mommy bike and begins its young affection for washing machines.  This is how I received the tank.  There were problems at the sign shop where he had his stencil made and the font is really not adequate.  But I don't back down from a challenge, even when it needs to go from that to this:

This is a screencap from the movie, so I'm just waiting for the MGM goons to come and break my kneecaps tomorrow.

I started with the yellow outlines to begin correcting the proportions of the lettering, and then painted in the white linework over light pencil in the center of each letter.  Comparing this to the original it is very clear that there should be a lot more space inside the letters.  Also, the basic shape of some of the letters is just too far off to pass, so I use the yellow to morph them as much as I can.

The layout and spacing were actually well-done, but Norm assumed I would be working inward, when in fact I plan on moving outward. This presents a major problem; above you can see how tight my spacing is already and I still have a black outline to apply as well.  Again, I use the yellow to smush things around as needed.

It's starting to get chunkier and take on the form of the original, and I'm ready for the black to bring it on home.  It goes on smooth but I need to do a lot of touching up and then make the outline super-thick for that final punch.  I'll be using marker for a lot of that and it doesn't flow well over tacky enamel.  As expected, the 72 hour window is a bit of a crunch . . . while I wait for everything to dry it's time to move on to the centerpiece. I start by penciling it in:

The initials painted on BD3 are rumored to be deceased individuals connected to Mickey and/or Hell's Angels.  Conventional wisdom says to alter them and also not to use those of anyone still living.  This is why family got some phone calls asking for the given names of some Great-grandparents who died while I was young or in-utero.  With penciling complete, I can go from primarily using One Shot enamel professional sign paint to a high-grade paint marker for detailing and touch-ups.

TIP1: you can shave down the tip of a marker for a finer point but it will wear down pretty quickly and as you whittle away you may end up with no tip at all.  TIP2: Tips on refillable paint markers are removable, making it much easier to shape them as desired.  TIP3: If you can't find the handle to your big fat #2 Xacto blades, and you are forced to push a blade down with your index finger, be sure that the blade edge points down, not up, or you may slice into the tip of your finger:

That was grand.  At least I didn't get blood on the tank.  We don't need doctors — Richard Gurley Drew invented adhesive tape in 1923 (no offense, Mom).

So it's really close to finished as pictured here.  I think after this I did another round of touch-ups and made the black outlines even thicker.  Norm should be sending nice high-res images soon, and at some point a few pics of the final product, of which I am but a crumb.

The jokers were fun.  Here they are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.3x life-sized.


Rest In Peace
9♦John and Jean Runyon
8♥Frank Deegan
8♣Bessie-Mae Runyon
8♦Jack Hess
8♠Dorothy Hess
A♦Joe Strummer
A♥You (we all go some time)
A♠John R. Cash

Nicholas Eilenfield