French cleat fever - bookshelves under stairs

July 10, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Successful trial in my workshop convinced me that this system will work fine for more serious applications: holding books!
In a non-rectangular space, like under stairs, custom-made shelves are the only option to fully utilise the place. Contrary to workshop shelves these needed to look good but otherwise the main principle is the same: 45-degrees cleats and shelves with supporting cleats.

As I detest MDF manufactured boards (glue with wood shavings, laminated in plastic foil) I chose to use solid wood.
- Base boards are planed pine, solid.
- Shelves will be made of glued, pine boards - ready made.
- Supports will be made from scrap marine plywood which I have a lot lying around. It’s sturdy and thick, perfect for this job.

After some trigonometry to get the dimensions I cut all lumber to size. Plywood bits were ripped on table saw and smoothed, to better accept paint and look nice. They will be highly visible after the shelves are done.

I wanted them all to line in straight columns when hanged on the wall so I took careful measurements on how to space them to support different-length shelves properly yet to align into columns. Not to mention that they must not land on electrical outlets already existing on this wall.

Initial assembly of all components and dry-fitting on the wall.

All fits well - with the exception that the wall itself is not straight! This is one reason most projects described on Internet use a sheet of thick plywood as a base for this system. Plywood-mounted base boards with cleats are then attached to the wall, covering any wall bumps & valleys with straight plywood. The whole system relies on this one prerequisite: for cleats to work they need to be mounted on flat surface.
Well, I will have to cope with that somehow. I don’t want to have yet another plywood board here. To accommodate for curly wall I make custom support spacing which will equalise uneven surface behind the cleat. More work for me but the result should be fine. With added load of books the wood will accommodate to some unevenness and the cleats will eventually interlock.

The most tedious part of the project is now: after removing and disassembling all components again I took them to my workshop for painting.

It took 3 days to paint them so that all knots are covered but the result is worth it.

Installation: first base boards, with multiple screws to distribute anticipated (heavy) load.

Sockets close to the floor required bottom baseboard to be divided into three parts. Shelf’s cleat will land just above the outlets.

Then came assembled shelves and the job is done.

Loaded with 1 ton of paper the construction shows no signs of fatigue nor makes any squickig noises so I consider this to be a success.

French cleat shelves

July 10, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I needed to organise storage in my workshop and I wanted flexibility in arranging that storage. As I demolished all cupboards and old shelves when renovating the place I had cart-blanche now to do whatever I wanted.
Instead of going for ready made solution of shelves mounted on steel rails I opted for French-cleat mounting system. Not only this is more flexible but also one can make it cheaply, at home, from cheap materials.

The whole concept is based on 45-degrees cleats which interlock with a shelf. The rest is gravitation and friction - the more load the better shelf is sitting. What not to like?

I bough pine planks and ripped them into base boards, with 45 degree bevel on top side.

Trimmed and screwed to the wall.

Then came shelves and accessory holders - each made to suit the need. Hanged on base boards they can be moved around freely without need for unscrewing anything.

That’s all what it is to it!
Costed almost nothing and since then I populated the wall with holders to accommodate most of my workshop materials.

Teak table for Tze

July 09, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Building teak coffee-table for Tze is shown here.

Coffee table for Tze

July 09, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Long, long time ago I promised to make a coffee table for my friend Tze. The story behind it is quite long but in short - I took her huge, solid teak dining table which warped in Swedish dry climate and became unusable. The aim was to make something new from it: smaller table.

It took me many months before I could finally get to this job. Now it was time!

Original table was 2x1 meter big. New table shall be 30% of that.

Having all dimensions transferred onto wood I cut out the new table top, with some margins for possible errors.

The old table was shellac-painted (I think) so no natural wood colour was exposed. I could not keep this paint - the table needed truing during which the paint would be planed away anyhow. We need to go to bare wood. So I started - first the bottom side.

Started with block plane and put chamfer on all edges, to avoid tear-out on the edge. Then came jointer plane - my beloved Mother Of All Planes, huge & heavy L-N No.8. Quite a workout it was, I had to divide this session into two days since it was very hot weather and I was sweating while working hard with the plane.

Eventually the job on bottom side was done - with smooth plane and scrapers which followed jointer plane.

Teak is a dense hardwood which dulls tools very quickly. Frequent plane sharpening was necessary.

I switched now to the top side. This job took more time - as a “service side” it needs to be as plain and smooth as possible.

Sanding came next. Started with 80-grid, to remove plane and scraper marks, moved all the way up to 320-grid.

Grain beauty is starting to show.

By the end of the day the table top was finished.

Legs: I wanted to re-use the old legs, just to cut them shorter, remove paint and adjust old anchoring blocks into my new table.
Cutting was first. I aligned them all four for a cut, with a naive hope that by doing that they all will have the same length. At least close to that, I leave final adjustments until the table is assembled.
Paint removal with scrapers.

Sanding sequence followed.

Anchoring blocks were originally made to mach specific leg. They are marked with numbers, same as legs. When I disassembled the original table these blocks were screwed and glued to the bottom. It was mostly screws which held them in place, after removal I could remove blocks just by bumping them with a mallet. Probably because of that the builder used additional steel profiles screwed to the side of legs and to tabletop. They looked odd and like added afterwards. I didn’t want to use them in my project but I realised that these same blocks with screws will not sit solid enough.
I needed a good glue which will take the load, maintain stiffness of the assembly yet be elastic to cope with table movements. And will adhere to oily, hard teak. G-Flex epoxy was formed to such requirements.

First I needed to modify the anchoring blocks a bit: clean them from old wood and make attachment surfaces a tad concave. This should enable glue to maintain some thickness, to not starve the joint while legs alignment to the table top will be kept as original - no gap.

Then I slide respective block into its leg and using mounting, double-sided tape found the exact position of each block when the leg is flush with two side faces of the table. The method worked almost fine, in one case I had to use trial&error instead as the block sat too tight in its leg to rely on the tape for unplugging it.

Exact drilling positions marked with a long screw, taking care not to move the block by any bit as it would result in misalignment.

Once screwed I could temporally attach legs to see how the table will look when assembled.

Of course - one leg was longer… I adjusted that now, it will need trimming after final assembly.

Gluing: masking, sanding, acetone cleaning and epoxy.

Squeeze-out on all sides so wetting should be even and good.

Cleaned the goo and left the assembly overnight for curing.

Oiling: I wanted to have this table satin, not glossy finished.
Started with legs - cleaned thoroughly in alcohol first.

Owatrol was applied and brushed several times to saturate wood.

Left for a while to see if parts of wood need some more oil - they would turn matt if so.

Once saturated the excess oil is wiped with clean, cotton cloth. Important that the cloth does not leave bits of cotton or hair, especially if one waits too long with wiping and Owatrol starts to cure.
After 2 hours the oil was cured, legs ready for assembly.

While epoxy was still gelling I oiled the bottom of the table. For that I wanted to try another teak-oil which I got a bottle long time ago. It prove to work fine: satin look, good spreading and did not discolour wood.

It just has one drawback: it does not smell nice after application. It’s not an ugly odour but smells a bit industrially. Fine with furniture which will stand outside - odour will probably disappear after a while. My table is meant to be indoors so I needed to use oil which also smells good.
Besides - Owatrol is easier to buy for Tze than this special mixture acquired probably somewhere in Dalarna. To keep wood in good shape it will need a sweep of oil every other year or so.

The last and most pleasant stage was to oil the table top. First cleaning with alcohol. Some more sanding with 320 if hand felt any wood “hair” sticking out after alcohol bath.