Friday, March 25, 2011

The book shelf

We realized that the dry sink was not going to work to hold the kids books anymore.  It was overflowing and Kyle used it to climb on.  Katie found a stack able bear bookshelf in a Meizel Hardware catalog.  She fell in love with it.  On the same page was a similar coat rack with three different animal heads on it.  The coat rack had all the components needed for the shelves accept for the shelves.  So we ordered the coat rack and converted it and it was not all that hard.  For all the math teachers out there I had to use construction geometry to find a couple of arc centers.
Patterns from Meizel Hardware come in 30 x 36 inch sheets so when I get these patterns the first thing I do is copy them so I have a copy to destroy.  So I took it down to staples to get one blue print copy and two 11 x 17 copies of the bodies.  The 11 x 17 copies were $0.20 the blue print copy was $5!  Next time I will copy the sheet on 11 x 17's and tape them together.  It would have been a lot cheaper.  For this reason I destroy the copy and put the cut out patterns on smaller sheets so that I can copy them later for less.
The first task was to make a template of the bodies so they are all the same.  The template worked really well.  I was able to make six pieces the exact same and I can make more.  It was also nice to be able to rough cut the blanks out to reduce the work and force exerted on the router when cutting the bodies to size.
The next part was assembly.  I thought this would be a lot easier then it was.  I didn't realize there were not very many flat edges that I could measure off of to make the rails level and square.  The entire bookshelf is biscuit jointed together.  With some help from my father we figured out how to put the back rail on.
I learned children's books are narrower than I thought so some of the book have to go in a plastic bucket on a shelf.
Just for your viewing pleasure:
He likes his spaghetti-o's

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

I want it but my wife does not

In a recent publication of Meisel Hardware I found this:
  

The link is found here.  I would love to make it, but my wife says no (Room and she thinks it a waste of money). It is only 4 feet tall and 4.5 feet long and the cost of the plan and hardware are in the link.  If any one would like to pay to make it I will be happy to do so.  Do I have any sponsors for this project?