Having planned what you are going to build and where you are going to put it, the next step is to familiarize yourself with general construction methods for finish carpentry.

First make sure you have finalized your design. Not only will this affect the type and amount of material you need to order it may change the sequence in which you do the work. With plans in hand, you are ready to decide how to proceed. Check that you have all the necessary tools; familiarize yourself with techniques; and choose an applicable finish.

Making furniture is a particularly rewarding project if the job goes smoothly and the results warrant the effort.

An unusual system is created by lining the walls with redwood boards, allowing deep grooves at regular intervals. Cleats, attached to the backs of the redwood boxes, drop into these grooves.

Materials

Bookcases, cabinets, shelves, and doors can be constructed from a variety of materials, including metal, plastic, and glass, but wood and wood products are by far the most versatile and most commonly used.

Wood

There are four basic choices of wood: softwood, hardwood, plywood, and particleboard (also called chipboard). Each has advantages and disadvantages. Your choice should be based on the requirements of your project, your bud get, and your skills.

Visit a local lumberyard, see the stock carried, poke around, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. The more you look at the different types of wood, touch them, and learn about them, the more comfortable you will feel when making a selection.

The availability of particular woods varies greatly from area to area, so a trip to a nearby lumberyard is the best way to assess your choices.

Softwood

This is lumber from coniferous trees and includes pine, fir, redwood, hem lock, cedar, and spruce. It is generally easier to work with and less expensive than hardwood.

Hardwood

Hardwood comes from deciduous trees, the broad-leafed types that lose their leaves in the winter: oak, birch, cherry, maple, and walnut. Despite the name, the wood is not always hard. Basswood, or linden, is a hard wood, and so is balsa wood, which is extremely soft.

Hardwoods are generally harder in at least two respects: They are harder to work with and harder to find. They also tend to be expensive. Carpenters, however, prize them for their handsome colors and grains, their strength, and their durability. Hard woods can be finely and precisely worked and take finishes very well.

Plywood

Plywood is a manufactured product. A special saw shaves the wood from the log in a continuous sheet, which looks somewhat like a roll of paper towels unfurling from its cardboard core. The thin sheets, or plies, are glued together face-to-face, under pressure, with the grain running in alternate directions. This gives ply wood considerable strength and resistance to warping. These features, along with relatively low cost, make plywood a widely used material.

You can buy both softwood and hardwood plywoods. Softwood plywoods, most often made of Douglas fir, are usually softwood throughout. Hardwood plywoods are likely to have softwood or particleboard cores and only the outermost plies made of hardwood.

Thin sheets of plywood, usually 1/8-inch to ¼ inch thick, are commonly used as back panels on cases. The thinnest plywood available is known as door skin. It is available in 13 by 7 sheets with a birch veneer on one side and mahogany on the other. Sounds expensive, but a door skin costs only about five dollars.

Particleboard

This material, also called chipboard, is created by combining wood fibers and particles with glue and pressing the mixture into panels. The result is a hard, heavy, inexpensive material. It does not look like wood and is most suitable for projects where cost and durability are more important than appearance.

Particleboard can be difficult to work with because it resists nails and screws and dulls blades. Choose the denser industrial grade rather than the type intended for subflooring.

Amount needed

Once you’ve decided on the type of wood you want to use, you must figure out how much to buy. There are detailed materials lists for the projects in this guide, but if you’re changing the given dimensions or designing your own project, you’ll have to estimate the quantities needed for the design.

First sketch out the design. Draw the front view, side view, perhaps top and back views, and indicate the dimensions. Do this on graph paper so that it can be drawn to scale. Make a list showing each piece of wood needed, its place in the construction (side wall, shelf, etc.), and its measurements. Then summarize the list so that you know how many pieces of each size you’ll need to purchase. (Carpenters sometimes call this list a stock bill.)

As you compute the dimensions of the project, don’t forget to allow for the dimensions of the lumber. Sup pose, for instance, that the bookcase is 36 inches wide, with sides made out of 2 by 12 boards and shelves that butt or are supported on cleats. In this example, the shelves are only 33 inches long—a difference of 3 rather than 4 inches because a 2 by 12 is actually only 1½-inches thick. Adjustable shelves should be 1/8-inch shorter so that they are easier to set in place. On the other hand, dadoed shelves (shelves mounted in grooves cut across the side panels) need to be longer. The length depends on the depth of the grooves.

When you know what you need, figure out the most efficient way to buy the correct amount of wood. If you’re using lumber, this is fairly easy. You’ll want so many boards of this length and so many of that length. Realize, though, that it might work out more economically to buy a longer or wider board and cut smaller pieces from it.

Plywood and particleboard are usually sold in 4 by 8 sheets. Sketch out those dimensions to scale on graph paper. Figure out how you can lay out the pieces to make the best use of the sheet. Remember to allow a small amount for the kerf (the wood that is lost due to the saw cut).

Making a layout is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle; the aim is to make as few cuts as possible and keep waste to a minimum. Try to plan your layout so that leftovers are in one big piece rather than many small scraps. This way there will be material on hand for the next project.

If you are intending to use a clear finish on the project, consider the direction of the grain as you plan the layout. Shelves look much better if they are cut so that the grain always runs in the same direction.

Allow a little extra wood for mis takes. Even professionals make them, and it is a nuisance to have to return to the lumberyard for more material.

Wood grades

Methods for grading wood products are complex. Grading symbols vary according to the type of wood graded, whether it is hardwood, soft wood, or plywood, and the symbols aren’t always standardized, even within a category.

When picking boards or sheets for a case, trust your eye. If you look carefully, you will be able to pick the right grade. If you don’t trust your own judgment, ask for help. Tell the salesperson exactly what you are planning to make.

Grades of wood are a measure of the allowable defects. Boards should have as few defects as possible, al though there is some latitude. For instance, knots may be acceptable if you plan to paint your case and are willing to do the filling and sanding needed to overcome any oiliness and rough texture. It is possible that you might like the look of knotty wood. You might also be less concerned about flaws that will be hidden from view when your case is full.

Wood that is used in general construction, such as 2 by 4s and other dimensional lumber, is often sold green. It will shrink as it dries.

For your projects, however, you will want to purchase wood that has already been dried. This is called kiln-dried, KD, or seasoned wood, and it is always stored indoors at the lumberyard, although not always in a heated area.

If you aren’t sure whether the wood you are selecting will be suit able for cabinetry, ask the salesperson before buying it.

Doors can be finished in any number of ways ranging from staining to laminating to painting. This unusual treatment combines rough- sawn plywood with high-gloss enamel. The result is a sleek but highly textured look Because the plywood is finished with polyurethane, doors can be brushed clean.

Materials chart:

Wood defects

When selecting lengths of wood, check them carefully to be sure there are none of the following defects.

Knots. These dense spots, usually darker than the surrounding wood, form where a branch grows from the trunk of the tree. A tight knot might only affect appearance, but loose knots and knotholes weaken the board structurally. Avoid too many knots. Wood that is free of knots is called clear.

Checks. These are small cracks in the board that run across the annual growth rings of the tree.

Splits. Splits, a more serious version of checks, extend all the way through the board.

Shakes. This term refers to separations, where layers of wood are beginning to peel apart between the growth rings.

Wanes. Sometimes the edges of a board aren’t square and look angled or beveled. This generally means that the board was cut from the outside part of the tree; occasionally bark still runs along the wane.

Cups, twists, crooks, and bows. These are the result of different types of warping, usually caused by improper drying. Always avoid boards with these defects.

Pitch pockets. A pitch pocket is a resin-filled cavity found in some soft-woods. Often the resin, or pitch, continues to ooze. Boards laden with pitch are heavy and tend to split.

Color and grain

The color of wood varies according to the species of the tree from which it comes. Hardwoods and softwoods are found in a full range of colors, and no one wood is inherently better than another. Choose whatever pleases you, keeping in mind the finish that you plan to use on the wood. Some woods display dramatic grain patterns after a finish is applied—patterns that are almost unnoticeable on the raw wood.

Grain is the pattern made by the annual growth rings of the tree. It varies depending on the species and on how the particular board was cut.

Flat-grain boards are milled so that the grain runs parallel to the face of the board. These boards are more common because many can be cut from the log. On vertical-grain boards, the grain runs perpendicular to the face.

Although flat-grain cuts sometimes yield a dramatic, swirly pattern, the boards are more prone to shrink and are not as strong as vertical-grain boards. Therefore, flat-grain boards are considered to be of lower quality.

Dimensions of lumber

Lumber is sold according to a set of dimensions known as nominal size. Nominal refers to the name that the lumber bears. For example, although a board was originally cut to 2 inches thick by 4 inches wide (and named a 2 by 4), it will be less than that Size when purchased. Due to shrinkage and variations in milling, a 2 by 4 usually measures 1½ by 3½ inches. The true dimensions are called actual size; when drawing up plans, you should be aware of the difference.

Other measuring terms you’ll come across at the lumberyard are board feet and linear feet. The linear-foot measurement is simply the length of the board.

Board feet are computed with a formula that gives the total volume of the wood. One board foot is the amount of wood that is in a piece one foot long, one foot wide, and one inch thick.

Example: A 10-foot-long 2 by 8 would be 13.34 board feet: 10 x 2 x .667 = 13.34. Board feet are only used by contractors and carpenters when ordering lumber in large quantities.

Nonstructural materials

Some materials are selected for economy (veneers), protection (plastic laminates), or decoration (moldings).

Veneers

A thin skin shaved or sliced from a log of premium wood, the veneer is glued over a particleboard, plywood, or softwood structure to give the appearance that the entire case is actually made of the veneer material. It’s also possible to use several different veneers to create a pattern on a case.

Plastic laminates

For surfaces that must stand up to wear and tear and constant cleaning, sheet laminates may be the answer. Laminates are available in a variety of colors. The two grades most useful to the do-it-yourselfer are the general-purpose grade (1/16-inch thick), and the vertical grade (half as thick and not quite as durable). If you intend to use plastic laminate on thin, unsupported panels such as cabinet doors, adhere laminate to both sides of the panel to keep it from warping due to uneven moisture absorption.

Moldings

A wide range of decorative moldings milled from softwood, usually pine, are available. Hardwood molding is also available, but it may be difficult to find much variety.

Carvings and wood castings

You may find a use for a carving, such as a newel cap atop a fancy book- case, but more likely, if you are building an elaborate piece, you will choose a wood casting. These castings can be glued to cabinet surfaces for a dramatic accent or as a decorative band of beading.

Turnings

Spindles and caps are decorative elements only used on cabinets occasionally. When they are used, they are often sliced in half lengthwise and glued to the front surface.

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Full guide: How to Plan & Build Bookcases, Cabinets & Shelves

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