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— Christopher Schwarz
These bookcases are similar to a set I built for the June 2011 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, which has the complete plans with step photos and instruction. You can download a free SketchUp model of the bookcase here.
The Story Behind the Shelves
I’m allowed to quote myself, right? Here, then, is the backstory on these shelves. Read it before I issue myself a cease-and-desist letter.
I like to think of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library as America’s first “Bookmobile.”
When the British burned down the nation’s capitol in 1814, the inferno took with it many of the books owned by the government of our young nation. Lucky for us, Jefferson had a personal library of about 6,700 books – an astonishing accomplishment for the time.
And after some negotiations, Jefferson agreed to cede his entire library at Monticello to Congress for the sum of $23,950. The question was, how to transport 6,700 books from Virginia north to Washington, D.C., with horse-drawn wagons.
Lucky for us, Jefferson was a clever man. He stored his precious library in pine boxes that were designed specifically to travel. While it isn’t known if Jefferson designed the book boxes (or “book presses” as they are sometimes called), they do bear the mark of his cleverness.
For when the day came to transport this massive chunk of knowledge, the process was straightforward. Scrap paper was stuffed among the books to protect them, then a lid was nailed over the front of each unit and it was loaded onto a wagon and carted to Washington.
Jefferson’s collection of books (which continues to make headlines even today) was the foundation for our Library of Congress. His method for organizing his books (memory, reason and imagination) pushed us into a more modern classification system. Until that time it was common to organize books by height or color.
But What About the Boxes?
While a good deal is known about the books in Jefferson’s collection that he sold to Congress, far less is known about the stackable boxes that he used to store his library at Monticello. By examining the written records, officials at Monticello built six bookcases for the museum in 1959 that are a good guess at what would have housed Jefferson’s library (though he could have had as many as 20 of these units, if you do the math).
Since the day I started woodworking, I have been concerned about amassing information on the craft. For me, the written word enhances my personal experience in the shop, and it is a way to stay in touch with the craft while I am on the road, in bed or sitting on the couch.
As my library got out of hand sometime about 2005, I decided I needed to build something to store all my woodworking books. I also wanted something that would allow them to be easily transported when my wife and I leave our house after the kids are off to college, and we launch the next phase of our lives.
And so I became interested in Jefferson’s book boxes. I read the original letters that describe how the books were transported. I used the standard measurements for books of the day to help fill in the blanks when it came to designing the three different case sizes Jefferson describes in his correspondence.
Oh, and what was the joinery on these boxes? Who knows. Perhaps the boxes were nailed together, as there were as many as 150 individual book boxes to hold the nearly 6,700 books.
But I prefer to think that our third president, who was familiar with the principles of joinery, would insist on something more substantial. And so, despite the fact that no surviving examples of these book boxes exist, I built each of these units using through-dovetails with mitered shoulders at the corners. (Here’s a video showing how to do it.) The backs are shiplapped and nailed on to the carcases.
This approach to building a box is typical for the time, and I bet that my modern book boxes would easily survive a wagon journey from Monticello to Washington, D.C.
About This Set of Bookshelves
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more OCD (apologies to poor Brendan and Megan, who suffer my wrath when the shop’s coffee mugs are unwashed). So when faced with making a new set of these shelves, I decided to ratchet up the insanity.
At the customer’s request, all the visible boards are full-width (I hid a couple glue-ups and buried the seams below the tailboards). At my stupid brain’s request, I made the ends of the cases all one single board with the grain matched all the way up the 7’2” case. It took months (and cash) to find the right 14”-wide walnut boards.
To make it harder, I made the dovetails line up all the way up the case sides, a detail I cribbed from Jameel Abraham when he built his version of these bookcases.
Then, because that wasn’t hard enough, I made the backboards match all the way up the case. Yesterday I juggled 30 pine backboards that had to all line up or it would look like crap. Also, the way I staggered the widths of the backboards was a math equation. Let’s just agree that I made this harder than it should be.
The bookshelves are finished with shellac. The backboards are finished with two coats of super blonde shellac. The cases and plinth are finished with three coats of garnet shellac.
And now I just have to build the crate. This sucker has to go on a truck bound for Michigan at 8 a.m. Friday. This weekend, I’ll take it easy and complete a couple small projects for a customer in California. Then, on Monday, I start the most difficult and involved project so far (besides my kids). It’s a massive three-tiered campaign chest with three transit cases that store the disassembled chest components and then stack as a wardrobe.
— Christopher Schwarz
For the last two weeks I’ve been neck-deep in casework – a Monticello bookcase in walnut with pine backboards that is for a long-time customer in Michigan. I haven’t posted much about it because it’s been 10 days of the same: mark, saw, chop, pare. Then repeat until your boogers look like walnut dust (mine do).
But it has given me a lot of time to think about David Pye. Just kidding. Really. No, come back.
Instead, I have had time to think about how casework is different than making chairs. The truth is, they aren’t different. We just think they are different because – for some reason – most of us do only one or the other. Same goes with turning, carving, marquetry etc.
Both chairmaking and casework are about joining pieces of wood. You have to cut to a line. Get a few angles right. Apply a finish. And make sure the structure is sound and can survive seasonal wood movement.
Some aspects of chairmaking might seem foreign – green wood, weird angles and a few new tools. But it’s still wood. And your tools are still steel. The only real difference between the two disciplines is the fact that you think they are different. Or that you think that one is harder than the other.
I am serious, it’s all in your head.
One of the greatest privileges in my career has been to work with accomplished woodworkers all over the globe to help them transform their ideas into a magazine article or a book. The more I worked with these talented people the more I realized that picking up a new skill, such as double-bevel marquetry, is about learning a handful of techniques that aren’t obvious.
To be certain, if you want to master any aspect of the craft, then that takes years of discipline. But if you just want to build a decent chair, carve some letters or turn a bowl – you can do that. Anyone can.
— Christopher Schwarz
I made a chair sometime back that will be documented in the chair build section of my forthcoming book, “The Life & Work of John Brown.” Apart from my use of a battery-powered drill, it is pretty true to how I was taught by John Brown. I have kept this chair for the sometime, but alas it has found a fine new home close to where I live.
The hunt was on for a suitable location to photograph it for the book. Heather Birnie, the photographer, and I visited a few properties and settled on a wonderful local Welsh farmhouse. The owners already own two of my chairs and were happy to help. They also run a gin distillery at the farm, Jin Talog. I also had a trump card up my sleeve. I had been offered to borrow what is reputed to be the last chair that John Brown ever made.
This made the day a special one, as I hadn’t seen that chair since 2002. The scalloping of the comb had a memorable story behind it as we both had an adventure a year earlier where we got to see an 18th-century Welsh stick chair chair with a similar detail. JB was inspired to replicate the detail in his own way. John Brown had strangely forgotten to chamfer the ends of the legs – one had chipped whilst dragged across the floor. It was a quick fix, and I gave it a coat of wax polish. It’s a fine chair that sits well and comfortable. I felt honoured to spend a few days with his last ever chair.
Note: These are just snapshots. Heather’s beautiful photos are still being processed.
I’ve never pushed woodworking on my daughters. My shop door has always been open to my family, and I’m happy when they elect to hang out there or even help a bit. Perhaps I’m making a serious mistake, but I cannot bear to impose even the most basic skills upon them – sharpening, sawing, drilling, planing, whatever.
Though I know these skills would serve them well, I fear I would inadvertently drag them into the deepest end of my personal obsession. I know this because I have been there, gasping for breath and trying to simply tread water.
Shortly after our family moved to Arkansas in the early 1970s, my parents bought an 84-acre farm outside Hackett on Hill Top Lane. The plan was to design and build a gorgeous home with our own hands and move there, away from the city. We’d raise strawberries in the farm’s bottomland. My mom promised me I could raise goats.
The nice part about this plan was my parents bought a drafting table and a huge quantity of books on carpentry, architecture, hand tools and folkways. I was interested in all of these things and devoured everything I could about water witching, saw sharpening and Prairie-style architecture.
The miserable part of the job was the work itself. My first memory of our farm was digging post holes for the so-called “Little House,” our family’s first foray into Early Rural Hippie Architecture. The foundation was made of reclaimed telephone poles that needed to sit on footers below the frost line. So into the holes we went with tiny spades.
I know this isn’t true, but I felt like we spent almost every weekend at the farm, installing a compost toilet, nailing on decking boards, digging fence post holes, startling the local turkeys and armadillos.
Construction took years. I was probably about eight or nine years old when it began, and by the time I was in junior high we started on the “Big House.” This was an enormous structure with a greenhouse, a huge kitchen for my mom and a beautiful two-story stone chimney. The kids would have their own part of the house, separate from the adults. There would be sleeping porches and a gorgeous view of the Boston Mountains.
By this time my sisters and I were far more interested in our friends than working outside without air conditioning. We resisted every effort to drag us to the farm on the weekends. And eventually my parents relented. My dad continued to work there almost every weekend (as far as I can remember) until my parents divorced when I was 21.
Working on the farm made a deep mark on me. It compelled me to escape Arkansas for the city (I chose Chicago) and do something with my brain instead of my hands and my back. While in college, people asked me what it was like growing up in Arkansas. I would reply: “Just watch the movie ‘Mosquito Coast.’ I consider it a documentary.”
But here’s the funny thing: Three years after graduating from journalism school, I was taking a night course in furniture making. I had set up shop on our back porch in Lexington, Ky. I was reading Fine Woodworking magazine and was back to drowning myself on books on furniture, architecture and mountain craft. In 1996, I sealed my fate by taking a job with Popular Woodworking magazine.
Sometimes I don’t know if I should thank my father (now deceased) or what. It’s complicated.
So I decided to let my daughters find their own way. They know what handmade furniture is like, and they genuinely appreciate it – our house is filled with the stuff. And my shop door is still open to them if they ever decide to stick a toe into this giant lake.
But I’m just not strong enough, willful enough or obsessed enough to push them in.
— Christopher Schwarz