A Successful Weekend & a Half project

[gdatomic]

Just finished a bookshelf for my wife. Great project that I completed pretty quickly. Last bookshelf I built took 2 or 3 weekends and sat in the garage for a year before I got it finished.

This time, I built it in under 2 days. Stained it on the 3rd weekend day. Finished it this weekend with a couple of 1.5 hour sessions.

https://kregjig.ning.com/photo/album/show?id=2900167%3AAlbum%3A4676...

This was my first dark, dark stain project. Very satisfied with the results. Some points...

...Tailored it to fit the space we had. Picked a height that's not typical in the stores.

...Got to pick my wood (Birch plywood and Poplar facing).

...Second time I've ripped my own plywood sheets. Used a Festool TS55 saw and did the ripping without an assistant. Nice.

...The usual quality from Kreg. Joints are tight.

...Built this one with careful look at their bookshelf instructions to see the order for assembly. Helped tremendously. I highly recommend following their instructions.

...Joe from my local Rockler helped me figure out how to stain. Used an Oil Gel Stain and Enduro-Var to finish.

...My wife suggested that dark things usually look better in gloss. So we returned the Satin finish and switched to Gloss. Very pleased with that choice (for our aesthetics).

...Had to put the Oil Gel on thick. hard to figure out how much to brush it/work it. Much brushing and it takes too much off.

[Darrell Jones]

Looks very nice!!! Love the finish!!!