Finishing Bookcases

[Scott Linn]

I have built a pair of bookcases/cabinets for my living room out of red oak and oak plywood. I used my KREG pocket hole jig to join the faceframe pieces and then applied it to my plywood carcass. The plywood stood just a fraction of an inch proud of the face frame in a couple of places and when I sanded it flush, I went a little too deep and sanded away a bit of the veneer. My plan was to finish my bookcases in a Minwax stain that would match my hardwood floors.

My question: Will these areas stick out like a sore thumb and does anyone have any advice or 'tricks of the trade' on fixing this problem.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Scott

I hate making mistakes this late in the game!

[WillR]

Now _I_ have never made this mistake, but _if_ I had, I would use inlay strips... and other tricks --- errrr methods --- to hide any such errors. Just a thought...

A Router can make a nice even groove or dado to lay in a carefully machined piece of Walnut inlay strip.

I design my stuff for inlay though -- unlike you guys who make mistakes.

I assure you the Walnut strip in the keyboard tray was the original design spec. really...

in a bridge...????

Gel stain if you don't like inlay... It will lay on top and obscure mistakes -- and the wood grain. So you may not like the idea...

Yes they will stick out -- at least that's what I have _heard_.

Tricks? No -- just good honest deign ideas -- see above... :-)

God luck -- you'll need it!

[Frank Ketchum]

That sucks. You will have to make a judgement call. If you decide that it needs to be repaired (ie- not concealed by finishing tricks), then you can think about applying a veneer over the plywood to conceal the damage. You can pick up oak veneer at your local woodworking store or buy it online. Good luck

Frank

[Toller]

On more than one occasion I have made veneer out by just taking a very fine cut on the TS. The hard part is making room for it. I have feathered the edges with a sander and simply glued it on over the damage, but it was in a spot where no one would see it anyhow.

[dadiOH]

They would to me ___________

I'd take a router and make a shallow cut (1/8 or so) wide enough to cover the booboo and glue in a piece of solid wood. Which will need to be planed/sanded flush.

-- dadiOH ____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06... ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at

[Pat Barber]

The best method is to cover that panel with another piece of plywood. That of course changes the entire case and would require a new face frame. You could use 1/4" ply and do it to both sides to cover the mistake and make the case "equal" in size. Make a new face frame and you are back in the game.

Scott L> I have built a pair of bookcases/cabinets for my living room out of red oak

[Tom Watson]

When you make face frames it is usually a good practice to let the solid wood stand slightly proud of the ply carcase, so that you can run a flush cutting bit to bring the solid stock level with the ply. Then you make a sanding block that is L shaped, kind of like a right angle block plane, so that you can only sand to the point where the solid hits the ply. Modern veneers are too thin to be sanded.

Since you already have sand-through, you might want to think about turning the bug into a feature.

I don't know what style your bookcases are but in the traditional sort of stuff that I've mostly done, I might try adding a molding that would cover the sand-throughs.

It could be like a backband for door casing, or it could be a piece that overlays the problem area but does not run over the front of the trim.

A small astragal shaped piece, or a thin bead and quirk with the square edge run off as a cove or taper might work.

It could even be as simple as a piece of lattice profile that coves or rounds on the edges, so as to not look too much like a Fix.

HTH

Tom Watson - WoodDorker

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)