large shelving unit question

I'm in the process of making four 4' tall by 8' wide shelving units using

3/4 veneered oak ply and pre-glued oak veneer edgebanding. All of the partitions/shelves will be permanent (and randomly spaced) so I was planning on dado cuts to aid assembly. This is in a commercial flooring showroom used to display decorative plants/vases/etc.

These units will be 8' up in the air (to the bottom) so visual critique will be minimal.

Q1: since the edgebanding is 15/16" should it be applied first, trimmed and then the dados cut? This would show the dado notch. If I apply the banding after then there is the problem of trimming across the dado either before or after the perpendicular entity is attached. More time consuming but better look which may not be a concern from a visual standpoint.

Q2: should I pre-stain/finish before assembly. Trying to spray something this large could get interesting.

TIA

Gary

Reply to
GeeDubb
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Weird!? Are you me? I just finished my second 4' tall x 8' wide bookshelf with permanent shelves dadoed into the sides using 3/4 oak veneer ply.

Since mine were for books, I used 2" wide solid wood edging. But if I were to do the edgebanding, I would apply it after the shelf was put together, sides first with each shelf banding butting up to the sides' banding. But like you said your shelves will be 8' in the air.

My wife and I have tried both ways on our shelves, and she (who does all my finishing) thinks that finishing the shelves after they were together was easier than pre-finishing. But she brushed them.

No problem. Hoped this helped.

Reply to
C.Groth

Why don't you use stopped dados so that they don't show in the front and the edgebanding doesn't cross over a joint?

Frank

Reply to
Frank Ketchum

why would spraying something (assuming HVLP; not spray cans ) 4 x8 be difficult?? Spraying small stuff is more of a pain due to the 10 seconds spraying and 10 minutes cleaning up. This type of project BEGS to be sprayed, IMHO.

can't comment on the edgebanding.

dave

GeeDubb wrote:

Reply to
Bay Area Dave

Thanks for the input. For cost reasons I'm not doing the solid wood edging. Since I just finish another cabinet that I used edgebanding on, applying after assembly, I ran into the issue of where the band crosses over the connecting shelf being wider than the side material. When trimming the band the part that crossed the shelve needed to be trimmed. It wasn't difficult, just time consuming but this cabinet was at eye level so it was more important to make it look right.

As for finishing I'll probably brush the oil stain then spray the lacquer. I've found that leaving the back off really helps prevent bounce back and sandpaper finish. I just thought it would be easier to pre-finish everything flat then assemble but I've never done anything that way before.

Again, thanks

Gary

Reply to
GeeDubb

It never crossed my mind. The problem of overlap from the banding still comes up if I apply the banding after assembly. If I pre-band then it solves a lot of my concerns though the time consumption of stopped dados and notching the mating shelving may take longer than just trimming the banding.

Thanks Frank, it's an approach I hadn't looked at.

Gary

Reply to
GeeDubb

Spraying isn't the issue. I use an airless so application is fast and furious (and now have an Accuspray 19 for small jobs). My thought was 'would it be easier to spray a bunch of flat surfaces rather than risk drips from spraying several boxed openings?' Since the stain is relatively dark, assembly of such a large project (alone) just reeks of glue not where it's supposed to be. Pre-finishing would minimize the potential for that.

But I am going to have four of these shelf units so having that much linear footage spread out might pose an entirely different can of worms.

Thanks for the input,

Gary

Reply to
GeeDubb

If you are going to use veneer edgebanding, I would apply it first then dado. If are concerned about the appearance, build the units, then apply a solid oak edging.

Preston

Reply to
Preston Andreas

With a bit of advance planning you can do the stopped dados just as fast as through dados. The notches are the type of thing that I would gang together and then cut as a block. One pass over an appropriately positioned dado blade and 10 shelves are done.

Tim Douglass

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Reply to
Tim Douglass

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