Plywood vs. hardwood for walnut bookcases

Ted Drain · 2003-12-21T06:59:47+00:00

The wife and I have moved into a new house and I've promised to turnone of the rooms into a library. The plan is to build 7 bookshelveseach of which is 30" wide, 12" deep, and 8' tall out of walnut (theroom has 10' ceilings). 4 shelves will be on one wall and 3 onanother. Keep in mind that I have a decent table saw and router tablebut no planer or jointer...The original plan was to build a case out of 3/4" walnut plywood witha 1/4" walnut plywood back. The shelves would be 3/4" walnut plywoodwith solid walnut trim piece on the front. The shelves are going tobe attached to the walls and spaced about 3" apart from each other. I'm planning on covering the 3" gap and the face of the case with asolid walnut face frame and some decorative trim.After hunting around, it looks like 3/4" sheets are going for almost$100 and 1/4" sheets for around $60. I started looking into pricingthe hardwood portion and found Advantage Lumber( which has 4/4 walnut for$3.60/bd ft and will also sell thinner pieces. That started methinking about making the whole thing out of solid wood.Plywood:Pro: fast, easy construction - no panel glue ups (I know I can dothese but w/o a jointer it could take awhile)Pro: no movement - probably not a big deal for this project though???: How will the shelves look with a 3/4" thick trim piece on thefront of the plywood? Will it match well or will there be a noticabledifference in the woods?Hardwood:Pro: it's hardwood - just feels better, cooler, etc...Pro: allows me to do interesting things with the back panel likev-notching 4" wide pieces which I think looks fantastic.Con: long, potentially difficult road to glue up all those uprightsand shelves.Con: probably more expensive - though w/ Advantage's wholesale pricesfor thin stock, this might be OK.Another option I thought of was buying 1/16" thick walnut pieces fromAdvantage ($2.50/sq ft for orders > $500) and creating my own"plywood" by attaching them to a cheaper plywood core and thenbuilding the...

Dec 21, 2003 21 Replies

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Mark & Juanita 22 years ago

Might want to keep it away from open flames though. =:-0

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Charlie Self 22 years ago

Mark & Juanita responds:

Something else I forgot. Christmas candles.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton

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