Making a whole-wall bookshelf

After watching someone use a radial arm saw on a project, my boys and I picked up an old one on Craigslist for $60. I put a dado blade in it (another $60) to cut grooves in vertical boards for a wall-sized bookshelf. Radial saws are as frightening as they are useful, so I looked for an alternative …

I bought a bunch of good quality 1x3 pine. I squared things up on my too-short 6” jointer and if you look close in the photo, I glued short segments to the long verticals. The gaps are the dimension of the plywood shelves I had in mind. Glued and air nailed. Then ran them through the table saw to clean off glue and hide the joints.

I made 10 identical verticals. For visual aesthetics and some utility, I gave the lowest shelves (a little) more height. This way, big and heavy books can go on the bottom. It also somehow appears more balanced this way. I added a space below the bottom shelf to accommodate a cold-air return.

I trimmed out the seven plywood shelves with solid pine edges so that from most angles the shelves look like solid pine shelves. Glued, nailed, sanded.

I ‘over-researched’ deflection in shelves with the approximate weight of our books. 3/4” plywood was chosen and the spans (spacing between the verticals) were carefully considered.

The shelves wouldn’t fit through the door into the room, so the assembly was on-site. Fits were tight on purpose, but I did need to do some sanding to get some shelves to fit in the grooves. Air nailed them once in place.

Finally, and it’s barely visible, I ran two boards diagonally across the back to prevent leaning. They also made it easy to find studs to fasten it to the wall for safety.