My learning for the first week consisted mainly in selecting which wood I will use, researching ideas for the design, and budgeting the cost of the project.
I already had an idea of which wood would be best--best being simultaneously the strongest and cheapest--but I read articles and researched woodworking sites to see where the strength and cost lines intersected. I first read a simple article from SFGate that talked about types of wood to use. I knew that I did not want to use particleboard for my bookcase, so the article served as reinforcement. The main benefit from reading this article was that the author linked to a resource, The Workshop Companion, that provided tons of information about kinds of wood. I narrowed down my options from this website to alder, birch, cherry, maple, oak, and walnut. There were other exotic woods like mahogany and variations of maple and walnut that intrigued me, but ultimately the choice came down to economics. More on that later, but first I need to talk about the design. I started researching designs on Pinterest last week, and I revisited this week to see what else I could find. I learned very quickly a lesson that arises every time I use Pinterest: It is mostly a bunch of kitschy crap. This site is the apotheosis that idea. It reads like a Buzzfeed article and ends up being totally impractical and useless. The whole ordeal reminds me how I listened to The Nerdist podcast interview with Craig Ferguson this week, and how one of the most poignant subjects they discussed was the proliferation of clickbait. Everything is clickbait was their conclusion, meaning that the modalities through which we give and receive information has become purely sensational and superficial. I could go on, but I raise the point in this space because I do not want this project to be sensational or superficial. Perhaps it means going with a more conservative design, but it fosters in me the realization that I need this project to be immanent to its purpose. In other words, because I am building a piece of furniture that will store some of my most prized possessions--prized because they store the most important thing in the world to me, knowledge--going with a bookcase shaped like a coffee cup seems like a betrayal of what I want to get out of this project. So thank you to Pinterest for giving me pins and pages of what I do not want to do. Tune in next week for what I actually want to do! And now I will return to the budgeting issue. I researched a couple lumberyards I know of in San Marcos. The first is San Marcos Hardwood Lumber. The other is Saroyan Hardwoods. I am planning on visiting these yards this upcoming week to do more research into the pricing because their sites are not up-to-date. However, I did learn that I will be paying anywhere from $5.00 to $10.00 PBF (per board foot). The other measurements to keep in mind are that I want boards that are eventually 3/4" thick, which means that I will need to buy 1" boards and surface them down. I also learned this week that boards are measured in thicknesses with base 4, e.g. 1" boards are 4/4", 1.5" are 6/4", etc. (Learning the lingo of woodworking is as important as learning the language of any subject!) I am predicting that I will need 40' to 50' of wood to complete the bookshelf I have in mind. It might be more in fact, depending on if I want to go cheaper with the backboard. So my budget is probably going to be $300-500 depending on how much stain, sand paper, glue, hardware, etc. that I need. Anyways, this concludes my first week of research. I am planning to work on the design and purchasing wood this week to get things started. I will be practicing with surfacing this upcoming Saturday, and I hope to provide a video so this space is not all text! Thanks for reading. :)
3 Comments
Mercer Barrows
3/13/2016 11:32:54 pm
Chris,
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Staci Henry
3/13/2016 11:52:31 pm
Hi Chris,
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Ryan Murphy
3/14/2016 04:53:09 pm
Chris,
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