 Dresser Build #1: The Main FrameMy daughters need a new dresser. My wife found one off the Ana White website that she really like so this is the one that is getting built. It is a very simple design and a fun project. Even better is the fact that I can have my son help because the joinery is much more basic. Dresser Build  Giraffe Bookcase #9: PaintingIn my last painted project (a sideboard), I used General Finishes Milk Paint, and I painted the parts before assembly. I don’t think the GF paint is durable enough for a child’s bookcase (unless I added a separate topcoat, which I wanted to avoid). I had mixed feelings about pre-painting, so I decided to skip it this time. I read several positive reviews of Benjamin Moore’s Advance paint for furniture (including two here at LumberJocks). It’s a water-based alkyd ena... Giraffe Bookcase #8: Attaching the LegsThe final woodworking step was attaching the legs to the case. As with everything else, I used dowels. The front legs were straightforward. I used my JessEm jig as usual, because both the case and legs had square front edges to use as a reference for the jig’s indexing pin. The rear legs were harder. Both sides were angled, so I couldn’t find a reference edge that worked for both the case and the legs. In the end, I drilled the case holes first, then used dowel centers t... Giraffe Bookcase #7: Gluing the CaseThe glue-up part of a project is always nerve-wracking for me, and this project was no exception. Dowel joinery helps a lot, but it doesn’t totally prevent parts from racking. There were few parallel or perpendicular parts, making it difficult to use clamps. There was also the question of sequencing—there were too many joints to glue all at once. It took me a lot of time to come up with a plan, but here it is pictorially. Basically, I glued the neck assembly in one step, then g... Giraffe Bookcase #6: Head DetailsThe giraffe’s head is one of the more complex parts of the bookcase because both it and its horns and ears are removable (the former for transport, the latter for reparability). These parts are attached with #7 1-1/4” pocket screws, and the screw holes are counterbored to hide the screw heads. Each ear is also stabilized and aligned with a pair of 1/4” dowels. (I didn’t model the dowels, but you can see where they go.) I drilled four counterbores under the top o... Giraffe Bookcase #5: Routing the TailThe giraffe’s tail is is a compound shape formed by a circle, ellipse, and trapezoid. I made a template and used it to pattern route the tail. I cut the template from 1/4” MDF, using a 1:1 scale printout from SketchUp to help with the layout. I used a jigsaw to cut out most of the template. I used a guide board for the straight sections. I cut the ellipse free-hand, getting close to the cut line. I used coarse sandpaper to fine-tune the ellipse. To ... Giraffe Bookcase #4: Cutting the LegsCutting the legs turned out to be one of the most troublesome parts of the project, and the part where I made the most mistakes. My original plan was for the legs to be 3-1/2” wide at the top, tapering to 2-1/2” at the bottom (as seen from the front of the giraffe). The thickest stock I had was 8/4, so each leg was composed of two halves. I’ve needed a tapering jig for a long time, and the angled legs gave me a reason to make the time to build one. After some research,... Giraffe Bookcase #3: Dowel JoineryAlmost every joint in the bookcase is a butt joint with four reinforcing 3/8” dowels. Before I could start drilling the dowel holes in the part faces, I had to make the angle-specific drill guide blocks I mentioned in a previous post. To do that, I used my doweling jig to drill holes all the way through the angle-specific cutoffs I had saved and squared off the opposite ends. While drilling the holes, I just had to remember to place the pointy end of the blocks against the jig’... Giraffe Bookcase #2: Cutting the Case PartsI found four good 8’ long, 12” wide, 4/4 poplar boards at the lumberyard, along with a 4’ long, 7-1/2” wide, 8/4 board for the legs. Theoretically, I should have needed only three 4/4 boards, but I knew I’d have to cut around a few knots, and I wanted some extra to deal with any mistakes. I planed the boards to 3/4” and jointed them using a table saw jig I built for a previous project. That’s when I learned that the narrowest board was less than 12... Giraffe Bookcase #1: Introduction, Design, and Prep WorkThis series of blog posts describes the design, planning, and construction of the giraffe bookcase I built for my daughter, son-in-law, and their upcoming new baby (their first, and our first grandchild). This bookcase is a replica of a discontinued commercial product, so the original design is not mine. My task was figuring out how to replicate it. From the first look, it was very apparent that I’d be making a lot of beveled crosscuts and that, aside from the legs, ears, and horn...  
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