Row Boat Bookcase

Had a new baby on the way and we did her room in a sea life / nautical theme. This is the row boat shaped book case that I made for her.

The shelves are attached with biscuits to the back and provides most of the strength. I was pretty new to biscuits at the time and was impressed how strong the joints were. The sides are 2 plies of 1/4” plywood with 1/8” relief cut every 1”.

The gunwales are strips of 2×4 that I joined, planed, and ripped. My uncle had recently given me his jointer and planer so I got a bunch of 2×4s to practice with. I ripped them to 1/8” thick and used the book case as the form to glue the strips up to the right curvature.

I used a Wagner HVLP conversion gun to spray sherwin-williams pro-classic. This was the first time I did any HVLP spraying. I really struggled to get the pressures right. I was either spraying as a mist or big globs. In the end the finish looked good, but I never was happy with how it was spraying.

I used trans-tint dyes on the gunwales. I really like the versatility you can get from dyes. 1:2:64 (orange:med. brown:water) is my go-to starting point. Then cabot pecan stain. When all the finishing was done, I used clear construction adhesive to join the gunwales to the book case.