Wood – good books on carpentry

Congratulations on building your own book case. Here are a few tips.

Get a good large framing square. This tool will help you scribe square guide lines and also can be used as a guide for your circular saw to cut nice straight and square pieces of wood.

Use tiny head, counter sunk finish screws and wood glue to secure the pieces.

Make the bottom and top horizontal pieces full width. Fit the vertical upright pieces between them. Fit the shelves between the upright pieces.

Carefully measure and scribe the bottom edge location of your horizontal shelves on the vertical uprights.

Clamp a straight guide to these lines to help align the shelves to your lines before securing them to the sides.

Drill and countersink pilot holes for your screws so you won't split your wood.

Use glue on all joints.

Install a back or at least small 90 degree triangle pieces of wood or thin plywood on the back four or any parameter corners to assure your case doesn't rack or lean sideways when loaded.

Measure twice or three times, then cut once!!!

Fill your screw holes with lightweight spackle, sand smooth, prime, paint and enjoy.

Good luck

I think the typical "you get what you pay for" rule of thumb applies for the most part. That being said, sometimes things are cheap because they are not designed to last under heavy load like drills that use plastic gears instead of metal. In these cases, assuming you only lightly use the tool, they might last for decades. Some other tools are cheap because they are just poorly made. An example of this is a tablesaw whose guide isn't accurate or that slips when used. But again, it really depends what you are doing with it. If you are just doing rough cuts, a 1/16th slip might not be a big deal for you, but for precise work, it will.

The good thing about online shopping is that many of these products have customer reviews on them where you can read about actual experiences. I suggest that you review these for the tools you are considering and come to your own conclusions. Also talk to the staff at your local tool store - they usually have good insight on this type of thing.

Always keep warranty and return policy in mind - even expensive tools can break and the warranty makes the difference between years of service or a paper weight.