Stickley Magazine Stand

Quicker Cutouts

A marking knife or chisel is the perfect tool to lay out the notches on the shelves. Assemble and clamp the case, then use the sides as a guide to mark the notches.You can save some work for yourself down the road by roughing out the shape of the cutouts at the top of each side piece before gluing up the panel. The half-moon cutouts at the top are easier to rough out before you glue up the panel.These cutouts will be routed to final shape after the panel is glued up. So to lay out the shape at the top, make plywood templates using 1/2"-thick plywood material, a compass and a ruler. See the construction drawing for details. Then cut out your shapes using a jigsaw, coping saw or band saw. Sand or rasp the edges of the pattern smooth. Take your time; little bumps will show.Put your side pieces in place on your bench and pencil in the patterns in the appropriate place. Cut out the shapes on the pieces, but don’t get too close to your lines; I’d stay about 1/8" away from your line. Now you can glue up your panels and use the lines from the patterns to help align your parts correctly during assembly.When sawing the notches, the best way to ensure your success is to begin the cut correctly. Use your thumb and index finger to guide the saw blade as you begin the cut.

With a panel of this size, I recommend you apply glue to both faces of the joint and clamp every 12″. Begin at the center of the panel and work out. Alternating clamps over and under the panel is always a good idea. When the glue is dry, rip each side to its finished width and cut the ends square. Then it’s time to rout the cutouts and shape the curves for the project.

Patterns Make Perfect
Whenever I have to make more than one tricky cutout in a project, I like to make a plywood pattern and then rout the piece to its final shape. For this project I made a pattern for the cutout at the top and the curve at the base of the sides. The pattern ensures that both cutouts will be identical, and you’ll be able to clean them up with just a bit of hand sanding. The other option is to cut the shape close and then use an oscillating spindle sander to sand to your line. If you’re a whiz with this machine then feel free. I think a router is the less risky route to a crisp execution.

Clamp the pattern to the side piece and then clamp these two pieces to your bench with the pattern sandwiched between your bench and your side piece. You’re going to need a pattern-cutting router bit for this operation, and I generally prefer the pattern-cutting bits that have the bearing on the end of the router bit. This bit reduces the amount of spinning carbide that’s exposed below the router base (always a good thing), and it allows you to more easily clamp up your work.

Pattern bits that have the bearing above the cutters generally need everything cantilevered off the end of your bench so the bit doesn’t cut into your workbench. These bits are invaluable for blind cuts (where the cut doesn’t pass through your work) but they’re not needed here.

A Bit of Hand Work

If you do not own a spokeshave with a curved sole, there are two excellent modern versions now available that I can recommend. The spokeshaves by Lie-Nielsen and Veritas will open curvaceous new worlds for you. (See the Supplies box for contact information.) I would caution you against purchasing inexpensive spokeshaves, such as those from Kunz and Anant. I have found these tools need a great deal of tuning.

Remember to work with the grain with these tools. In the case of a curve such as this, this means you should almost always work from the hill and into the valley.

The final bit of shaping is the slight radius at the top corners that is shown in the construction drawing. Lay this out with a compass, cut it close with a saw and smooth the edge with sandpaper. Start with #100 grit and progress to #220.

Routing Dados
The best way to rout the 3/4″-wide x 1/4″-deep dados in the sides is to make the T-square jig shown on page 25 of this issue. You want your dados to begin at the back of the cabinet and stop 1/4″ in from the front edge. To do this operation consistently six times, I recommend you screw or nail a stop to your T-square jig that will halt the router at the correct place every time. This takes a couple extra minutes of work, but it prevents a careless slip of the hand.

Make each dado in two passes with your plunge router and a 3/4″-diameter straight bit: First with the bit set to about 1/8″ and then with the bit sent to 1/4″ below the base of the tool. As always with this tool, move the router swiftly and smoothly for the best results.

Notching the Shelves
Now you need to fit each shelf piece into its dado. If you planed your lumber accurately, it should fit snugly into the dado. If it’s a little tight you can either hand plane the shelf to fit, which is my usual method, or carefully send it through your planer for one more light pass – a risky operation. If you overshoot and make the shelf too thin, you can tighten up the dado by gluing a strip of veneer in the dado and fit the shelf again.

Once your shelves fit in your dados, you need to fit the front edges around the rounded routed-out section where each dado terminates. While you could chisel the end of the dado square, any error will show as an ugly gap at the front edge of your shelf. The better option is to saw a notch in each shelf and clean the notch up with a chisel. With a shop-made chiseling guide, your success is almost guaranteed.

The first step is to lay out the 1/4″ x 1/2″ notches so that the shelves will fit into the dados and sit back 1/8″ in from the front edge of the sides. This setback adds another nice shadow line to the project and saves you from having to fit the shelves perfectly flush to the front edge. Lay out your lines with a marking knife and cut the notch, leaving just a sliver of waste.

You can cut this notch with a band saw, but this is an excellent opportunity to instead practice with a hand saw. Sawing to a line is a worthy skill worth developing.

A chiseling guide is a jig that takes about five minutes to fabricate and will make this paring operation a snap. It’s made using three pieces of wood: a small scrap of waste wood from the project and two scraps of thin plywood. Nail the plywood to the scrap as shown in the photo at right and clamp the chiseling guide to your shelf.

First Assembly
Now you’re almost ready to start putting the pieces together. Before you fit the stretchers and supports, plane or sand your parts so they are about ready for finishing. This is an important point. If you fit the stretchers and supports before sanding or planing, they won’t fit as snugly when you assemble the unit at the end.

Clamp up the shelves between the side pieces and stand the unit up on your bench. Now you want to do the critical fitting. Cut the lower stretchers to their final length so they fit snugly between the side pieces of your clamped-up case. Do the same thing for the two shelf supports.

You can do this fitting operation on your table saw. I, however, like to use my shop-made “shooting board.” A shooting board guides a hand plane so it trims off small increments. It’s my favorite way to sneak up on a tight fit.

Once you get the stretchers and supports fitting snugly, cut the pocket holes for the screws that attach these parts to the side pieces. Using your pocket-hole jig, bore the screw pockets on the bottom edge of each shelf support and on the inside face of the lower stretchers. These screws will add a bit of inexpensive insurance.

Dry-fit all the parts of the magazine stand on your bench. Clamp it up like you were going to glue things for real. Now glue and clamp the shelf supports and stretchers to the underside of the shelves. I really recommend you do this with the shelves clamped in place between the sides – even though you’ll have to take care and not let your glue squeeze out and onto the sides.

Once the glue has dried, you can drive all the pocket screws home. If you are building this project in oak, here’s a word of advice: Rub the threads of the screws with a bit of paraffin or beeswax before driving them. Oak is such a dense wood you can easily snap the screw heads off.

After the glue dries, remove the clamps and disassemble all the pieces. Do any final sanding or smoothing at this stage.

Finishing Decisions
Whenever I finish a shelving unit or cabinet, I like to finish it when the parts are disassembled and then glue it up after the topcoat finish is dry. This process is delayed gratification at its best.

Finishing the parts before assembly makes them easier to finish (everything is flat with no vertical surfaces), but it takes a bit more time. You have to tape off all the joints that will be glued so you don’t seal them up with the finish. However, the inconvenience is outweighed by the quality results. The inside surfaces of the project end up well finished – a mark of good construction.

Tape off all the dados and their mating edges with masking tape – I prefer the blue painter’s tape that doesn’t leave a sticky residue behind.

I recommend the finishing technique outlined in this issue on page 30. It’s an improved and faster adaptation of a version we have been refining during the last six or seven years. Once the color is dry, add two or three coats of spray lacquer. This project is small enough that a couple aerosol can of spray lacquer will do the job (though the cans are expensive; about $8 each).

Final Assembly
Once the finish is dry, glue up the case. Put glue in the dados and knock the shelves in place. Clamp everything up. Clean up any squeeze-out; it should be easy to wipe up thanks to the already-finished surfaces. Once everything is clamped and square, drive the pocket screws home. Allow the glue to cure and remove the clamps.

This is the fourth magazine stand I’ve either built or bought for our home. And it’s the only one with real backbone. The system works. WM

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Christopher Schwarz is editor of Woodworking Magazine and Popular Woodworking.