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Maximum length of wood on the bench?

A

Andy Kev.

Nordic Pine
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My bench is 6' long. I want to build a tallish bookcase which in an ideal world would probably be about 7' tall. I've never planed a piece of wood which is longer than my bench. Obviously my concern is achieving flatness along the full length of a board.

Could anybody who has had experience of planing longer-than-bench boards give me tips about this, please?

The bottom line for me is that if I have any doubts as to my ability to get it done, I will sacrifice height for planing accuracy and do boards with a length of 5' 11" as I could live with that if I have to.

Thanks in advance.
 
I hit this problem when I made a bed. But with the size of boards I was using, which are probably similar to what you would need for a bookcase, it wasn't difficult really. I just needed to drag the ends free to where I could fit the plane. It's not necessary to plane the whole length in a single stroke. If you have more space than me around your bench, you'll be fine.

I did a long detailed wip on the (very satisfying) project. It starts here
https://thewoodhaven2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=6588

with some long board planing on the third page. Hth.
 
I suspect I hit this sort of problem more often than a lot of people, as my bench is only 4' long. As long as you're not dealing with very thin boards that can't support their own weight, it's quite doable. My approach is to screw a piece of wood to the end of the bench to act as an off-the-end planing stop, and use a single holdfast or clamp in the back left corner of the board if needed to stop it tipping while I'm working the front right section. The board gets rotated every so often so that all areas can be worked properly. A foot or so of overhang in a 1" board (being reduced to 3/4") is no problem at all with this sort of method.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Andy, I particularly like your solution of the clamped board because that way one has a jig always available once it has been made.

The other suggestions are workable too, so again, thanks.

I'm still at the basics, i.e. designing stage. I'm starting again but this time with the determining factors i.e. the sizes of the books which will go on the shelves. That will obviously determine the distances between the shelves. I made a book case a while back which was 3' x 3' and was thinking this time about 7'h x 6'w. I'm now starting to wonder if 6' x 6' might make more sense. However, as the books are going to be the determining factor, all I know at this stage for certain is that it will be 6'w from outer edge to outer edge which means that the shelves will be a fraction less than 6'.

It will be easy if the sides are a fraction under 6' high but I will settle for between 6' and 7' if necessary. I've not bought the wood yet (probably pine), so once it is dried out, I might photograph this as a WIP, assuming that anybody might be interested in something as ordinary as the building of a bookcase.
 
If you're thinking of somewhere between 6 and 7 feet, you might want to look at the height of the doorways - you have the option of making something that doesn't need to tilt to be moved into or out of the room, which can make shifting it a lot easier.

And wips are always welcome, especially for something as useful as a bookcase. I've built a few, but could have benefited from learning the details earlier.
 
That's a very good point about door heights. I know that they are 6'+ because I can get through them.

You have just provided me with a fixed design parameter. :eusa-clap:
 
Andy I am sure you that you will not forget to leave room for expansion. Books multiply in this house far quicker than we can re-home them. A bit like offcuts in the workshop.

And i agree with Andy, no matter how basic a project may be there will always be someone who will learn something about the way projects are approached and completed.
 
Andy Kev.":q6803rul said:
That's a very good point about door heights. I know that they are 6'+ because I can get through them.
Click to expand...

Usually 6'6". I know this because I'm 6'6" before I put my shoes on. bump_head.png
 
Do remember that a 6’ wide bookshelf will be carrying a lot of weight, if you don’t have another vertical support you will need to thicken up the shelves somehow. This can give you the opportunity for a bit of a design feature on the shelf edge btw.
Just mention the torsion box method of strengthening shelves.
Ian
 
Cabinetman":1mj0uas2 said:
Do remember that a 6’ wide bookshelf will be carrying a lot of weight, if you don’t have another vertical support you will need to thicken up the shelves somehow. This can give you the opportunity for a bit of a design feature on the shelf edge btw.
Just mention the torsion box method of strengthening shelves.
Ian
Click to expand...

I have actually thought of that. The Lost Art Press blog had a couple of articles on the contents of their bookshelves and I noticed supports on alternating shelves as follows:

Variant 1 e.g. bottom shelf. Two vertical pieces running back to front, each a third in from the side.

Variant 2 as above but just one piece in the middle.

Then carry on alternating the two variants. It looks OK as well. It was those pics that made me realise that a bookcase or two of the size I want would be doable.
 
Andyp":t5x6ctyr said:
Andy I am sure you that you will not forget to leave room for expansion. Books multiply in this house far quicker than we can re-home them. A bit like offcuts in the workshop.

And i agree with Andy, no matter how basic a project may be there will always be someone who will learn something about the way projects are approached and completed.
Click to expand...

I've recently been a bit ruthless with some of my books and have passed a few on to friends. I've also got some collectable first editions which might find their way to specialist bookshops. (I have a collection of Anthony Burgess first editions of which I only want to retain a couple and firsts of nearly everything Len Deighton did, so between them they might drum up a few hundred quid.)

The idea is to house all my books in two 6' x 6' shelves and the rest in the 3' x 3' one I built a while back.
 
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