Birch plywood is an often overlooked material when it comes to making fine furniture. Sure, it’s used regularly to make kitchens and it is also often used as the substrate when veneering, but it is rarer to see it openly on display elsewhere in a home. So, it was a nice change when a good client came to me and said that they would like some bookcases to be made from birch plywood. Having just moved into a new build they wanted something with a clean, modern feel that retained the pale colour of the birch and the ‘end-grain’ of the exposed plies.
The most common thickness of birch plywood is 18 mm and has 13 plies. I felt this would be too thin for the shelves – which were to carry a lot of large books – and it would also be too thin for the verticals. So, I opted to lip the shelves with plywood to give them the appearance of 36 mm shelves and additional strength. I chose to make the verticals from two 18 mm sheets laminated together – this would be both very strong and would allow a good thickness for joinery. The verticals would be further lipped on the front leading face to match the appearance of the shelves.
To satisfy our need for exposed end-grain I chose to apply a heavy round-over to all of the leading edges which lets the end-grain be seen from all directions and also makes them nice to touch. The effect also reminds me of the bound spines of books!
Floating tenons were used throughout to affix the shelves to the uprights and to locate the asymmetrically placed shelf supports. Additional screws were used to pull the sides together and the screw holes were then plugged with (carefully aligned) end-grain plywood plugs.
Each bookcase was 1000 x 2400 x 300 mm and they are finished with Osmo White Tint to ensure that the pale birch colouring is retained.
“Great Egret” bookcases by Chapelhill Fine Furniture
