Simple Shelves

Here's how to make some real simple shelves.

Bare minimum stuff you need:

- Saw (I used Jigsaw)

- 2 boards that are the same size for sides

- 2+ boards the same size for shelves and top (numver depends on how many shelves you want)

Extra stuff:

- Stain and finish to make it look groovy

- Some extra boards the same size as the shelves to make some backing for them

- Chisel, maybe

Stuff you won't need:

-Glue, Nails, Screws, etc.

Make rectangu!ar notches on the edges of the boards, make sure both boards line up.

These are where the shelves will connect, so make a pair of notches for each shelf. Wht I did was make two perpendiculous cuts with the saw for the long sides of the notches and then knocked em out with a chisel. You can also just cut them out using the saw by basically chopping up the piece that you're trying to remove with a bunch of diagonal cuts until you can fit the sawblade to cut along the line.

At the top of the side board, cut a pair of notches for the lid of your furniture piece. These notches are at the very top of the board, so will only have 2 sides, not 3 like the others.

Cut out a big notch in the ends of each shelf/top piece so that the two prongs left will fit into the notches you made in the side pieces.

Those prongs should be exactly the same size as those notches or else the pieces will fit real loose and you'll get wobbly furniture with gaps. You want this thing to fit real tight so that you won't have to use nails or glue.

Here's a picture of how the pieces should look and how they come together. I had 5 pieces total: 3 shelves ( 1 is the top) and 2 side pieces.

If you're worried stuff will fall backwards off your shelves, just add some backing. This still doesn't need glue/nails/whatever, you just need to make it like a jigsaw puzzle piece.

What you do is cut notches into the backing pieces (which need to be as long as the shelves) so you're left with 3 prongs: one on each end to connect to the side pieces and one on the bottom to connect to the shelf.

Cut notches into the side pieces and shelf to fit the prongs into ( again, make sure it's a real close fit so everything's sturdy)

Slap the backing on.

You done, Sucka.

Now you can try out different shapes, colors, smells, or whatever else yoi wanna do.

The End.