I was going to a trade show where I have to display all the book’s I’ve written along with some vintage books from my industry that people like to see. Usually I get a mishmash of book-stands from Michael’s, but I decided to build my own this time around and play with some different techniques. I went to Lowe’s and bought the cheapest 10″ x 8′ foot board I could find with some nice lines and took it home.
I was designing-on-the-fly and the shape lent itself to the FOM logo, which would help me with some router techniques, and I though the Moai from the FOM flag might be interesting to make TWO bookshelves with TWO bases.
I opened a CAD file with the basic dimensions and played with the FOM logo and flag symbol scales to fit them to the dimensions of my book. I printed them and cut out the outlines.
I traced the Moai head onto the wood and cut it out on the bandsaw and sanded the edges on the oscillating sander I bought specifically for this project from Harbor Freight.
I used a marking knife to cut the basic FOM logo shape through the paper onto the wood, then darkened the cut lines in the wood with a marking knife. That seemed like too much work, so I printed three more copies of the logo and glued them to the remaining sides and figured I would just cut through the paper with Rumamok’s palm router with a lettering bit. An artist at Tiki Oasis told me that you should set the depth deeper than you think it should be because the Shou Sugi Ban process will lose most of the detail. I ended up setting the depth fairly shallow because this is the first time I’ve ever tried something like this and thought it would be easier. I also figured that I was just going to lightly char them, so I didn’t want it too deep.
The cut and darkened process went really well. Surprisingly well. That palm router is MUCH easier to control than my monster one. The glued paper jammed underneath the router and made it a little more difficult. Next time I’ll spend the time and do it right.
Then I cut the joinery to support the books. This was my first time using hand tools to cut joints and I definitely get why people prefer hand tools over power tools. My cuts were pretty straight, but that cheap wood is TERRIBLE to work with and the joints ended up pretty loose, but it did work. I realized that the stands were too close together and the stand would tip to one side if someone picked up a book on either side. Then one of the supports broke, so I went back to Lowes and got a 10″ by 4′ board of some higher quality wood.
The new spacing was much better to support the books and you also got a better view of them from the sides. The joints were very tight, but loosened up dramatically after the burn. I would make them too tight if I ever built another one.
I burned them with a weed torch and used a wire brush to remove the char. Everything went back together nicely.
My suitcase is 24″ corner to corner, and the supports are 28 inches long, so I cut them in half and added hinges to make them portable. Now they fit!
It turns out they are great for holding Rumamok’s Tiki Drink Library
I didn’t add any finish because I have some ideas for the FOM logo eyes and fireplace and was out time. I had to get to the show, where they worked great!
Here are the Moai shelves after 4 coats of some leftover shellac (probably garnet), a coat of satin spray lacquer, and some black bison paste wax:
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