[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] It's time for another project here in the Woodsmith Shop.

Now, a bookcase can be as simple and as boring as a box with some shelves in it.

On today's episode, we're going all out and building this Greene & Greene style bookcase.

There are a lot of details to take in here and a lot of parts to savor.

So we're gonna stretch this out over two parts.

On today's episode, we're gonna build the basic case for the project.

And then next time, when we gather, we're gonna build the doors and the drawers for it.

Now, the Greene & Greene style is defined by rich, dark materials, like this mahogany, with contrasting elements like the splines and the plugs in the doors and in the case itself.

You'll also see a lot of offset surfaces and changes in profile, like the cloud-lift detail that you'll see on the door.

We've thrown in a few other details of our own, like the pebbled glass here and then the rich wood finish.

So if you're ready to get started on building an heirloom quality piece like this one, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

And now it's time to turn things over to Logan to build the case.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ This Greene & Greene style bookcase isn't your average bookcase, and the construction is an average either.

So let's take a look at it.

The Greene & Greene style features frame-and-panel construction.

But it's a little bit different than standard frame-and-panel.

We have these hardwood corner posts, and then we have a series of rails on the side panels.

Now, these rails are hardwood as well, but the panels themselves are actually gonna be mahogany plywood.

And these rails are offset from the outside edges of this corner posts.

So what that all means is we're gonna have a series of mortises and grooves in each of these legs.

And each one of those legs are gonna be slightly different than the other set that's in the back or the front.

So what this means is we're gonna have a lot of mortising and a lot of grooves to make.

So I'm gonna head over to the bench and get the mortising machine set up to start these mortises.

Now, these posts on this bookcase are gonna require a little bit of layout for the mortises.

And because each one of these legs is a little bit different than its counterpart, we need to make sure that we label them.

So what I've done here is I've labeled the end of each leg in its proper location.

So front left, front right, back left, and back right.

And then we spent a little time laying out all these mortises.

We have mortises in each of the legs for the side rails, both top, middle, and bottom, and for the front and back rails, top, middle, and bottom as well.

Now, it's important to note that these corner posts are different width and thicknesses, so they're actually rectangular.

So we need to make sure that everything stays in the proper orientation as we're cutting the mortises.

So to cut these mortises, what we're gonna do is cut them at the mortising machine.

Now a mortising machine combines the functionality, basically, of a drill press with the center auger bit and a square chisel.

So as I plunge this bit into the wood, not only is it gonna hog out the waste, but it's gonna create a square hole.

Now, a mortising machine isn't a tool that we use every day, but when we need to cut mortises in a dense hardwood, like mahogany, it's invaluable, especially when you consider picking one of these up on the used market can be done fairly inexpensively, and when you're not using it, the small size stashes away pretty easily.

So now we have these all laid out, I can go ahead and set the fence.

And we're gonna reference off of the outside face.

And this fence sets the position of the workpiece in relation to the bit.

So we'll go ahead and bring the bit down.

There we go.

Now we'll lock the fence in place.

And now the only thing left to do is to go ahead and set the bit depth.

Now we got to stop here.

There we go.

That's all the deeper the bit can go now.

So now we're ready to cut these mortises.

Let's talk about how this process is gonna go.

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna set this hold down, and that's gonna help keep the workpiece from lifting up as I retract the bit.

And I'll make a plunge down on one end of the mortise, and then I'll slide the workpiece down to the other end, and I'll define that end as well.

Then it's just a matter of stepping this bit all the way down and connecting those two end marks.

And I'm gonna do that on all of the mortises on all these legs.

But remember, because these are different dimensions, I'm gonna have to reset this up once I roll the legs to do the inside mortises.

So with our mortises done, we now have to cut some tenons to fit.

Now we have three different sized rails here.

We have a narrow top rail.

We have a little bit wider middle rail, which is actually gonna be a little bit lower down here on the leg.

And then we have a wide lower rail.

So we have to cut tenons to fit.

And to do that, I've loaded up a dado blade, and I've set the fence to create a tenon that's an inch long.

And this dado blade is set at 1/4 inch high.

That way, it's gonna produce a tenon that's gonna be 1/2 inch thick.

After cutting both faces, I'm gonna flip this up on edge and raise the blade up to create a 1/2-inch shoulder on the top and bottom of each of these pieces.

So now that our rails fit into our legs, we have to take care of adding a groove for the plywood panels.

And to do that, I've set up a 1/4-inch bit here at the router table.

Now we have to rout from mortise to mortise.

We're going from the top mortise up here all the way down to the bottom mortise.

That's because we have two different plywood panels.

We have an upper plywood panel that's a little bit longer.

Then we have this little stubby guy that will be down here on the bottom side.

So to do this, I'm gonna start with the router bit running, and I'm gonna drop this post over the bit, and I'm starting in that mortise so I'm not gonna cut anything when I drop it over there.

Then I'm gonna rout from right to left, and then I'm gonna end up hitting this middle mortise, and I'm gonna continue on until I hit the bottom mortise.

And after I have that done on all four legs, I'm gonna grab the back two legs.

And that's because, on the back two legs, we need to make room for the plywood back panels as well.

Once I have all the routing done on these corner posts, we can go ahead and take care of the rails, because, of course, if we're routing grooves in these corners for the plywood panels, we need matching grooves in the edges of the rails as well.

So I'm gonna install a rail, mark the groove location, then reset up this router fence to cut those grooves in the rails.

Once those are done, we can go ahead and head over to the table saw and cut the rabbits in the plywood panels to fit in this.

So the final thing to take care of before we assemble the site assemblies is gonna to cut a groove for the divider and the bottom of the bookshelf.

Now, these are gonna be 3/4 inch wide to hold plywood panels.

So I found the key to a successful glue up is pre-checking everything, rechecking it, making sure you have your parts, rechecking it again, and then making sure you have everything again.

So I have tested these rails.

The grooves all lined up nicely.

I've made sure that the rails that I marked to go with the respective legs are with the respective legs.

So I think, at this point, we're ready to glue this up.

So we're gonna go really gently on the glue, just a little bit in the mortise and some on the tenon.

And we're gonna start by putting these rails in one of these corner posts with legs first and then sliding all of the rails in place and then the plywood panels, capping it by the other post.

Okay, there we go.

We'll let this glue skim over for a little bit and then come back and clean up any squeeze out.

Then I'll go ahead and get this other side assembled, and then we can go ahead and start working on those front and back rails.

So the front and back rails follow a similar path that we did for the side rails.

First, they get a tenon cut on the ends.

After the tenon's cut and everything fitting, we need to also rout grooves for the back panels.

So these are just gonna be in those back rails.

The fronts don't get the grooves.

Now the only thing we have left to do is create a rabbit in them, and this is a little bit different than we did in the side rails.

The rabbit is gonna be in the middle and lower rails and those are gonna be to hold the plywood dividers that we'll add in a little bit.

So I've set up a dado blade.

It's sized for the plywood panels once again.

And here I'm just going to run the workpiece up along this auxiliary fence and cut that rabbit.

The final parts to our case are gonna be a pair of plywood panels.

These plywood panels are gonna form the bottom and top of the drawer cubby that we'll fill out later.

Now, these are simple plywood panels, but we do want to divide up that drawer cubby into two separate areas.

So we've got dado down the center here, and that's gonna accept another plywood panel that's gonna act like a divider.

Once this is all glued up, we'll add some hardwood edging to cover up that plywood edge.

Now, to wrap these plywood panels around these corner posts, I went ahead and cut notches in them.

These notches are gonna wrap around the corners, but to really clean up the look, I did spend a little bit of time with the chisel.

And what I did with the chisel is I continued that groove that we cut in those side rails around the corner of those corner posts, and that is gonna tuck that notch right in there, and it's gonna give it a really good, clean look once everything's assembled.

So now at this point, we can start gluing everything up, but we do have an order of operations here.

First, we're gonna install these plywood panels.

We're gonna slip them into the grooves, tuck them into those corner posts, and then we're gonna put that panel in place.

And I will apply just a little bit of glue to kind of tack these in place.

And then it's a simple matter of working down the front and back rails.

We'll apply glue to the tenons, drive them home, and go to the next one.

Once we have this one side done, I flip those plywood backs in place, and then I'll step onto a step stool to go ahead and apply glue to those top tenons and then apply to the other side.

There we go.

So now we're just gonna go ahead and let this case dry.

And once it is cured, it's off to Chris for some ebony accents.

Well, with the case done, it's time for us to move on to one of the details that makes Greene & Greene furniture so very interesting, so very endearing, and so much fun to build.

And that is it's time for us to start dealing with the ebony details.

Now there are going to be inserts in the pulls, door handles, And what there's going to be mostly is small, 3/8x3/8 domed plugs that are placed around the joinery of the case, doors, and so forth.

There's a lot of them.

The case has 26 individual ebony plugs, 3/8x3/8 by about 1/4-inch long.

So we need to have a system to make all those plugs so that they're uniform and so that they look great.

What I've got here is a piece of 3/8x3/8 Madagascar ebony.

The first thing that I'm going to do is use some sandpaper.

And I want to gently sand the end.

Now, I've got 80-grit, I've got some 150, and I have 220.

So what I want is to get all the saw marks off of the end.

Once that's done, I'm gonna come over here to my 80-grit paper... ...and I'm gonna make two strokes on either edge... ...while I pivot the blank.

And what that's going to do is gently round over the edge.

And what I don't want is a tight pyramid, but I don't want a simple radius.

It needs to be a little bit in-between -- more like a thumbnail.

Now I'm gonna move over to the 150-grit paper and do the exact same thing again.

With that done, I can then take a piece of 220 hand sandpaper, and I just want to gently round over everything and take out any of the rougher sanding marks that have been left in our plug.

There we go.

So what I want is a nice, soft appearance.

Now, to cut these to length, it's best that we do this by hand.

If you tried to cut something this small using a power equipment, it's gonna be dangerous, and these plugs are gonna end up all over your workshop, and probably most of them shattered.

So what I have here -- this is an old ShopNotes project.

It's a miter box, and it's meant to use a Japanese pull saw.

And I love these Japanese pull saws because the teeth are so fine.

It really works fantastic for cutting small parts.

I have a stop block inserted, and so I'll butt the end of my blank firmly against the stop block, get my saw into the curve.

And there we go -- a 3/8x3/8x.25-long ebony accent for the Greene & Greene piece.

Now all I need to do is make 26 of these, and then I'll be ready to start plugging the holes in the case.

Well, now that we've created all those little ebony plugs, it's time for us to create some square holes for them to fit into.

Now there's a process to it, and it starts with some careful layout 'cause we need to make sure that we position these plugs in the exact spot.

There's a lot of them, and they need to line up, and they need to look good.

So what I've done first is I've gone ahead and measured from the top and the bottom of each of these rails.

And I've got a layout line to place the hole vertically.

To place the hole from front to back, I'm gonna rely on a drilling guide.

Now, you don't have to use a guide, but it's awfully handy.

So what I have here is a drilling guide that's gonna keep my drill bit perpendicular to the surface.

I've got a fence, which will bring it in exactly 1 1/8 inch.

I'm using a 5/16 Forstner bit.

Now, it's a 3/8 square plug that we have to fit, but I want to make sure that my clearance hole is a little bit less.

So I'm just gonna line things up.

I have a stop because I need to make sure that the holes are of consistent depth.

One of the things that's going to be important is that each of these plug seats at about the same depth.

If one is flush and one is high, it's gonna show.

So that consistency is important.

With the holes drilled.

What we want to do now is go from that round hole to a square hole.

And to do that, I'm gonna use this as an aid.

This is a part of a mortising drill bit from a mortising machine.

Now, there are special 4-sided chisels made specifically for this type of work.

But I'm gonna go ahead and use part of this mortising drill bit, and that'll work just fine because it does have four sides.

They're all sharpened, and it does a great job.

One of the challenges, though, is to make sure that my chisel here is going to be parallel to the back of the case or the front, and I don't want it to tilt.

So what I'm going to do is I've made a simple jig here to lean it up against, and it'll really help me out.

So I'll go ahead and clamp this little block in place.

I'm going to line up this chisel exactly with the hole, take a wooden mallet... ...and there we go.

As you can see, I now have a square-sided hole.

I still need to clean it out, but I've got good, square sides to guide me along during the process.

So I'm just going to use a quarter inch chisel and clean out each of these.

[ Blows ] And there we go.

Next thing, I want to make sure I send off my layout lines 'cause it's a little easier to do it now than later.

Well, now it's time to insert the two ebony plugs into these two holes.

I'm gonna put a little drop of glue on the back of each plug.

It doesn't take much.

Just a tiny bit.

I'll lay the plug over the whole, and I'll gently tap it in.

Well, there we are.

There's our first four ebony plugs.

So that only leaves 54 more to go.

Well, with all the ebony plugs in place on the case, it's time to turn our attention to the top.

The top consists of one large, solid-wood panel, but the ends are capped with a breadboard end.

From there, there's more ebony accents which will be applied.

But for right now, let's deal with the breadboard ends.

Two tasks -- one is, on the inside edge of each breadboard end, I need to cut a mortise, and I'm gonna go over to the router table and use a 3/8-inch straight bit, and in a couple of passes, cut a deep mortise.

Once that's done, I'll go to the table saw with this panel and begin to cut the tenon.

I wanted to cut the mortise first because that way, I can sneak up on a perfect fit using the dado blade and the table saw when creating this tenon.

One of the things that I wanted to do before we glued the top up was to deal with these ebony accents on our breadboard ends.

Now, much like the little plugs that we used earlier on the case, these are simple plugs that go into a shallow mortise.

I created these mortises on the router table, though, using the same 3/8 bit that was used to create this deep mortise.

It was just a matter of making some reference marks on my blank and reference marks on the router table so I'd know how -- so that I knew how long the length of each mortise was.

With that done, I went ahead and squared up the ends, cut plugs to fit, and, just like with the little plugs, we saw from the edges first, a little glue, cap them in place.

Another item to deal with is on the front edge of our top.

There's a long key of ebony with a slight cloud-lift pattern to it.

Now, if you'll notice, on the end of this breadboard end, I've precut a slot to accommodate that key.

And if we look at the center of our top, you'll notice that same extension of that slot.

We're not going to put that key in now.

We're gonna wait till after the glue up, and I'll explain why later.

So let's go ahead and put some glue on and get this top done.

The last little piece of ebony accent that we're gonna use on our top is the key that fits between the main solid-wood blank and the breadboard ends.

So what I've done here is I have two pencil lines, and then there's a hole that I've predrilled as a transition point.

So now I'm gonna use the band saw, and I'm gonna go ahead and cut our straight portion of the key, and then I'll take each of these keys back to the bench, clean them up with a file, some sandpaper, and they'll be ready to go into the top.

Well, as you can see, I've completed the top.

I've added these ebony keys and they extend from the center solid wood portion of our top to the breadboard ends.

Now, interestingly enough, they're only glued to the center panel.

And that way, as it expands and contracts, it will actually float in and out of this slot that we've put on the end of the breadboard end, and that will keep things looking good for years to come.

So the top is screwed down.

The case is complete.

We're ready to move on to doors and drawers.

As you could see, there's a lot of detail that goes into a bookcase project, much less one that's gonna be as impressive as this.

That's why we're splitting it up into two parts.

On the second part, we'll tackle the stuff that really makes this project stand out -- the drawers for the bottom and the two doors up top.

There's a lot to cover there, too, if you're ready to get started and build along with us, you can still do so.

Plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

Once you've got a good start on it, we'll join right back here in the Woodsmith Shop.

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Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪