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I will be building a bookcase in the near future, fairly simple construction (I hope) with 3 shelves.

I'm wanting to have this flush up against a wall (as you would), however the wall in question is... not great. It seems to be out of whack in all directions. It seems vertically there is a bulge midway - luckily that seems to be consistent throughout the width - and there seems to be a depression horizontally in the middle.

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The thin black lines represent a flat plane, where the red lines show the deviation from the flat plane

I have scribed simple things like worktops to walls before, but this seems a little more complex.

Are there any tricks to scribing something of this shape with verticals and horizontals to a wall?

physicsboy
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1 Answers1

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Two approaches:

  1. build a standard bookshelf and then attach trim on the vertical sides (I call them gables, but that's a regional thing) to cover the gap. If, for example your gap maxed out at 1", you'd want to have a fairly wide piece of trim (3" seems reasonable) so that the eye might be tricked into not noticing the variance. With that 1" gap, if your trim started at 1.5", then it would be screamingly obvious that the wall was out.

  2. build a bookshelf with extra depth at the back of the gables that you're willing to cut away to make a good fit with the wall. This approach hides the variance better.

Either will work, though in my opinion, the second is cleaner looking.

Once you've chosen one of the two options, scribing involves holding the bookcase temporarily plumb and then marking a cut line with a horizontal compass that's open to the largest gap. (Light colored masking tape on the gable makes it easier to see your pencil line.) If you opted to scribe the trim, then it's the trim that gets held plumb and marked. (It's handy in this instance to have the bookcase installed, as you'll have something to clamp the trim to.)

Personally, I like using a jigsaw to cut near my line, then finishing with a belt sander, but alternatives exist, such as a flap wheel on a grinder, or (if you don't value your limbs/health) freehanding the cut on a tablesaw.

Aloysius Defenestrate
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