DIY Corner Shelves

So in this instructable I am going to show you how you can make corner shelves.It is a great project if you want to utilise the waste space in your room in a decorative manner. There are lots of ways by which you can utilise that space and that's why I decided to make corner shelves. The complete build is made by three quarter inch thick sheet of ply and for the decoration I use laminates but have different shades one is dark and other is light. I really love the contrast both the shelves and really enjoyed the build. First time I cut circular shape onto my table saw, initially I am terrified of getting a kickback and to avoid that I go slow and steady. Overall the project is very simple to build and the end result seems to be quiet elegant and very useful for decorating rooms. if you like this build then make sure to leave your valuable feedback in a comment section down below I am extremely happy to read your feedback

For the build the material I choose a three-quarter inch thick piece of ply. For the decorative purpose, I use 1 mm thick laminate sheet. Laminates are not necessary but they have good wear resistance and since they came in different colour and designs I go for laminate instead of paint or some other thing. The entire piece can be easily built with MDF as well but I think compare two plywood MDF has less thread holding capabilities so that's why I always avoid using MDF in shelves or some other projects. One major point is that MDF has very smooth finish compare to ply so that's why in my laminate projects I always prefer plywood rather than MDF. Also, it has better glue holding capability.

1. ¾” thick ply

2. Laminate sheet

3. Wood glue

4. Masking tape

Tools used:-

For the tools you don't need too many tools, you can make this entire build only with the table saw but more the option you have the better it would be. Following are the list of tools are used to build these shelves:-

1. Circular saw

2. Table saw

3. Jigsaw

4. Trimmer

5. Block plane

6. Drill machine

7. Orbital sander

8. Clamps

I think if you are building shelves it is good to use scrap piece if you have in your shop. I think it's a good way to utilise those pieces in a more useful way. so you can build wide variety of design in corner shelves. You can made them in decreasing order of the shelf size which I made two years ago, you can also go weather straight square design rather than these circular design or you can also go with a big radius like a quarter of a circle. But I like this one most so I go with that. Since I have a big sheet of plywood so before proceeding to the table saw I decided to rip down the pieces to the manageable size so that I can finished them onto my table saw. The dimension of my squares are 11 inches and radius of the fillet is 5 ½”. For the aesthetic purpose I cut down top and bottom of the shelf slightly smaller.

Cutting round shape is a little challenging task for me because I never do that on a table saw. Although I can do this with the help of jigsaw, I think I am not able to attain clean cut with that process. To cut it with the table saw I clamped a piece of scrap wood onto my table saw and screwed the peace onto that and make sure that the screwing distance is equal to the radius of fillet you are going to make on your shelves. The script as a pivot point for that shelf and by slowly raising the blade and turning the ply piece back and forth I able to cut the circular shape onto the shelf piece. After cutting down the peace the as looks straight as I wanted to be but it has some rough edges so to remove then I use my orbital Sander with 120 grit sanding disc onto it and sand down the area so that it would be easy for the trim router to follow the profile of the master shelf. I also sanded off rest of the sides as well so the all sides are nice and smooth and able to guide the timmer flush trim bit.

Since my master shelf is ready and I am using this to transfer the fillet onto the rest of the shelf pieces. My corner shelf has 5 shelves onto it and I am going to build two of them that's why I have to fill up 10 pieces. With the help of my Masterpiece I trace the design and then cut it roughly with the help of jigsaw. At this stage there would no need to follow the lines too much precisely. Once all the pieces are cut down with the jigsaw I use my master and screwed it to the shelf piece by matching its corners. I use two screws into the shelf so that during trimming process it will not rotate. If you don't have a trimmer or router you need to follow the lines precisely and then sanded off rest of the rough edges with the sander, the disadvantage of this process is that you are not able to get a straight edge with the help of Sander although a disc Sander will do the work quite well. I also rounded off top and the bottom portion of the shelves as well. To do that I use 2 ½” diameter circle which I cut with the help of hole saw and screwed it to the shelf piece and then use the trimmer to remove that square edge. You can use a jigsaw to remove most of the material but I didn't do that because the material was not too much and I think my trimmer can handle this operation quite smoothly.

Once the plywood work has been finished I move on to the process of decorative work. For this I use two different colour of laminate. Both are teak wood textured laminates but have a slight variation in the Colour contrast. I decided to cut them to the size of shelf onto my table saw. Since they are leftover pieces from my previous wardrobe build and it is quite easy to work want to these sheets on to my table saw that's why I prefer that. To cut the thin sheets safely it is good to place some spacer onto the table surface so that the material will not slide underneath the fence because that might be dangerous and throw the piece towards your face. I first cut down the sheet to the larger length. Once I get the exact dimensions without shifting my fence I made cross cuts onto the laminates.instead of purchasing the edge banding from the market I decided to cut some strips with the same material because there are not too many complex curves and the laminate itself is quite flexible to follow that big curve without giving any trouble. I cut down the laminate pieces and the strips fraction of millimetre more than the required dimensions so that if the slightly shift during the growing process that shifting will not create any trouble in the final outcomes.

For glueing the laminate pieces I use regular wood glue although there is a special adhesive called contact cement available in the market which is specially used for the laminates but I get the same result with the normal wood glue. I spread the Glue on to the pieces and then place the laminate piece over it and then clamped it with the help of masking tape so that it will no move during the clamping process. That is slight disadvantage of wood glue, but I saw that some people use salt to avoid that material shifting during the clamping process.The same thing has been done for the curved pieces as well. I did not cut that curve in the laminate before the glueing process, because it would be easy to cut it once the piece has been glued permanently because there are less chances of material shifting. I also cut down the strips to the required dimensions. Then with the help of flush trim router bit, I trim down the excess portion flush to the sides. I finalize the cleaning process with the help of block plane. Once the cleaning process of the laminate has been finished I move on to the process of glueing the edge bending. I cut down the edge banding to the required length and then spread the Glue on to the edge and place the strip onto the edge and clamped it with the help of masking tape. Once the glue has been cured whole night I remove the tape and clean off the excess material with the help of trimmer and flush trim bit.

To assemble these pieces I lay all of them onto the table in the required manner. Then I marked the hole locations and drilled out the holes in the group so that the hole location will easily matched up. This predrilled operation also prevent the method of splitting the ply. Instead of drilling the holes onto the visible side you can use pocket holes and join these pieces together that will make the process cleaner. Says I did not have that jig so I drilled them from the visible side. But it will not ruin the build at all. Make sure to measure the distance and then drilled the countersunk holes. The equally spaced holes make the build cleaner.

The final output is in front of you and ready to showcase your artwork and artefacts onto it.if you have any suggestions for this build that make sure to leave that in the comment section down below.