Asian Ladder Shelf

There were a few significant challenges with this project, the biggest being the bent-laminated front legs. Bent-lamination is a lot of work: building the form, cutting the laminates, etc., but adding curves to a project takes it to a whole new level.

Another challenge, a problem to solve, was reinforcing the joints between the legs and the shelves. On David Mark’s shelf, there is enough long-grain to long-grain to use just glue alone, but the grain direction on my shelves is rotated 90 degrees, giving me nothing but long-grain to end-grain. What I ended up doing is an initial assembly with glue only, followed by embedding a dowel from the leg side, using a Stanley dowel jig to drill the holes. finally, I capped the holes with decorative Wenge’ plugs.

I think that this project represents another milestone for me, in that it represents the transition from mimicking the work of a master to doing my own, original work.