This is a project originally done in 2018.

This is the first real piece of furniture I made, a full-size library cart as a gift for my wife.

I had recently bought a large amount of cherry. The Woodshop had a big stack of large cherry pieces from a locally cut down tree, and I bought everything they had left. I believe it was around 120 board feet. It had lots of beautiful figure, but without a lot of cracking, so ideal for fine furniture.

I had a good idea of what I wanted the cart to be like, so I didn’t look for existing designs. I wanted it to be sturdy and solid, even if it was overloaded with books. I did some rough calculations, and it should be able to handle at least 400 kg of load (900 lb).

The pieces for the ends had a nice live edge, so I wanted to preserve it. I cleaned up the bark with a pullshave, and then cleaned up the top layer with a spokeshave and a gouge. I cut the opposite side so that the live edge could be at the front of the cart, and the back a straight cut line that narrows the cart slightly towards the top.

At the top of the ends, I rounded it off with a gentle curve, and then cut a long opening following the curve to create a nice handle for pulling the cart.

Laying out the joinery in the end pieces was a bit more challenging due to the unusual shape and angle. I butted up the two pieces so that the inside was facing up, clamped them down to prevent movement, and laid everything out symmetrically from the middle.

It was slow going, and I was afraid of having issues with the markings not matching up, but fortunately everything lined up beautifully.

I decided to use through tenons for the bottom rails and the top shelf, and stopped tenons for the rest of the shelves. That way I could be sure the overall structure held with the addition of wedges to the tenons, but not adding unnecessary holes to the beautiful wood panels.

The large bottom shelf is angled back a little to keep books from sliding forward as the cart is moved. It also makes it easier to see the spines of the books. I made sure to leave a small gap at the back between the shelf and the back board so dust and dirt wouldn’t get trapped there.

I wanted to make sure the bottom of the cart could hold heavy casters, so instead of using a shelf, I made two heavy rails. The rails are 2" thick and about 4½" wide.

I added a lip to the short middle shelf, so when you push something to the shelf, there’s no chance of it falling out the back. I also added a lip to the bottom of the top shelf for added rigidity, although I expect that wasn’t really necessary. The top shelf has no lip on top of it, so it’s clear for setting large things on it, or for using it as a table for a laptop.

Thanks to the heavy rails on the bottom, I could use large brass inserts for holding bolts for the casters. I liked the idea of using the inserts to make it possible to remove or change the casters without any concern for wearing out a screw hole in wood.

Figure 9. Brass insert for bolts.

Figure 10. Heavy duty caster.

Figure 11. All the parts before assembly.

Figure 12. Gluing up the whole thing at once.

Lastly, the cart was finished using blonde shellac. After 4 coats, I sanded the surface to 600 grit, and rubbed it first with steel wool, and then with pumice and mineral spirits to give it a smooth, dull glow.

Thank you for reading.