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I bought a house and have been slowly trying my best to fill it with furniture.
This piece was designed to match the coffee table I built a few months ago. I continue to learn after each new project.
Doing anything of quality takes skill. We grow up learning that there are some professions in this day that deserve more respect than others, and while brain surgery surely is difficult, I have gained all the respect in the world for the cabinet builders and tradesmen of the world. Both seek a quality hard to achieve. I love this community and have learned a lot about myself through it.

About the bookcase and lamp.

The bookcase is made from 3/4" baltic birch ply. I used 1/4 sheet of oak ply for the back. The bottom three shelves are of 3/4" pine ply from the box store. It is what I had on hand, but I wish I had stuck with the baltic birch throughout. The face frame is Walnut and the trim is Mahogany. I finished the case like I always do, Danish Oil.

I needed a lamp in the living room for a bit of soft light. I have always wanted to work with LED's so I ordered a roll and got to work. The lamp design is nothing fancy but was a fun project. It kept my mind occupied while I was listening to the Texas Tech vs Arkansas college football game on the radio. We got killed, all my friends who went to the game came home frustrated and with a sun burn, I came home with a lamp.

I wired the LED's to the book case as well, as seen in a couple of the pictures. The LED strip I bought is not very suitable for this and I have since taken it down. The strips are difficult to make bends with and the adhesive does not stick well with twists.

Cheers,

dy

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Comments

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I'm on the learning end of the woodworking journey as well. Nice practical project. Bookshelves are almost always a must have in any home. I really like what you did with the sides of the unit. And totally dig the lamp! How do you like using Danish Oil? I haven't tried it yet, but hear so many on here talk about it. Easy to apply? Thanks for sharing!
 

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Nice work. LED's are very bright in some applications, yours looks by the picture to be supersaturated. I have been experimenting with them the past few months and found less is better. Rather than make a bend with the strip solid try cutting them down to smaller sizes. (they usually are in sets of 3) and wire them up by soldering a few well placed short strips together with the wires to the back and down to the transformer. It will take some time and practice but you can do some amazing lighting tricks with them.

The lamp looks great. In an early lamp experiment I rolled an entire 16 foot strip to a 4 inch PVC pipe and hit the switch. WOW!
 

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Rich, I have finished everything in the house with Danish Oil so far. I love the stuff, its a cant mess up wipe on finish which is perfect for me. Also, I find the smell very nice. For the high use things I have, I let the Danish Oil cure for 72 hours and then apply a thin top coat of wipe on poly.

I would have loved to seen that lamp wood. In contrast, the lamp in the picture has 6 LED's.
 
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