Creative DIY Honeycomb Stylish Wooden Shelves With Beautiful Lighting.

I am trying making something from wood for the first time that also using automated machines which i got as a great help from my friend :)

As i used to do all creative stuff from waste material uptill now so tried my best to include a bit of creativity in wooden shelves also.

i made wooden shelves of honeycomb(hexagon joined together) shape with a little light effect on the edges of shelves to give a little stylish touch.

ply board piece (minimum 32" * 72")
jig saw

drill machine
clamps (2-3 clamps)
compass
angel meter scale(D)
marker/pencil
scale
nails

glue gun
small panels for hanging(12-14 pieces)
fevicol

adhesive gum
primer
paint color
paint brush
light bulb and wire

paper dollies or random decorative paper

As i already mentioned that i am new to this category of wood craft and took jig saw from my friend cum motivator so i have to make some alternative arrangement for my jig saw table.
Here, as shown, i am using my shoe rack almirah as a jig saw table with little bit of adjustments. ( you can use any other small almirah too)

1. first open doors of shoe rack.
2. cover the front with some newspaper to hide unwanted stuff as show.
3. put some extra plank piece on top of almirah as shown that act as a "base of our jig saw table" for us as shown.

1. Put the piece of ply board you want to cut for your project as shown ( for clear understanding with pictures i am showing it with small piece of ply board).
Note: this piece should be a little ahead than the base plank to allow the jig saw blade to cross up and down while cutting as shown.
2. put a steel scale ( not wooden or plastic one) near the dimension you want to cut.

Note: this is very important step to put a steel scale because we will move our jig saw along the scale, the benefit will be that jig saw will give us straight and clean cut because of scale and second jog saw wont override and cut the scale as it is not wooden scale. so we can solve our problem of not getting clean straight cuts.)

As shown in above picture,
1. put first clamp to put a tight grip on base board, project ply board piece and scale as shown.
2. put second clamp to put a tight grip on show rack almirah and base board as shown.

Now our jig saw table setup is ready to do further cuttings for our project.
As shown in picture we will slide (move) jig saw along with steel scale so we have to measure distance between the blade and right/left edge of jig saw foot and place steel scale as per the required distance.

There is a lever in jig saw for setting up angels of blade for making cuts at required angels.

Set this lever at 90° and blade will be straight perpendicular to jig saw foot as shown.

Note: As i have taken 32" * 72" ply board, so length of each long piece will be default 32" as shown.

Using the above explained method of cutting and 90° blade angel as explained in previous step-
1. Mark 4" straight lines through the running breath of ply board as shown.
2. Cut it along this line to get 6-7 32" long pieces each of dimension 32" * 4" as shown.
3. 90° cut will be like this as shown in picture.

Note: Choose tight teeth blade of wood to get better and clean cuts.

We choose to make our first hexagon of length 9", so all the sides should be 9" long.
Also we cut this long piece 4" broad as shown, that means the depth of our hexagon box will be 4".

So, one hexagon ( 9") will require 6 pieces each of 9" * 4".
So, to make two similar hexagon, we need total of 12 pieces of 9" * 4".


So, mark dimensions of 9" on long ply board pieces for 12 times.

Now as u can see and understand from the picture above we need to cut each 9" * 4" piece at and angel of 30° on both the sides.
You can flip the piece for other side angel cut, instead of changing blade angel to 60°.

So after setting blade angel to 30°,
cut 12 pieces of 9" from long plyboard pieces cut in previous step.

Now draw a hexagon all of equal sides 9" as shown.

Either you can use hexagon angels using angel scale or you can follow the easy method i followed and explained here.

1. draw a circle of radius 9" with pencil.
2. mark any point as 'A' over circumference of circle as shown.
3. Now, open your compass 9" wide.
4. mark a point 'B' and 'C' on circumference of same circle taking point ' A' as center as shown.
5. similarly taking point 'B ' as center mark point 'D'.
6. similarly mark point 'E' and 'F'.
7.Join ponits
A -> B
B -> C
C -> D
D -> E
E -> F
F -> A
8. So here comes your six sided hexagon with equal sides as shown.

Cut out this hexagon shape out of your ply board which acts as a base of your hexagon shaped wall shelf.

As we are making two hexagon shelves of same size so draw and cut the second one too.

1. Now take 6 pieces of 9" *4" we cut in previous step.
2. take one of the hexagon shape of 9" side.
3. Attach these 6 pieces back to back as shown over the edges of hexagon shaped base using nails and fevicol.
(note: insert nails while attaching along with the thick layer of fevicol in between to give a proper strength)
4. after u are done with combining all 6 pieces, we will be having our first hexagon shelf as shown with 9" length and 4" depth.

Now repeat the above steps to construct 6 hexagon wooden shelves as:
-- 2 shelves of 9" side
-- 2 shelves of 7" side
-- 2 shelves of 5" side

Note: depth of all the 6 shelves will be same i.e. 4".

Now coat all the 6 shelves with two coats of wooden primer with enough drying time in between both coats.

You can do single coat also but it would be better and advisable to do double coats of primer so as to give better paint finish.

This step is very important to give good finish to our final product.

IF GAPS ARE LARGE ENOUGH:
1. Mix a little amount of wood powder ( you will be having enough after you complete your cutting procedure) with adhesive gum to make a thick paste.
2. Apply to the bigger gaps ( if any) as shown to give a proper clean shape.


IF GAPS ARE SMALL:
1. Check and find out the gaps in wood as shown.
2. Take a little amount of adhesive gum on edge of scale or any flat surface as shown.
3. Fill this gap with adhesive gum.
4. Flatten the coating of adhesive gum with same scale as shown.
5. let it dry for 5 minutes.
6. The surface /gaps will become smooth after it gets dried as shown.

This step is important because if we skip this step, these gaps will be very well visible after painting and that's NOT a good craftsmanship.

You can skip this step also.

1. Apply a thick enough layer of adhesive gum over a side as shown.
2. let it partially dried for 5-7 minutes.
3. After it gets partially dried, run a comb in one direction as shown.
4. It will result into straight embossed lines of adhesive gum after it gets fully dried in another 1-2 minutes.
5. Apply this procedure to all the outer sides of hexagon shelves.


note: we are using this technique of embossing surface so as to use double color texture at the end.

Now, choose color scheme and Color style of your choice either single color or multiple color as you wish.

Color all the 12 shelves as shown.
Again i have done double coatings of color for great finishing of paint.

Note: give enough drying time between each coat of color.

After you are done with your final coating of paint and it is fully dried:

1. Apply a single thin layer of golden color ( you can choose your color) over all the coloured surfaces of your shelves.
2. After 1-2 minutes just wipe off this golden layer with a piece of cotton not tightly but very gently.

IMPORTANT NOTE : Dont panic. Definitely it will remove the golden color away but if you look at it carefully you will notice that a noticeable coat of golden color in between the embossed lines over the base color surface as shown.

3. Repeat the above step for all the coloured surfaces of all the shelves.


We will be having a little highlighted paint on all the shelves as an texture effect as shown.

Now, as we decided to add some lighting effects to these wooden shelves, i am taking the technique of pasting cardboard pieces along three sides of hexagon on the inside and drill a hole to place light bulb from back as shown in picture.

To do the same:
1. Take a hexagon shelf say here i am taking 9" shelf first.
2. Cut a long cardboard piece of dimension 18.7" * 4".
3. Make two folds in this cardboard piece at a distance of 5.5" and 13.7" as shown in picture (read out the note at the end of this step)
4. Glue one end of cardboard on any of the adjoining inner corner as shown.(a bit away from corners)
5. Glue the another end of cardboard to the 'next to adjacent corner' as shown.


(NOTE:
1. For 9" hexagon shelf->
-Cut cardboard of 18.7" * 4".
-Make first fold at 5.5".
-Make second fold at 13.7".
2. For 7" hexagon shelf ->
-Cut cardboard of 14" * 4".
-Make first fold at 4.6".
-Make second fold at 10.8".
3. For 5" hexagon shelf ->
-Cut cardboard of 10.10" * 4".
-Make first fold at 3.5".
-Make second fold at 7.10".
)

As shown, drill a hole anywhere inside this area as shown.

You can randomly choose any point for drill inside this area to give a random lighting effect.

Repeat this for all the shelves.

As shown, insert a bulb from back of the hexagon shelf as shown.

Glue this bulb from back so as to give it a fixed position.

Repeat this for all the shelves.

Now connect all these 6 bulbs as shown.

1. Cut out some random paper or cloth dollies.
2. Cover the bulb area with exact size of dolly to cover the wood and cardboard edges as shown.

Again repeat this step for all the shelves.

The purpose of covering this is to cover the bulb and present the illuminated area with some beautiful pattern.

I choose the sample color as used on inner walls so as to give a symmetry to all the inner walls as shown.

1. Decide the side of hexagon shelf you want to keep on top.
2. Attach two hooks for hanging the shelf as shown on adjacent corners on the back of each shelf.