Germany Themed Bookshelf

My name is Micah McGuire. Me and my partner, Caleb Mock, attend Illiana Christian High School as sophomores. We are enrolled in Illiana's class for Computer Integrated Manufacturing. Our idea for this project was to create a somewhat traditional bookshelf but to add some creative elements to it. An idea of creating a bookshelf designed for the German teacher came up and we came up with some additions to the bookshelf for him. On the bottom we decided on a small wood piece, engraved with a CNC router of the country of Germany and lazer engraved with the major cities. The second custom part of this bookshelf is the sizes of each shelf. Each shelf is the right height, depth, and length to fit each respective German student book type.

Tools: Fusion 360, VCarve, Lightburn, table saw, miter saw, CNC router, 60 degree 1/4 inch v-bit, drill, sandpaper,

Materials: Two sheets of 4 by 8 feet of wood

Board Lengths

2x - 12 by 55 inch

4x - 11.25 by 31 inch

1x - 55 by 31 inch

2x - 15 by 11.25 inch

1x - 13.50 by 15 inch

33x - 2 inch screws

After deciding on what features we wanting on the bookshelf, we began sketching out how we would make it, and what extra details we would need to do. We got the specified dimensions for the shelf by measuring out each book size that we needed to fit, and how many we would need to fit on each shelf. Using those dimensions, we added some space of tolerance to account for any potential problems, and to allow for someone to pull out a book without much struggle.

Our next step, after sketching out the design we wanted, we then began to model it in Fusion 360. On Fusion we used subtractive processes to begin our design. Then we separated bodies in Fusion to create each board that we would need, and extruding into the design in the portions where no boards would remain in the final design. Lastly, we worked in VCarve to carve out the outline of Germany onto one of our wood boards. Then, taking outlines and sizes from VCarve, we went to lightburn to save the paths for lazer cutting the cities onto the outline.

Now that our design was finalized, we began to plan out how we are going to cut the wood. We spent some time working through how to cut the wood with minimal scrap at the end. Next, we started cutting. As we cut out the wood pieces we were going to use, one person would cut, and the other person would sand down the wood. Once it was all finished, we organized the boards into piles of their respective sizes. During this step, we CnCed and Lazercut a piece of wood with an outline of Germany to place near the bottom of the bookshelf.

The last step was to put it all together. We started by screwing the sideboards to the backboard so that the rest of the boards would have a place to go. From there, we worked from the bottom up, making sure that the shelves were straight. We put our Germany inspired piece in last to make sure that its fit snugly. Finally, we tightened down any screws that were not fully in and checked over everything to check for anything that needed fixing.