Whats a good wood to use to make built in bookshelves in an alcove?
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I use cabinet grade plywood and trim the exposed edges of the plywood with oak or whatever hardwood I am using.
If you want sturdy, don't use pine. Pine is a pretty soft wood. You can dent it with your fingernails.
Use oak, maple, cherry, poplar, birch, etc if you want to use solid wood.
I always use plywood. This is also what most professional cabinet makers use.
In reality if you are going to paint, there is no reason you couldn't use MDF(Medium desnity fiberboard). Just use a durable finish. WHen it is protected with paint or a eurethane finish, it is very sturdy. I used it to make modular shelving for my kids walk in closets rather than hiring California Closets. This was 5 years ago and I can climb them like a ladder.and I weigh 210 lbs. I just used 1/2 round oak on the edges and painted it with an acrylic enamel paint.
beech or mohogany pine is ok also but i only like it when it is stained
pine is sturdy and cheap especially if you are going to stain them or paint them
Pine is about the cheapest , it depends on if you wish to paint them or not, if you don,t it would then depend on what sort of colour you want the wood dark would be Mahogany, or lighter would be something like Teak. but for hard woods the cost is quite high.
If you are going to paint the shelves then use 3/4" Birch Plywood for the shelves and sides. Use Poplar for the trim pieces and to cover the plywood edges.
If you are going to stain the shelves use 3/4" Oak veneer plywood and solid oak for the trim pieces.
As all you will see is the front edge, don't waste your money and the worlds resources on a nice hardwood.
Pine is good for this job, and you can stain it any colour you like. Even the force grown garbage pine (You can get your fingernail an eigth of an inch into it!) we get in UK is OK for shelving. How deep are the sleves, as wide stuff (Greater than 5 inches) tends to get quite expensive. Consider tongue and grove floorboards if you need the width. Plane off or round off the edge on show.
If you are going to paint instead of stain, use MDF..it is great to work with, and a bit less expensive than good wood. You can get it in several different thickness's.
Good Luck!
I'm sure you could get hold of one so why not try a scaffold plank. That's what I made my floating shelves from, and they could take my weight if I could get up that high...
Oh, mine was FREE too.
Good Hunting.
Depends greatly on what you want it to look like. If you are building stain quality, i.e. hardwood, you would want to use plywood, probably 3/4inch thick for shelves and apply either an edge band or molding to cover the plywood plys. Use the same species for the face frame, edging, sides and moldings as the finished surface of the hardwood plywood, red oak plywood, red oak trim. If you want paint grade, that is you will paint it, use birch plywood and poplar trim as they are smooth and cheaper than hardwood.
pine is cheap but cherry is luxurious it depends on what you want it to look like you can age it with a stain or a screw driver by hitting it in random places
Use MDF and paint it, it's more stable that pine. And if you're also looking for lamps and stuff like that try www.pure3design.biz or Pure 3 Design Shop of eBay for really amazingly designed interior products.
Parana Pine is a good knot free timber for shelving.
pine is the obvious choice,whereas beech etc,is a very hard wood ,and unless already cut to size,is a very tough wood to saw through. however and don't say oh no,m.d.f would be my choice, it is very versatile,can be stained ,painted, and god knows what,and best of all is cheap,but if done properly can be made to look extremely expensive,ive personally worked with this material on numerous occasions,and the finished results looked amazing. no not blowing my own trumpet,but they did. a bit of time and effort on cheapish materials,will look far better than hard earned cash, spent on expensive materials with no love lavished on the finished product?
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