Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Around The House). This thread is read-only.
Many, many, many decades ago, my wife’s parents had a pair of HUGE antique wooden bookcases. Eventually we ended up with one, her sister with the other.
My wife and I returned from a cruise to an empty house, as my daughter had sold all our furniture, including the bookcase, declaring the antique furniture doesn’t “go in Florida”. Days later we had different, more modern furniture.
Fast forward to my new place, I determined I again needed bookcases, found and purchased a nice set, in nice condition. I brought these home, cleaned them up and prepared them for installation.
What I discovered was that one was “good to go”, ready for installation, but I determined the other should be partially disassembled to permit resolution of several issues. The screw heads used on these bookcases has the combination drive recess, accepting either a flat or a Phillips head screwdriver. I found that ALL those fasteners were not fully tight and that my #2 ECX bit, that I use when wiring electrical devices was a perfect fit , to permit properly tightening these screws.
On that partial disassembly bookcase, I first partially detached most of the fasteners retaining the rear panels. I found the bottom of the center divider wasn’t properly bottomed out in the bottom panel, w/ a slightly loose embedded fastener insert, so I glued that insert, used a ratchet strap to hold the divider tight to the bottom panel while fully securing one of the rear panels. Now that bookcase was tight and solid, top to bottom. The ratchet strap was removed, then the other rear panel was fully reattached, permitting setup of that bookcase.
All of the shelves have an attached perpendicular board at the exposed end, w/ a glued then nailed tongue and groove. On mine, one of those boards was broken off. I glued and clamped those damaged parts together. I also used my DeWALT DCN623 23 gauge pinner to again secure that board to the end of the shelf.
Several things were discovered when these were placed at the desired room location. One is that the floor isn’t flat, resulting in a gap at the top, when slid against each other. The other is that the top of these tall bookcases NEED to be solidly secured to the wall, to prevent the possibility of a climbing child pulling these over.
My testing revealed that a thicker foot would / should resolve the top gap, so I ordered and installed a pair of these 0.59” tall feet, storing the original / removed thin white nailed feet in the bottom cavity. Those thicker feet resulted in a tight top to bottom gap.
The two bookcases will be / are now bonded together using furniture bolts. Measurements showed these M6x30mm black furniture bolts were the correct size, so they were ordered and four were installed in new holes. This Milescraft 1312 drill guide was used to ensure the holes were correctly drilled. I didn’t want to consume any of the existing shelf holes for the furniture bolts and instead drilled fresh holes.
The house has hardwood floors throughout. In addition to the baseboard, there is also a ¾” hardwood quarter round. When slid against the wall there is a 1½” gap at the top. I decided that two of these 1½” x 1½” x 8’ by 0.075” thick zinc-plated perforated steel angles would be used for securing the top to the wall. The exposed surfaces were first spray painted brown, as was the exposed surface for the tee nuts. One angle was bolted using tee nuts to the top bookcase frame. The other angle was lag screwed to the wall studs. Attaching the 8’ angle to the wall by myself took some brain power. I used my stepladder w/ a trim board through the step to hold the far end while securing the other end. These attached overlapping angles were then bolted together, using Nylock nuts, so I never need to worry about things loosening.
The end result is I can pull hard on these bookcases and they cannot budge.
The finished result is EXACTLY what I was seeking.
Left Bookcase – Cleaned and Setup
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Right Bookcase – Rear Panel Partially Detached, Center Panel Threaded Insert Glued
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Right Bookcase – Rear Panel Reinstalled
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Bookcases Cleaned and Setup – Center Top Gap
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Tall Foot to Eliminate Center Top Gap
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Tall Feet Installed – Standard Feet Stored
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Free Standing Bookcases – Gap Tight at Top
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Free Standing Bookcases – Gap Tight at Bottom
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Furniture Bolts for Bonding Bookcases Together
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Drilling Furniture Bolt Holes Using Milescraft 1312 Drill Block
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Top Furniture Bolts and Rear Steel Angle Tee Nut Installed
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Bottom Furniture Bolts Installed
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Unpainted Steel Angle
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Painted Steel Angle
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Painted Steel Angle Installed at Bookcase Top
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Bookcase Steel Angle Pushed Against Wall for Mating Angle Location
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Wall Steel Angle Far End Supported Using Ladder and Board
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Painted Steel Angle Lag Screwed Into Studs
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Steel Angles Bolted Together
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Damaged Shelf – Ready for Glue, Clamp and Finish Nails
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Completed, Cleaned, Repaired, Secured and Installed Bookcases
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Wow, that looks awesome, nice job. Those look like nice bookcases. I like the idea of the metal on the back, would have never thought of that.
There were three pairs of unique bookends purchased for this bookcase.
One is this heavy set of Cast Bronze Tree Stump Bookends.
These are very cool, each weighing 11 lbs. The construction is two castings, welded together, with the vertical tree trunk half being one casting, the rough edge ground being another. The roots extending from the trunk to the ground are weld beads. There are also several edge tack welds joining these two castings. The cut trunk even has visible growth rings.
Another is this pair of Spalted Maple Wood Bookends, signed by the Artist, R. Boss.
These are also very cool, with the unique spalting pattern and the terrific carved 3D Fler-de-lis symbol of purity and chastity.
The last is this pair of huge Caterpillar (CAT) 3S5502 Piston Bookends.
This is a huge aluminum CAT 3S5502 piston, cut through the connecting rod wrist pin hole. The outside diameter is about 6.2″ and the height is about 8.2″.
Cast Bronze Tree Stump Bookends
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Signed Spalted Maple Wood Bookends
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Caterpillar 3S5502 Piston Bookends
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Wow, those are some cool bookends. I like how they are unique