The plan
Three offcuts, a single dado joint, and no metal fixings at all. The whole thing was going to live or die on the glue-up, since there was nothing else holding it together if the joint didn't seat properly first time.
- Two oak offcuts, roughly 40cm each, left over from a much bigger project
- One thinner strip for the back rail, to stop anything sliding off the wall side
- Wood glue and four clamps, which turned out to be exactly enough and not one spare
Cutting the dado by hand took longer than I'd have liked to admit, mostly because I kept second-guessing the depth rather than committing to a line and sticking to it. In the end a router would have taken ten minutes; the saw and chisel took most of an hour, but it's hard to be unhappy with a result that fits first time.
The glue-up
Glue-ups are always the part I rush, and this one was no exception — I had roughly four minutes of open time before the joint started to grab, which is not much room for adjusting a shelf that's already got weight-bearing intentions. Clamping pressure evenly across the joint mattered more than I expected; an uneven clamp left a visible gap on one side that needed a second pass with a thin glue line to fix.
It's not going to hold a library, but for a stack of paperbacks and a small plant it's done its job for two years without complaint, and without a single screw visible anywhere on it. That's the part I'm actually proud of.