building bookcases- plywood thickness

9 years ago

We are building some built-in bookcases in our living room, and I was wondering what thickness plywood to use for the sides- 3/4", 5/8", 1/2". I have found the link to the awesome "sagulator" tool (http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/) to calculate acceptable thickness for the shelves, but still wonder what to do for the sides. We are planning on dadoing the sides and gluing/nailing the shelves in place, and also using a 2" or 3" face frame out of 3/8" birch hardwood. Would appreciate any advice!

Featured Answer

User

9 years ago

3/4" is the best thickness for sides. Make the dado's 3/8" deep.

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Comments (11)

klem1
9 years ago
Gotta use 3/4tr if you dado.
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User
9 years ago
3/4" oak ply example.
jdjd99
Original Author
9 years ago
Looks great. Would you recommend 3/4" for all the shelves as well, or would 1/2" plywood with hardwood edge trim be fine?
rwiegand
9 years ago
the sagulator will tell you, but I'd use 3/4 with a hardwood edge, both for the added strength and to give you a durable, good looking edge. My experience with edge banded plywood is not happy; sooner or later it falls off, chipping and cracking before that. Now I always use an edge piece at least 1/4" thick glued on, if not a 3/4 x 1-1/4 or 1-1/2 strip on edge to make the shelves look more substantial. That leading edge on the shelf is the area that takes the most abuse on a bookshelf
klem1
9 years ago
I totally agree that glueing hardwood strip on edge is far better than edge banding. Rounding over top of strip will reduce effects of abuse to leading edge. Of course edge treatment is a mute point since you are installing face frames. IMO,you need doors on at least one shelf to make face frames look at home.
User
9 years ago
The edge treatment on that bookcase is 3/4" thick oak strips that were bullnosed(half round), cut to about 1/4" thick, and glued(with brads to hold til the glue dried). The brad holes were filled with filler.

That unit is over twenty years old and has been moved about four times.
kudzu9
9 years ago
I have a lot of books and hate sag in shelves. My bookshelves consist of 3/4" plywood with a solid wood finish piece on the front edge that is 3/4" thick and about 1-1/4" high. It also helps a lot if the bookcase has a back panel that you can screw or glue through to support the back edges of the shelves. If you use these techniques, you can have pretty wide, sag-free shelves and still load them up:
User
9 years ago
I had a job once to make five bookcases to match five already in a house. The existing cases were made of painted MDF. Easy, right?

Not really.

The requirement was to match the existing cases, shelf sags and all.

What I did was to cut the shelves with the fronts a quarter inch wider than the backs. I then set up a frame and stacked several shelves together, putting about 200 pounds of weights from a weight set to bend them in the center. Left them for two days and Bingo! Was a surprise for the customers husband in his man cave.
toxcrusadr
9 years ago
Pre-sagged! That's a first.
klem1
9 years ago
Well tox they sell pre-sagged britches,why not shelves? (^_^)