The Great American Shelving Adventure (Part 3)

The shelves are now stained with the very able help of Harry who enjoyed himself thoroughly. In the interest of saving time, I applied a coat of satin polyurethane by myself and the shelves are ready for installation. The desk part of all of this is 3/4" birch plywood. I rounded the two front corners (I dislike sharp corners on things that stick out in kids' rooms) and applied birch edging. The edging is pre glued and is put on with the use of an iron set to "cotton." The instructions warn to use a piece of foil to protect the bottom of the iron, but I found that I couldn't hold the edging even while manipulating the foil and the iron, so I skipped the foil. No harm befell the iron. I must now fill a couple of very small defects near the edge of the plywood and sand the top edge ever so slightly to put a small bevel along the entire top. Another option would be to use a router, but that seems too aggressive for this project. I'm sure that Norm Abrams would do so, however, I think hand sanding is the answer here. After the sanding is done and the edge satisfactory, stain and polyurethane will be applied. I think that Harry may want to help with the staining.

By the way, for the benefit of Uncle Pete, who is singlehandedly battling gangs and trying to keep order in Haiti, "Harry" is really Stephen.