Shop build guide

Document unit

Build notes and drawings for a pine unit with ten compartments for letter and A4 folders.

Finished 26-1/4 × 11 × 22 in
Cells 12 × 3-1/2 in
Stock 1x12 pine, ripped to 11 in
Material ~26 linear ft

The piece as designed: stiles running full height, an egg-crate interior, and bought legs on angled plates.

What it is

Ten cells sized so letter and A4 sit flat with the long edge left to right — which is the trick that lets 11″ boards hold 11″ paper. The five shelves are housed into the stiles, the interior grid is a half-lapped egg crate, and the end rails land in a rabbet.

It is the same joinery as the walnut wine rack at a different scale, which is exactly why it is the right thing to build first.

Front elevation. The case is 29-1/4″; the legs set the rest of the height, so buy them first.

Lock the thing you don't control

done

One thing drives every other dimension, so settle it first.

The board width becomes the case depth. A nominal 1×12 is actually 11-1/4″ — softwood is sold nominal — and you rip both edges square, landing at 11″. Everything below assumes that number. Measure what you actually get and set DEPTH in the model to match: the lap slots are exactly half of it, and that is the one dimension here with no tolerance.

11″ rather than a 1×10's 9-1/4 because a letter-size duo-tang is 9 to 9-1/2″ wide. At 9-1/4 the wide ones do not go in at all, and the narrow ones have a quarter inch behind them — not enough to get a finger under. This leaves two inches of room to grab.

Check 26-1/4″ against wherever this is going. That width is not a style choice — it is two columns of letter-width cells and there is nothing to negotiate. Measure the closet before you buy wood.

Legal paper will not fit

Cells are 12″ wide, which takes letter (11″) and A4 (11.69″) laid flat with room to spare. Legal is 14″ long and will never go in. If you need legal, the cell width has to change and so does everything else.

The one thing to get right

Every part uses the full width of the board, and those edges become the visible front and back edges of the case. So all your stock has to finish at exactly the same width.

Bring every board to one width

done

A 1×12 is 11-1/4″ nominal-actual with slightly rounded edges from the moulder. Both of those have to go: the edges become the visible front and back of every part, and they are the datum the lap slots get measured from. You cannot measure 5-1/2″ reliably from a rounded edge.

Rough-crosscut to length first. This is what keeps the ripping manageable: break the boards down oversize on the mitre saw and the longest rip becomes about 26″, not eight feet. A four-foot straightedge then covers every cut in the project and you never need a track.

Your straightedge is already on the list

The 4″ MDF strip you cut for the mitre saw's auxiliary fence has a factory edge, which is straighter than anything you can make. It does both jobs.

And the cut that frees it does not have to be straight. The edge you will guide against is the panel's factory edge — the one you are not cutting. The sawn edge becomes the back of the strip, where nothing rides. So measure 4″ in from a long factory edge and cut it however you like: freehand, with the saw's rip fence against that same factory edge, or ask the yard to do it. You only need one straight strip to bootstrap the rest of the build.

Measure your blade-to-shoe offset once and write it on the saw. Every straightedge position is that far back from the cut line, and it never changes.

Straighten one edge of each board. Clamp the guide so it takes off just enough to clean up — this edge only needs to be straight, not a particular width.

Then rip every board to final width off that straight edge. Here is the part that matters: with no fence, there is nothing enforcing that the boards match. So cut two spacer sticks to (final width − blade offset) and use them, one at each end, to set the straightedge off the board's straight edge. Same two sticks on every board. Never a tape measure, never a pencil line.

The straightedge goes on the keeper side, not the waste side. You are only trimming a couple of sixteenths off, so there is nothing on the waste side to clamp to — and the saw needs the keeper under it or it tips into the cut.

Ripping to width. The straightedge is clamped on the side you are keeping; the saw's shoe slides along it and the blade runs the offset away from it. The two spacer sticks are what make every board come out the same — a table saw fence does that job for free, a circular saw does not.

Good face down

A circular saw's teeth exit through the top face, so any tearout lands on the side facing up at you. Cut with the better face down.

Check three of them against each other when you are done. They must match. A board 1/64″ narrow means a shelf sits proud at the front of the case permanently — and it means its lap will not close.

Whatever width you actually land on, that is the number the rest of this guide depends on. Measure it and set DEPTH in the model to match. The lap slots are exactly half of it and there is no tolerance in that.

Cut the parts to length

done

Mitre saw with a stop block, or a crosscut sled. Never measure each piece individually.

The stop block is what makes identical parts. Slide the board until it touches the stop, cut, repeat — the length is set by the setup, not by your pencil line.

Check your saw crosses 11″ first

Every cut here is across the board's width. A non-sliding mitre saw tops out around 5-3/4″ (10″) or 7-3/4″ (12″) and will not reach — you need a sliding one. A 10″ slider is typically rated 12″ at 90°, so 11″ goes through with room to spare, but check yours against a scrap before you cut a real board.

Don't cut halfway and flip the board to meet in the middle. It works in general, but these are the parts that have to match each other, and any misalignment between the two passes leaves a step exactly at the joint line.

Check the fence is square before you cut anything real. Across 11″ a fence off by half a degree puts the ends 0.08″ out of square, the shelf then seats skewed in its housing, and the case leans. Cut a test piece, flip one half over and butt the two cut edges together — any error doubles and becomes obvious.

Support the offcut. A 25-1/4″ piece hanging in mid-air droops as you finish the cut, pinches the blade and burns.

Part	What	Qty	Size (in)
A	Stile (side)	2	3/4 × 11 × 22
B	Horizontal — 2 rails + 4 shelves, all one blank	6	3/4 × 11 × 25-1/4
C	Divider, one continuous piece	1	3/4 × 11 × 20-7/8

The 6 B parts set the case width. If they differ from each other the case racks and no amount of clamping fixes it. One stop setting, 6 cuts.

Where every part comes from. Cutting to a plan rather than to the next free bit of board is most of the difference between three boards and four — and the spare on the last one is the test stock you need in step 6.

Cut the longest parts first. If you start with the short ones you will find yourself two feet short of a stile with only offcuts left. Lay out every part in pencil on the boards before the saw runs, and put the knots where they will be cut away.

Label every part in pencil, and mark which edge is the FRONT. That matters in step 8 and it is not recoverable later.

Cut two extra offcuts for test joints. Don't skip them.

Measure your actual stock thickness

done

Put calipers on your “3/4 inch” boards. They will read something like 0.72″ or 0.74″. Write that number on the wall. Every housing you cut has to match it, not the nominal 3/4″.

Most common way first projects go wrong

Cutting housings to nominal 3/4″ when the wood is 0.72″. Every joint in the piece ends up sloppy and there is no fixing it afterwards.

The same 1/4″-deep housing against three shelf thicknesses. You are not aiming at a number, you are aiming at the middle one.

Build the T-square jig

done

A strip of 1/2″ plywood about 30″ long, with a shorter piece fixed across one end at 90°. The long arm is the fence the router rides; the short arm hooks over the edge of the board, which is what makes the cut square without measuring an angle.

Pass 1. The fence lies on the board, the crossbar hooks the near edge, and the router base runs against the fence. This cuts the reference wall. The router is drawn see-through — a real one covers the cut it is making.

The housing has to match your stock, not a number. Two ways to guarantee that; the first is much easier to set up.

Option A — pattern bit and template

A pattern bit (top-bearing straight bit) has a ball bearing above the cutter, made to exactly the cutter's diameter. So the cut reproduces the template one-to-one, with no offset at all — which means the gap in your jig simply is the housing.

Set it with the board itself

Clamp the two rails against a piece of your actual shelf stock, tighten, pull the stock out. The jig now cuts a housing that fits that stock. No arithmetic, no router base diameter, nothing measured.

Section through the jig. The bearing rides the template edge and the cutter is the same diameter as it, so the housing lands exactly where the template says. The shank is a different size and guides nothing.

The same jig from above. The router body sits on top of the template rather than down beside it — only the bit passes through the gap.

The one dimension to get right: template thickness ≈ cutter length − cut depth, so the bearing lands within the template's thickness. With a typical 1″ cutter and a 1/4″ deep housing that's 3/4″ ply or MDF, not 1/2″. Too thin and the bearing rides above the template and guides nothing.

Run the bearing against one rail, then back along the other. Add a crossbar at 90° so the jig registers square to the edge.

Option B — two fences, no special bit

If you'd rather not buy a pattern bit, capture the router base between two fences instead. Same idea, but now the base diameter enters the arithmetic:

gap between fences = width + baseØ − bitØ
router free travel = width − bitØ

With a 6″ base and a 1/2″ bit on 3/4″ stock: a 6-1/4″ gap and 1/4″ of travel. Make one fence adjustable, then dial it in with test cuts in scrap.

The base-riding version. It works and costs nothing extra, but the gap depends on your router's base diameter and has to be found by trial rather than set with the board.

Mark the base and keep it facing one way

This version references opposite sides of the router base, so if the base isn't perfectly concentric with the bit, that error goes straight into the width. Keeping the same part of the base against each fence makes the error constant, and your test cuts then absorb it. The pattern bit has no such problem — its bearing is concentric by construction.

You are not trying to hit 0.750 inches

You are matching your own stock. If your boards measure 0.727″, a “perfect” 0.750″ housing is a bad housing. The target is a feel: slides in with firm hand pressure, no mallet.

Cut test joints in real offcuts

done

Half an hour here saves the project. Pine will lie to you about fit — it crushes. Use walnut or cherry offcuts.

A housing plus a shelf end. Creep the second pass until an offcut slides in with hand pressure and no mallet.
A rabbet at a board end. Same setup, run off the end.
One lap crossing. The only joint here you haven't done before.

The half lap that makes the interior grid. Each part gives up half its 9″ width where they cross — the shelf keeps the front half, the divider the back half.

Write the final jig offset on the jig in pencil, then stop.

Rout the seven housings in each stile

done

Each is 3/4″ wide (your real thickness) × 1/4″ deep, straight through front to back. Measured from the bottom end to the lower edge of each:

The stile lying flat, as you actually rout it. The two brass housings at the ends run off the board, so they are rabbets rather than trenches — you can saw those out instead.

Rout both stiles at once: side by side, inner faces up, bottom ends against a common stop. Now the housings are at identical heights by construction rather than by measurement — which is exactly the error that makes a twelve-cell grid read as crooked.

Cut the ten lap slots

done

All 3/4″ wide × 5-1/2″ deep, cut in from an edge, all the way through the thickness. Five in the shelves, five in the divider.

The shelves are slotted from the BACK edge, the divider from the FRONT. Get this backwards and the grid will not assemble.

Cut in	From which edge	Position
The 4 shelves	BACK	12-1/4 to 13 from either end
The divider	FRONT	3-11/16, 7-15/16, 12-3/16, 16-7/16 from the bottom end

Positions are to the lower / nearer edge of each slot. All 8 are 3/4″ wide × 5-1/2″ deep.

The slot setup: straightedge for the router to follow, a stop block (red) that ends the cut at the right depth, and a sacrificial board underneath because these cuts go all the way through.

Three or four depth passes — don't try to hog 3/4″ of walnut in one go. Cut the slot a hair fat so the parts go together without forcing.

Why not the mitre saw

Tempting, since it crosses the board already — but a slot has to stop at 5-1/2″, and a stopped cut on a round blade leaves a curved bottom that cuts far past your line on the underside. The lap needs a flat floor square to the face, which is a router cut.

Housings for the divider ends

done

Only the top and bottom rails get these — the five shelves don't, because the lap does that job there.

3/4″ wide × 3/16″ deep, through, centred 12-1/4″ to 13″ from either end. Bottom rail on its top face only; top rail on its bottom face only.

The end rail carries three cuts: a rabbet at each end where the stile lands, and one shallow housing for the divider. It is otherwise the same blank as a shelf.

The corner: the stiles run the full height and the end rails land in a 1/4″ rabbet, which is the same cut as a housing, just run off the end of the board.

Dry fit — twice

done

First just the egg crate. Stand the five shelves up in order, line the divider up behind them with its notches on the shelves, and push it forward 5-1/2″ until everything is flush. It goes together by hand and stands square on its own.

The only motion that works. The shelf slots open toward the back and the divider's notches open toward the front, so the two engage by sliding along the depth axis — divider in from the back, travelling forward.

The divider cannot drop in from above

It is full depth everywhere except at its five notches, and a full-depth section can't pass a shelf — the shelf's slot only removes the back half. Assemble the grid with a horizontal slide, never a vertical drop.

Measure the openings while it's dry; they should all be 12 × 3-1/2″.

Then the whole carcass, dry, no glue.

The only check that catches a racked case. Measure corner to corner both ways; if the numbers differ, push on the long diagonal until they agree.

Fix problems now. Once glue is on twelve housings you have minutes, not hours.

Glue up, in two stages

done

Do it in two stages. Landing fourteen housings and ten lap joints in one go is the most stressful glue-up in the project, and it is avoidable. Use Titebond Extend or liquid hide glue — you want the open time.

Stage one — the egg crate on its own. Glue the ten lap faces lightly, slide the divider forward into the shelves as you did dry, square it up, clamp lightly and let it cure. You now have one rigid grid instead of six loose parts.

Stage two — the carcass.

One stile flat on the bench; the two end rails and the cured egg crate into their housings; the second stile lowered onto all seven shelf ends at once.

Thin glue in the housing, not on the shelf end — less squeeze-out to clean.

Clamp at every housing, with a caul down each stile. A clamp bearing straight on the stile closes the joint beside it and much less four inches away; the caul is what carries the pressure between them.

Check the diagonals and rack it square before the glue grabs.
Wipe squeeze-out inside the cells now. Dried glue blocks finish and shows as pale patches.

Leave it overnight.

Finish

done

No base and no legs — it sits flat. That is one whole operation you do not have to do on your first piece.

Sand 120 → 180 → 220. Break every sharp edge, especially the front edges of the cells, which get touched constantly.
Vacuum, then wipe with a barely damp cloth and let it dry.

Oil will turn pine orange

This single choice decides whether it reads as considered or as a hardware-store shelf. Oil and oil-based varnish amber pine badly and blotch it. Use a water-based clear, a white or liming wax, or the traditional soap or lye finish that keeps nordic pine pale.

If it sits on a closet floor, put a couple of thin strips underneath to keep it off the deck — dust and damp both find end grain first.

Common setup problems

Check these points during dry assembly.

Boards not all the same width. Shelves sit proud or shy at the front. Fixed in step 2, nowhere else.
Housings cut to nominal 3/4″ instead of your real thickness. Sloppy joints throughout. Step 4.
Stiles routed separately. Shelves land at slightly different heights left to right and the whole grid looks off. Step 7 — clamp them together.
Lap slots cut from the wrong edge. The grid won't assemble. Step 8.
Rushing the glue-up. Long-open-time glue, and dry fit twice.