I want to bring your attention to this excellent list of books compiled by Charles Hugh Smith, who also writes OfTwoMinds and Survival+ (see this post). Many of these books also form the foundation of my own thinking about the future [and the past and the present].

It also includes the ERE book as shown here in the “ERE library” which is modeled on the Jefferson library. Yes, he had book cases much like this—I built it using [most of] the instructions from Roy Underhill.

Actually I just wanted to show off the book case I just finished making. It is my first foray into dovetails and this case took about 8 hours to make all combined including squaring off the boards with a block plane and chiseling out the pins and dovetails.

Total cost of materials for the case: $5 or so. And it’ll last for decades unlike disposable nail and pressed board furniture. Whether it deserves to live that long is another matter.

PS: It’s actually intended as a CD case which is why the pins are on the wrong boards for a book case. The plan was to miter the corners like the originals, but I had a hard time with the 3D thinking as it was. Next iteration will include mitered corners [and hopefully tighter dovetails].

Originally posted 2011-04-26 19:03:38.