How Craftspeople Built HeightAdjustable Shelves Before the Industrial Revolution Core77

Image and construction by Colin Spicer

Image and construction by Hummingbird Woodworks

If it"s not obvious to you how it works, these shots should make it clear:

Sorry for the grainy resolution, but this rendering is from the 1800s

Image and construction by The Wood Mechanic

Image and construction by The Wood Mechanic

By creating a cleat that fits between the "sawteeth," then cutting a shelf with notches in the

four corners, one has a handy, pin-free way to quickly change the shelf"s height.

Some of you might wonder why they didn"t simply use dadoes that shelves could be slid in and out of. The answer appears to be aesthetic: Dadoes would break the lines of the verticals when viewed from the front, and covering them with a face frame would of course make it impossible to slide shelves in and out, thus defeating the purpose.

These days it"s tough to imagine going to the trouble of building such a system, when one can simply whip out a drill or router and a shelf-pin jig. But that hasn"t stopped entrepreneurs like the ones behind the Sawtooth Shelf System from trying to bring it back:

For those of you looking to make your own, without all of that detailed sawing or (shudder) chiseling, this woman has constructed what she refers to as a variant used by Victorian-era builders:

I"m guessing she used a Forstner bit and then ripped the pieces in half, which seems might be faster than setting up a jig.

Original article and pictures take http://www.core77.com/posts/43431/How-Craftspeople-Built-Height-Adjustable-Shelves-Before-the-Industrial-Revolution site


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