Sliding Dovetail Bookends

This was another 2023 Christmas gift project for one of my kids. In this case, it was for my youngest daughter, Megan, who is a voracious reader. I had been holding on to a nice piece of quarter-sawn African Mahogany just waiting for the right project. I ended up using it for this and another 2023 Christmas gift.

As I said, Megan loves to read and as such she always has several books that she is currently reading. She has a large bookcase in her room where she stores her ever-growing book collection. I thought this would be nice to keep near her bed to organize the books she is currently working through.

Some years ago, I purchased a large collection of woodworking plans. It contains literally thousands of plans for just about anything you can imagine. I searched the folder of plans for the word book when looking for an idea of what to make and came across a plan for something very similar to what I made here.

The biggest change I made was in the overall size. I made this one smaller so it was easy to keep near her bed and also because it was only intended to hold several novels at any given time. I also added some chamfers and other small design details.

The wood itself is beautiful. The pictures don’t do it justice. The colors and grain patterns are wonderful to look at. Consequently, I did not want any sort of stain but just a simple finish to bring out the beauty of the wood. I started by first wiping on a coat of super blonde shellac. I mix up my own shellac with these flakes that I buy from Amazon and denatured alcohol. I then applied several coats of Minwax satin wipe-on polyurethane.

Megan is really happy with it and it looks great in her room.