Shelf life - part 2

Now the shelves start to be fixed in place. The spacing and squareness is determined by placing a series of temporary spacers cut from balsa wood. Care must be taken to avoid excess adhesive rendering the spacers permanently fixed. There is a noticeable variation in the shelf widths to be found on the original cabinet, with no more than two sets of each length - just to keep it lively.

Some basic wood stain colour has been applied to the raw material to simplify the later finishing process.

Then suddenly, a few hours later, the last shelf partition is being positioned.

Nearly 200 drawer compartments are represented by individual chips of 0.8mm thick beech plywood.

Prior to fixing in position with a tiny spot of cyanoacrylate adhesive, the drawer fronts were stained in two different shades of wood stain. This was to represent the two species of wood found on the original, re-located wall cabinets. It is thought that the entire stock of Adams shelves and cupboards originally came from a chemist shop in Ely.

The elaborate "egg & dart" moulding of the cornice is approximated

in this model by threading tiny glass beads onto a guitar string.

When threading was complete, and shaped to fit the cabinet, the assembly a glued into a mounting channel, then painted with Liquitex acrylic paints to match the "mahogany' stained pine of the cabinet.

To add a little life to the unit, I decided to fabricate couple of complete drawers and matching apertures. This will allow me to place perhaps on drawer partially open and the second could be placed on the counter for the purpose of weighing out the contents during a sale.