Hey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff, today I'm gonna make a bookcase that's also... a secret door
To allow the cabinet to swing out,
what you see from the outside has to be larger than whats on the inside
So I made a face-frame out of one by pine
These pieces are a little bit thick for most built in cabinets,
but they actually match the thickness of some existing cabinets in the space
it worked out pretty well in that way
I used pocket holes to connect all these pieces
Pocket holes are great because they're hidden, and in this case it allows me to build the frame
flat, without having to have the structure of the cabinet behind it yet
I used a taller board on the bottom to match the base trim in the room
Then I cut some more pieces to use for the fronts of the shelves
and attached them the exact same way
Next it was time to build the actual structure of the cabinet,
that was gonna go behind the frame
I made this all out of MDF
It's so easy to work with, it's really inexpensive, and it's going to be painted anyway
I used some glue and brad nails just to hold them in place
Then came back and drilled holes with
countersinks and screwed them all together so they'd be nice and strong
the size of this box
is the same size as the interior dimensions of the frame
I added pocket holes all the way around the box
as a nice clean hidden way to attach the frame
I laid down a bead of glue and then put the frame in place
I lined up the corners and then used the Brad nails to hold the frame down
before I put the pocket screws in
You'll save yourself a lot of sanding
If you get the pine and the MDF lined up
before you connect them with pocket screws
the shelves were cut out of MDF as well
and I used a square to draw lines
so that I could line the shelves up when I put them in place
with the pockethole screws
again take your time to get the MDF and the pine lined up before you screw it all together
And for good measure, I just shot some brads down through the front faces of the shelves
go back with wood filler and then sand it all
While I was working on this project I was listening to The Martian by Andy Weir on Audible
It's a science fiction book, but it's a little more like fictional science
It's very scientific and very precise
If you're into that kind of thing I would definitely check it out
'cause I am enjoying it
But if you don't like that there's a hundred and fifty thousand other titles on audible that you can check out
Be sure to go to audible.com/makestuff
to get a free month of the service and a free book whether you keep the service or not
and going there helps to support my videos
for the backs of the cabinets, I cut down pieces of 8 inch plywood
and just really lightly brad nail them on
I want them to be able to pop out really easily in case of emergency
Before adding the hidden hinges
I wanted to reinforce the side of the frame
I cut another piece of one by and spread lots and lots of glue on it
Then I clamped it in place and let it dry overnight
For these particular hinges, you mark the center point
and then you use the template and mark where the holes are gonna be
These hidden hinges are really awesome
I'll have links to everything you need in the description
I marked off the necessary depth
on the force drill bit
and then drilled the holes
You want to make sure you don't go too deep here
Because then the hinge will not sit flush with the face
come back and clean up the hole with a knife and a chisel
Again, only make the holes as deep as the instructions tell you to
put the hinge in place
pre-drill the holes
and then screw it in
do the same for the other hinge
To account for some variation in the floor
I had to make some 8 inch plywood inserts
to put underneath the wheels when I attached them to the bottom of the cabinet
You'll also notice that the wheel is at an angle on purpose
Then it was just priming and painting the cabinet
I found a really cool Jules Verne novel to use as the secret latch
I measured the width and the height and then carefully cut out all the pages as one chunk
Hopefully I'll be able to reuse this book
I cut down some scrap pine that I had and glued it all together to make up a fake interior to the book
Before the glue dried I made sure to push the center piece out to force the spine into shape
So that the spine wouldn't be squishy when the book was on the shelf
I clamped it all together and let it dry
After it dried I cut off the excess on the backside
and then ran it over the joiner just to smooth out all the edges
Then I sprayed the top gold
to kinda look like the original pages
Put some glue on
put the cover on, clamped it together to dry
Since I had thickened the wall where the hinges went
I had to cut out some of the original frame
to make allowance for it
Multi-tools like this are really handy for notching out pieces
I set the book case in place
and then marked where the center of the hinges fell against the wall
and use that line to place the template directly on the door frame
Then I made holes for the hinges, just like before
Finally it was time to mount the book case
This is really just a matter of getting the hinges lined up
and getting them pushed in place
and then adding screws
I will tell you this is much easier with
with someone helping you to hold the book case so that
You can focus on getting the screws in straight
You don't want to take a chance of snapping one off
And
It doesn't fit
Here's the problem
The diagonal measurement of the cabinet has to be smaller than the opening
So that it can swing out
I had this figured out ahead of time when I was first doing the design
But later the design process, we decided to change the depth of the shelf
This threw the whole triangle off
And I didn't make allowance for it
At this point, the simplest thing to do without starting over was just to cut off the corner with the saw
My blade wasn't deep enough so I had to go back with the handsaw to chop off the excess
I knocked it out and it work just fine
I cut some extra pieces of plywood to fill in the gaps from the inside
Since they're painted white and there's going to be books in front of them
You ended up not seeing them anyway
and nail them into the MDF and it was all good to go
Since the cabinet is so much deeper than the door frame than it's in
I had to build an offset
to hold the latching mechanism
I use some two by eight and some MDF to make a little shelf
That it could screw in behind the door frame
Glue the pieces together and then countersunk some screws in from both sides
I added some pocket holes from the back side to make the joint even stronger to the door frame
Then I screw it in with the two by four frame around the opening
I use the drill bit from the pocket hole jig
to notch out to knock out the door jamb and then screw it in
I added a self-adjusting gate latch but it turned out that the movement was a bad thing
So I pulled it out, knocked out the pin and then screw it right into my bracket
It needed to be sturdy so that the door could catch on it every single time
I added a one by piece of pine to the cabinet
so that I had something sturdy to attach the latch to
Re-drill some holes and then put the latch in place
Screw in a simple handle into the back of the MDF shelf so you can close it from the inside
It works
I made a mark for the wire to pass through by moving the latch up and down
Had to take the latch off and then drilled several holes and then cut it out with a knife
Unfortunately this cause some tear out on the inside of the shelf but we came back later and painted it
I use some double-sided tape and some felt to make sure that the book could move smoothly against the wall
Screwed in an eyelet to the backside of the book and then wrapped wire in through it
I started out with the picture frame wire and it turned out not to be rigid enough
So later on, I swapped it out with the gate latch pull wire
I'll have the right item listed on the what you'll need section on my site for this project
I had to carve out a little bit of wood on the book to make sure the hinge was flushed
Push the hinges far forward as you can and then screw it into the cabinet
Make sure that it moves smoothly
and then feed the wire back through the hole
You'll have to play with the wire until you get the right tension
Because you wanna make sure that the book can both pull and push the latch
And here it is all finished
And overall I'm really excited about this
I mean it works really well
It works better than I thought it would and the friend that I made it for is really excited about it
If you're gonna make one of these be prepared to do lots of shimming and sanding and trimming to make it fit
Especially if you're putting it into an old construction
The floor in this room is not level so I had to adjust the wheels to match the floor
And this trim is not square so I had to adjust for that
Just lots of little fixes to make it fit like I wanted it to fit
Even though the latch is connected to the book and there's a cable that you could grab and use by hand
In case that cable were to come loose or break you can also push these panels out
They're just nailed with a few brads and so it would be really easy to get through there
If you needed to in case of an emergency
and even though we're finished i'm still going to come back and work on it some
more we're going to add a third hinge just to support the weight a little bit
more and it still needs quarter around along the bottom so that it matches up
with the rest of the trim in the room
if you liked this project for you have any questions let me know in the
comments below or as I like to make stuff . com
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would love to know how you did it differently
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Oh that was a good one
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