The Mini Barrister Bookcase

I’ve always had a fascination with objects that are produced in an odd scale, proportion, or both. Whether it was miniature ketchup bottles at a wedding or a huge novelty paper clip; they just seem funny to me. Lately I’ve tried to incorporate this fascination into my woodworking. My latest attempt was to design a small scale traditional modular barrister bookcase. I started from scratch in AutoCAD making 2D line drawings. From there, I moved to Sketchup where I created full 3D drawings to give me an idea of how everything would go together.

The actual build wasn’t too difficult but there are a lot of different parts to make and keep track of. I used solid walnut for every piece of the build except for the knobs, which are solid brass. The finish is walnut oil. Overall, the dimensions are 21” x 12” x 5”. Below is a video of the build and here is a link to a full set of plans if you’re interested in building your very own bookcase.