Sometimes I wish I could build a cabinet and then just bend and stretch it to fit a wall like taffy. That was the main challenge building the bench unit shown above. The main bulk of the work was creating templates and then of course manually cutting out the shape of the parts using a router. Lots of routing...lots of dust...lots of noise! To make things slightly more fun it had to be built in two parts just to get it in to the apartment. It was a bit of an engineering challenge so it would fit just right. Starting on site i made a full "life size" template of the wall using sturdy cardboard, setting it at the height we wanted the top of the cabinet. The cardboard is cut to the shape of the curved wall. Smaller cardboard pieces are then added to create the shapes where the curve meets the other walls. I used short screws and tape to hold everything in place. The cardboard worked out great because it was light weight and easy to fold in half for transporting back to the shop. In the shop, the cardboard template was used to create yet a new template from 1/4" MDF which provided a solid edge for my router to follow (cardboard is just too flimsy). The MDF template was used to make all the curved parts, including the shelves. Once the cabinet was built, I used 2 layers of thin plywood laminated to create the back. Guess you could call this a "round-about" way of creating a simple bookshelf!
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