In this fantastic video from Chris “Third Coast Craftsman” he builds a “Japanese Style Bookshelf” without using any fasteners or glue! He sells the plans on his website but you can get a lot out of watching a video like this – including tips for making rounding edges and not blowing out your chiseled mortises, using scrap wood as a cross-cut saw straight edge, creating knife walls for shoulder planes, and so much more. And to top it all of I am absolutely inspired by – and thankful for – Chris’s comments like this one:

“There are many different tools and methods you can use to do this task and other tasks that I’m doing for this project. So if you ever decide to do something like this and you don’t have the same tool I do or aren’t good at a certain technique, just don’t let that get you down and know that there’s many different ways to do the same thing.”

Watch:

How to make a japanese style bookshelf with traditional hand cut joinery out of jatoba and oak using both power and hand tools. A very unique and beautiful build that challenged me and was very rewarding.