Pre-finish?

[Jack Frederick]

I am building a cherry bookshelf for my 10 yr old Grandson. One of the few good things to come out of this pandemic is that over the last 1.5-2 yrs he has turned into a reader and he is just consuming books. In turn that has gotten his 5 & 7 yr old cousins to emulate his success so it appears I will be into the bookshelf building for a bit. This piece is 32x64 Cherry. I’ve not done much cherry in the past and from browsing Rick’s post and others, and having no spray gear or experience it is Arm-r-Seal whipped on. It is a pretty basic piece. 8/4 legs, loose tenons, book-matched end panels, ship-lapped back slats and adjustable shelves. I will sand before assembly but is it worth pre-finishing some or all of these components?

[Paul F Franklin]

Congrats on getting your grandson and his cousins rev'ed up about reading!

I like to prefinish when the effort of masking off the joinery surfaces isn't too onerous. If you're applying finish by hand, the masking can usually be simpler than when you are spraying. Plus you can orient each part to minimize drips and sags, which is harder to do with an assembled piece. On a bookcase, I usually try to prefinish the inside of the back and sides and top and bottom, and the shelves. The outside is easy enough to do after assembly. It's also a lot easier to do a decent job of sanding between coats when it's in pieces.

[Tom M King]

Congratulations on his interest in reading. All the really smart people I know read constantly. One friend, who has won a Nobel Prize in Physics, has stacks of books all through his house. They ran out of bookshelf space ages ago. They have a tiny TV, but it probably hasn't been used to amount to anything for decades.

[Jim Becker]

My opinion is that unless you are spraying, for something like this, I'd not pre-finish other than perhaps the bookcase back.