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22K views 13 replies 1 participant last post by  RaggedKerf 
#1 ·
Design

The Big Project of 2015​

I think I'm warmed up now. On to the big project (there's still a few more in the works-more on those later-I'll work on them as time permits while parts dry/cure, etc., on this one…)
A little background info…

So, our kids have taken over the dining room table as their personal Lego emporium. We have crates of the little plastic blocks stacked up, blocking access to the table. Come holiday time in a few weeks, the Legos will be relegated to the laundry room in exile, only to reemerge when all the company leaves. This Lego squatters situation cannot be maintained.

I had an idea a month back, to get a Lack table from Ikea and add Lego baseplates to it, just like they show in the Youtube videos if you search for Lego Lack Table. But my wife wanted something a little more grandiose. Like this:



I saw the construction and it looked pretty simple, rustic even. Basic, really. A few boxes with legs just screwed on the outside. Really? That had to be pretty cheap-wait, what? You want how much for this?



Uh…no. Absolutely not. I will not condone paying that much for something that looks like it took an hour to knock together out of store-bought lumber.

I took 10 minutes to come up with a plan based on the above picture (with the above price as motivation) and sketched it out for finance committee approval. I used all my selling skills to push the idea that we'd get our dining room table back and keep the Legos in one neat and tidy place. And give the kids a place to play together instead of climbing on the dining room chairs-our youngest is fond of doing what the older ones do and I know he's going to fall out of those chairs sooner or later…

Plan: approved.

The Design​



This bad boy will have an MDF top, set inside a box to give it a bit of a lip (maybe 1 1/2" inches) to keep the pieces from spilling all over the floor. On the wings, I'm going to install bins under a removable section of the MDF play area for quick clean up. Lift the section, scoop the Legos into the bin, replace the section and done. I'm also going to add-at my wife's gentle suggestion-two drawers under the main table. There will be plenty of storage area for the bins we currently use on our dining room table to fit under the drawers. I'll put casters on the two rear legs, making them a little shorter, but giving us an easy way to maneuver this thing (I'm expecting it to weigh 100+ pounds).

It didn't take long to convince my wife I could build this Lego table-or one pretty close to the picture above-for a fraction of the price pictured above, using lumber from the Borg. Well, she had one stipulation-that I use nicer wood than tubafore studs-so I went to Menard's and came home with the appropriate amount of milled poplar boards!

Time to store everything in the lumber rack above the garage door and plan out my first steps while things get acclimated to my shop. Tune in next time for the first cuts!
 
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#2 ·
First cuts

After letting the lumber acclimate for a week, I'm back in the shop, ready to work on the Lego Table. During the time I waited, I worked on other projects (The New Sawhorses, and Mallet 2.0).

First order of business was to get the wood cut to length for the top and bottom boxes. I pulled out the miter saw station from hibernation and started cutting. Despite not being used for over a year, she worked just fine and in no time, I had my parts ready to go.

I decided to use pocket hole screws and glue to attach the end pieces to the side pieces on both the top and bottom boxes (the bottom will have a layer of 1/2" plywood to stiffen things up and provide a shelf).



Once I had all the holes drilled-I love that Kregg jig!!!-I realized that my bench (still half-covered by a year's worth of in activity) just wasn't big enough to assemble this table. The table will be 50" long and 29 1/2" deep by 28" high.

Bring on the sawhorses! I love it-I just made these things and already they're proving their worth. I pulled out the plywood I'll be using to make the base shelf (4'x4' of 1/2" ACX for those of you keeping score at home) and placed it across the horses. Instant assembly table!



Then all I had to do was add some glue to the joints and screw things home. In minutes, I had a perfectly square frame. I then drilled pocket holes in the tubafore supports that will stretch across the inside of the upper box and create a surface for the MDF play area to rest on. I put in four of these supports.



Only then-as nap time ended-did I realize I should have checked better to make sure the tubafores were lined up:



Not bad honestly, but I can do better. First thing to do when I get back to the shop is move those bad boys and make everything flush and level.
 
#3 ·
Framework

First order of business today was to fix those tubafore supports in the table top. It was tedious, but easy. I clamped it to my bench, unscrewed the studs one at a time and using some clamps and a few select words, screwed them back into place to make sure they were flush with the bottom of the poplar frame boards.

With that out of the way and off my mind, I turned to the bottom box (which is really nothing more than a glorified shelf and a place to attach the legs). Like it's big brother up top, these poplar boards went together quick thanks to the pocket holes and some glue.

I used a chock block this time to keep the boards together while I screw the pocket holes together. It worked fantastically well and I ended up with a frame that was damn near perfect. The one I did last time was really good, but two of the joints were off enough I'll have to hit them with my hand plane before finishing.

Here's what I did. To counteract the natural tendency of the wood being joined to slide just a tiny bit as the screws bite into the other piece of wood, I placed a scrap chunk of tubafore on the bench and clamped it down, then butted the boards to that. Look at the picture here:



The scrap wood is on the left. The wood to be jointed is on the right. I've got the pocket hole facing the right, so as I screw it down, the vertical board is going to want to drift left. With the block of tubafore there, it can't move and the joint remains super tight and straight. I just swing the poplar boards around to the next joint and leave the tubafore chock block in place. Super easy.

Within minutes, I've got the four corners glued and screwed and here's the second box!



And here they are posing together so you can see the size difference between the two frames.



The next step was relatively easy but took most of the time I had today in the shop to accomplish. I glued up the legs. This was just a simple process-glue both parts of each leg, clamp and let dry. It just took a while to get all the clamps (I used three or four on each leg, almost every single clamp I own-time to go shopping!) set up. Each leg is made up of two pieces of 3/4" poplar. They're 3 1/2" wide.



The front legs (non casters) have two pieces, an inner piece that will sit flush against the bottom of the upper box frame, and an outer piece that will extend up the side of the frame and be flush with the top of the frame. It'll give the table that rustic look that the original inspiriting picture had.

The rear legs (with casters) will have two pieces as well, only they'll be cut about 2 1/2" shorter to account for the casters and keep everything level. If I've done my measuring and math right (and that's always a question with me) the inner slabs of the legs should keep the upper box frame level while the outer slabs provide the stability. At least, that's what I tell myself…

Next time I'm going to cut the plywood topper for the base and start preparing the legs and base for finishing.
 
#4 ·
Assembling the base

Today was a pretty productive day in that I got all the lower parts of the table ready for finishing, but my final output didn't look much different than yesterday.

To start, I flipped the completed bottom frame over a piece of 1/2" plywood and traced the outline. I then broke out the circular saw and using a straight piece of poplar plank, figured out the blade offset and clamped the straight edge down. I placed this whole thing on top of a sheet of 1 1/2" thick (I think) foam insulation board that I as a sacrificial cutting surface and made the cuts.

Each time I cut, I told myself how much I needed a table saw. This setup took up most of the second bay in my garage (my wife's car was gone, otherwise I would have moved mine out into the driveway) and besides all the getting up and down off the floor, making two sets of measurements for each cut and moving clamping the straight edge for each cut took up a lot of time.



In the end, I had a perfectly fit piece of plywood, but man, that was tedious. I fired up the air compressor and hooked up my brad nailer for the first time. Popped in some 1" nails and bam bam bam I had the plywood top glued and nailed in place. A very nice fit for an air tool rookie, if I say so myself! I've had this thing in sitting in my cabinet in the garage since last Christmas. I wish I had one a few years ago when I started down this path. Talk about fun!



But it can always be better…I pulled out the jack plane and clamped the base to my makeshift workbench (more plywood over the new sawhorses) and went to town, smoothing up the edges and getting things perfect (my kids are going to come into contact with this thing, I want to make sure it's not rough on their little hands).



I got some very pretty, thin, poplar shavings!



After the base was as smooth as I could get the edging, I sanded everything with my random orbital sander. Then I turned my attention to the legs. I used an old beater chisel to scrape off the excess glue from last time, then sanded all the edges round and smooth. The final touch on the legs was to clip the corners off the rear of the front legs so (in theory) when we go to move the table, the legs don't catch on the carpet. Then I sanded everything again just to make sure I didn't miss any spots.





Everything came out super smooth and after I used the shop vac to suck up the fine dust off the wood, I think they're ready for finishing. Unfortunately, the timer went off and it was time to get the kids from school. 2 hours in the shop goes by fast, but not today-that sanding seemed to take forever and my arms are still shaking!
 
#5 ·
Prepping for paint...

Today I cut up the main play area surface (MDF). I knew I wanted to prime the base, so figured I'd cut the MDF first and get the fine dust mostly out of the air before priming.

I had to use the same layout methods (and again told myself I need a table saw) and spent precious time marking and clamping before making a few cuts, but in the end, got a perfectly cut plank of MDF that will fill almost all the space inside the upper box. On the left and right, I also cut out 4" wide "wings" that will be removable to reveal some bins so the kids can just scoop Legos straight off the table at clean up time. Drop the "wings" back in place and you're ready to start over. More clamping, measuring and doubling checking and dreaming about a table saw, and I had two wings cut.

After I dusted my outer layer of MDF off, I cleaned up the shop with the vacuum and then set to priming. I had brushed on the primer with the last two big projects (Kylie's castle bookcase and Keaton's rocket bookcase) but this time I wanted-scratch that, needed to-move quicker. It's November in Wisconsin and my shop is relegated to a wall along the garage. The unheated garage. That means I can expect temps to plummet soon and the paint/primer won't be able to cure before Christmas (which kind of defeats the purpose of this project).

The solution? Spray primer and spray paint! It's been years since I've used spray paint (I'm thinking the last time was when I renovated my old
Tasco telescope (here's a thread about that project on Cloudy Nights, an astronomy forum I frequent) back in 2008, almost 8 years ago!

Anyway, times have certainly changed-I had no idea there was such a vast array of colors and types of spray paint. I picked a Rustoleum product that has primer and paint in one can, then also picked up their primer, and some clear coat for a final gloss.

$60 and a few bags of spray paint later I was ready to tag some trains…I mean, prime a Lego table. The little pistol-grip adapter thing I bought helped out a lot with getting a nice even coat of primer on the base:



I went to prime the legs and realized that even though they were smooth, there were numerous gaps where my glue job wasn't a perfect, seamless operation. I had picked up some wood putty to fill in the pocket holes for the top and decided why not make the legs as smooth as possible?



Well, as you can see in the above picture, I started getting carried away and filled in everything. Then I looked at the base again and noticed all kinds of small voids in the plywood edging. More putty! About 15 minutes later I was sanding again, but man what a difference! I touched up the primer and the base was ready for paint.

Unfortunately, all that priming and puttying and sanding ate up all my time so I ran out before I could prime the legs. But I did rig up a piece of insulation to serve as as priming station for the legs-I put finish nails in the insulation, point down (it was the only way to get it to work) so I could lay the legs on that, then flip when the other side was ready to prime without leaving marks on the legs.

Next time, I'll hit the legs with primer and paint the base! You may have noticed that I haven't worked on the top lately-that's because I'm still puzzling out how to attach the drawers…
 
#6 ·
Hybrid woodworking

This post is fairly image heavy-I'll post a few here but to see all the images, please visit my woodworking blog)

Accomplished a fair amount today. Before I got to work, I dusted off the base and the legs one final time and then primed the legs



…and painted the base.



It's hard to tell, because I used white primer and white paint, but trust me, it looks nice in person. I put on two thin coats and used up almost a whole can of spray paint, but it sure does look pretty and-smooth!

I continued to apply thin coats of primer (3 total) on the legs, letting it dry about 15 minutes each time.



In between coats, I finally figured out how I'm going to attach the drawers. I will use a piece of leftover flooring (oak) and attach it across the width of the top. I plan to attach this piece slightly off-center, so I can use it to hang a strip of 3/4 plywood. This plywood will be the center support for the drawers. I'll cut matching pieces of plywood to hang between the legs (anchored by pocket holes) for the side supports. It's kind of bulky to explain, so we'll just jump right in…

The first step was to get that piece going across the width of the top. The piece I found was about 2" too long. Easy enough. I broke out the pull saw and, determined to make this a good tight fit, got the little square out to make sure I made a perfect cut.

It worked! Hot diggity, when I test fit the piece, it was so tight I had to use Krokskaft to persuade it into place-but not so tight that the end grain wood started to splinter. A jab to the center and it popped free. That's about the nicest seam I've ever cut!



That only left one problem-being flooring scrap, the oak is cut in tongue and groove from the factory (or whoever made it). I needed a solid surface to glue and screw the plywood too, not the gap the groove provided. That means I needed to get rid of the tongue.

I fired up the band saw and made short work of that little strip of extra wood using my rip fence.

Unfortunately, I'm not hate best at the band saw, so despite my best efforts, there was a bit of a rough edge. Not to worry, I have a jack plane! I planed the edge-it only took a few seconds to clear off the cluttered bench and set up the plank:



And here's the result! A nice, crisp planed edge!



Nice. The next step-time was quickly slipping by-was to cut free the side supports. Cue my dreaming of a table saw again. The plywood scrap I had left was too awkward to safely attach to the sawhorses and still use the foam insulation. I had to place it all on the floor-which killed any thoughts of using the clamps to hold my straight edge. Sigh.

Seeing as how these pieces will be hidden under the table, I just screwed a straight piece of scrap to the wood and ripped it free with the circular saw. A few minutes wasted later, I had two pieces cut, then unscrewed the guide, made my final measurements and screwed it back in place. Last cut made, I brought the pieces over the bench and drilled me some pocket holes:

And the timer went off and I had to get the baby up to go pick up the kids from school. I was frustrated (as usual) that I had to quit just when I was getting into a groove, but the abbreviated sessions are allowing me to focus and really do a nice job on this project, so I guess it all works out in the end. Besides, that oak piece for the center support is about the best work I've ever done on prepping wood for installation. I am just tickled pink over how that came out.
 
#7 ·
Good progress

This post contains a lot of images-I've posted some here, but for the rest, please visit my woodworking blog)

Very productive nap time session today!

First order of business was to take advantage of the 65 degree weather and paint the play surface for the top. We chose a primary blue to cover the MDF. The kids have plenty of the green Lego baseplate's, so blue should compliment what they already have. The MDF took the paint in three thin coats that ate the entire can. The coverage looks good-when it dries, we'll see if I need another can.



Since I had everything already set up, I went ahead and painted the legs as well after a light sanding with 800 grit wet/dry paper to get the primer nice and slick. The paint went on in light coats, 15 minutes apart (just like the primer) and gave me a nice, solid, even coverage. Looking good!



While everything dried, I decided to lay out the draw slide locations on the center divider and add my shop-made slides (1/4" by 1/2" oak strip).

And here's the other side:



With everything glued and nailed in place, I went ahead and attached the divider in it's home, amidships on the top. It fit nice and snug just like before, and the pocket screws are holding it down so tight it's not even funny.

I shifted gears and added little support chocks to the "wings" (the area of MDF on either side of the play area in the center of the top that will be removable, revealing little bins for the kids to sweep their Legos into). I made sure they were on level with the tubafore supports, so everything will be flush once the MDF is installed. You can see the extra support strip on the right side of the picture below:



Then it was time to drill a hole (using my second largest Forstner bit) in the center of the MDF. I made it 1.5" in diameter so the kids could get a couple fingers through, making it easier for them to remove the "wing" (no idea what to call these things…). MDF is a pain to clean up when you're working (that fine dust is crazy, not to mention nasty) but man it cuts clean and smooth:



Next I dusted off my little trim router and set it up over the hole. I chocked in one of my father-in-law's bits (thanks Jim!) and rounded over the edges of the hole for a ridiculously smooth finish.

It's a little hard to tell, but that thing is extra nice. My wife cam out to check on me and whistled. If she's impressed, I'm pleased. Here's a parting shot of the "wing" in place, nice and level on it's support.



With the weekend coming up and a family trip north planned, I packed up the shop and stuck the painted and primed pieces aside to let the dry and cure. Come next week, I'll be getting serious about the drawers.
 
#8 ·
Making Drawers...or one drawer.

Had a blast up at the Great Wolf Lodge this past weekend-as proof of our never-say-die, got to keep playing as long as we can attitude at the indoor water park hotel/resort, I offer a picture of my youngest the next day passed out in my recliner.



This is as quiet as he as ever been outside of his crib in his entire life! The kids are, needless to say, pooped. I am too, but the clock is ticking-we're well into November now and Christmas is looming on the horizon. I have plenty of time to finish, but no time to screw around…so here we go.

First order of business was to clear-coat the legs and base now that everything is painted and dry and cured. I put on three thin coats for each, letting them dry a good 10 minutes or so between coats. It went on smooth and uniform, just like the primer and paint-I'm pretty impressed with the quality of these Rustoleum products.

While everything dried (that stuff stinks, by the way), I switched gears and took a deep breath. It was time for some serious joinery.

Making drawers​

I've been thinking about these drawers for a while now. I marked out my tails and pulled out the mini-Moxon bench. Time to finally break in my little Veritas dovetail saw (I picked this up last year with a Woodcraft gift card at Christmas and never used it yet!):



After I cut the first set of tails (buttery smooth by the way, this saw is great!) I came to a dreadful realization: The wood I'm using (1/4" Aspen) is just too jittery and thin for my rudimentary dovetailing skills. After layout and cutting one side, I realized I still had 15 more to go-and this took almost 40 minutes. That's too long, and likely going to be too sloppy. As much as I'd like to have dovetailed drawers on this thing, I'd also like to get it finished by December 25th.

Solution? Rabbets!

That was much faster-I used the pull saw (man, I love that little saw) and my Bailey chisels and made short work of the cut and paring. In less than 5 minutes, one side was ready (compared to the 40 minutes for dovetailing).



It looked a lot cleaner too. I shrugged and carried on, cutting the next three sides and making rabbets in the front and back. With everything cut, I added glue and started to put it all together, hammering in nails as I went. I used a piece of painter's tape to hold the frame together while I added the last piece. It kept things nice and square for me.



The only thing I had left to do was cut free a piece of 1/8" hardboard to serve as a base and nail it on. This, however, was an exercise in frustration-I don't know how many times I had nails blow out through the sides as I tried to get this stupid piece of hardboard tacked on. Finally, after much swearing and plier pulling, I persuaded enough nails to stay in place and the base was nice and solid. Whew.



That's when it hit me-I spent my entire shop time today on one drawer. And it's not even done-I need to smooth out the sides and then fashion the false front and attach that before I can think about adding the rails…I need to rethink my method…the drawer I finished had three rabbeted corners and one half-dovetailed corner. It has about 10 nail holes from blowouts and because my saw cuts were not exactly true (when I cut the pieces to length-the rabbets are nice and sharp) the thing looks…rough.

Time to go think on how I can improve my cuts and make the next drawer look sharper. I may just chalk this one up to practice…
 
#9 ·
Shooting board side project

So I took some time to think about how to get better results from my drawers (well…that sure sounded better in my head then on the screen) and came up with the idea to make a shooting board. If I start with pieces that are milled properly, perhaps my drawer will look better than the first one…

I mulled this over today as I hit the freshly clear-coated legs and base with a piece of a brown paper bag. I discovered this trick on one of The Schwartz's blogs from a few years ago when working with shellac. Sure enough, it worked for the clear coat too, to knock off the faint fuzz somehow pulled up through the painted surface-perhaps it was dust? Either way, after rubbing (lightly) withe scrap of paper bag, the base and legs are now glossy and smooth. Like, silky even. I impressed myself with this one.



With the base and legs now 100% complete, I was ready to devote today's shop time to making a shooting board. This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time. If I had a table saw, I'd just make my cuts on that and be assured of nice and true surfaces. But I have a handsaw. So my cuts are never 100% accurate. The first drawer was proof of that.

I came across this website by an extremely talented woodworker named Derek from Perth, Australia, where he details how to make a shooting board and even goes into the principals of its design and use. Fascinated read. To sum up, you cut your stock and place it on the shooting board. Then you lay your plane (in my case, a beefy jack plane) on its side and snug it up to a bed and run it down (chute) the length of your stock. If everything is built nice and true, the plane will shave your stock into perfection. It works lengthwise and on endgrain (my bane!). In theory.
The shooting board

Here it is, in all its glory-my shooting board, made from cutoffs from the very project it will be created and used to complete.



I'm making the base out of 1/4" plywood, and the bed will be two 4" wide, 18" long planks of poplar. I first drew a pleasing shape for a handle/hanger and cut it out on the band saw (starting to have fun with this thing now!):



Once everything had been smoothed over with some sandpaper, I glued and screwed the two poplar planks in place.



And here's what it looks like from the business end. Still rough, but getting there. You may notice that the running board (where the plane will slide) is on the wrong side-that's not because I reversed the picture, it's because I'm left handed. Most of the shooting board examples I found (okay, all) were set up for righties, so I had to reverse my plans. I ain't playing their game.

I flipped it over and found a nice scrap piece of poplar the exact length of my board in the scrap bin from some other project last year-it was fate. I glued and screwed that bad boy in place to make a cleat so I can push this thing against the workbench.



The next step, according to Derek is to break in the board. I put my jack plane on its side and adjusted the blade to a depth I felt would be typically used to trim the edges of a piece of wood and started running it down the length of the bed, taking tiny little shavings of the poplar plank. I couldn't get a close enough picture, but the wood looks just like the diagram on Derek's page, with a tiny little ledge toward the base, mirroring the profile of the plane iron as it exits the sole of the plane. Very cool.



Now that the board was broken in, I was ready to attach a fence. I cut a piece of scrap 3" by 3/4" maple to a length about 7" or so. To place it on the board, I left the plane iron extended as if I was going to use it and put the maple up against the blade, taking pains to make sure it was square to the plane, not the shooting board (just in case the board was off-it wasn't but I didn't care).



Once it was lined up where I wanted it (at least, where I guessed it was supposed to be-I've never done this before), I glued and screwed it in place. As a finishing touch I drilled a 1" hole through the handle part (so I can hang it somewhere out of the way in my shop until needed) and sanded the edges smooth.



Now…for a test. I took one of the offcuts of the Aspen and examined my cut. I thought it was good, but on closer inspection, I somehow rounded it…



I quickly ran it through the shooting board and…hot sliced damn on rye, look at that!

I tested the end with my square and…lookie here, we are in business!



I'm really looking forward to the next drawer now! Too bad I'll have to wait until tomorrow, because this side project took up all the time I had today…

 
#10 ·
Pushing ahead with the drawers

Back in the shop and back on track after yesterday's detour to make the shooting board. I put together the remaining 3 drawers and repainted the play area (the big blue thing). Here's how it went down…
The Drawers

First up, I cut the side and front/back pieces from a length of poplar stock (1/4" x 3 1/2" x 36"), slapped 'em on the shooting board and trued up every cut edge (and one factory edge that was off).



It worked like a charm and within a few minutes, I had all the pieces for the first drawer of the day ready for the next step.

Once everything was milled, I turned my attention to the front and back pieces. I cut out the rabbets just like the drawer from last time. I scribed a line the thickness of the side board from the edge (1/4") of the back/front board , then used the pull saw to cut 1/8" through the back/front board (half the original thickness). Then I propped it up in the mini-Moxon bench vise and used my chisels to chip away at the waste. Instant rabbet. The first drawer took me about 10 minutes to make the rabbets. The subsequent drawers went faster. The last drawer only took about half the time as the first one today, which took way less than half the time of the one from last time.

Once I had my rabbets cut, it was time to assemble! Taking a lesson from yesterday (ie, don't use a a hammer and cheap easily bendable nails), I hooked up the compressor (thanks again, Dad!) and broke out the brad nailer. bam bam bam that thing is sweet. Lickety-split I had the first drawer assembled and thanks to the shooting board and careful chisel work, the box was already square!

I flipped it over on to a piece of 1/4" maple plywood (MDF interior) and traced out the drawer. The pull saw made short work of the plywood (I know it's terrible for the blade, but it's a few years old and already has some kinks in it-made before I knew how to use it properly).



With nice-fairly straight cuts-I fitted the plywood to the box and nailed away!



I used my Groz block plane to trim off the excess plywood (really not much more than a few swipes per side) and then chamfered and rounded the edging so the kids won't find sharp corners. There were 2 nails that popped through the sides, but my file made short work of the points and the problem was solved. One drawer done, in about 30 minutes!



I then noticed a cold front coming in-the wind outside was picking up and the sun disappeared. We were under a severe thunderstorm watch for tonight so I figured it was time to paint or I'd have to wait till tomorrow. I stepped aside to repaint the play area with a fresh can of blue paint (after I sanded it with a brown paper bag). It should be nice and smooth and evenly covered now.



While the play area dried, I turned my attention back to the drawers. I repeated the process above with less mistakes and by the time the shortened shop session ended today (my son gets out of school early on Wednesdays, so I lose about 30 minutes of nap time/free time/shop time/writing time) I had all four drawers complete and ready for the next step.



Next up is to build the little collection boxes that will hang under the "wings" (or "end-zones", as my beautiful wife calls them). I came up with a plan for these while bouncing along in the back of the car on the way home from our trip last weekend. The sides will be 1/2" plywood and the face will be 1/4" plywood with a false bottom so the kids and drop out the collected Legos. The sliding bottom may prove to be the most difficult thing on this project, but after finishing these drawers (well, except for the false fronts) I'm flush with confidence.
 
#11 ·
Drawer fronts

*Note, this post is image heavy. If you want to see all the pictures, click here see my woodworking blog.*

I had a simple goal today-get the drawer fronts all cut out and shaped.
Drawer Fronts

I started on the drawer fronts today. First I made a template of the shape I wanted to cut out for a finger pull. I used 1/4" plywood I had laying around.



Then I clamped the template to my 3 1/2" poplar planks and traced the same cutout pattern. Using my drill press, I punched out the waste in the cutout.



Then it was off to the band saw and remove the rest of the waste. Then I clamped the template again to the plank and hooked the whole thing to the bench where I used my trim router and a flush-trim bit to get everything nice looking.



Finally, I moved to my router table and smoothed over all the edges, rounding everything to make it nice and gentle on my kids' hands.



Now I've got four drawer fronts, rounded and smooth.



I had just enough time left today to pack up my tools and move the router table, band saw, and shop vac back into their homes so my wife could pull her car in the garage.

Tomorrow, I can put the drawers together!
 
#12 ·
The Mistake

Well, as I sit here icing my hand, I can sit back and say once more with authority that I need a table saw. Why, you ask?-other than the convenience factor? Because I could've used it to fix a costly mistake I discovered today…

I started off making the open space in the front of the drawer to remove stock so the false front can fit and look nice. Pulled out the coping saw and my bird's mouth jig and started cutting. The result (after some sanding) was a nice smooth curve. I used a paint can to trace the line.



Then I put the false front on it to see what it looked like and that's when I discovered the great mistake:



The Mistake

So what is this mistake I'm referencing? Well, first thing I did when I got out into the shop today was to line up the false faceplates for the drawers-of which I'm pretty proud-with the rest of the drawer and then do a little test fit under the main top to see how everything lines up. That's when I noticed my horrifying mistake, made when I did my initial measurements for this beast. I wanted to use a 3.5" wide false front for the door for the drawers-since 3.5" stock was what I already had on hand after building the base and the top in the legs. All fine and good. Except when I went to make the drawers out of .25" thick stock, I selected the 3.5" wide variety. I have no idea why.

I'm sure you can guess what comes next: the faceplate was exactly the same size as the drawer, which was even made worse by the fact that I nailed the bottoms on to the drawers and they're 1/8" thick hardboard. So now the entire drawer sticks out 1/8" under the faceplate.

To make matters worse, when I routed the edges and made these nice smooth corners for the faceplates, it took off just that much wood, so that when I put the false front up against the completed drawer, everything sticks out a little less than a quarter of an inch.



Ideas ran through my head as to how to fix this problem. I could remove the bottoms, bust out all the nails, and then trim the base of the drawers by about a quarter inch, exposing fresh wood and then re-nailing the bottoms on. It sounds like a lot of work and it is, or would be. The nails from that brad gun hold the bottoms on so tight I doubt I could get them off without destroying the drawers in the process. And I didn't even use glue…

Another option was to cut from the top. I check it out and on all four drawers, only one of them had any nails that would've caused any problems (and at that, only two). It looked like my best option was to take the Japanese pull saw and slice off a quarter-inch from every side…of every drawer.

See where I'm going with the table saw thing? If I had one, I could line up the base against the fence and then just cut each side 1/4" short (I've seen videos of guys making boxes, then using the table saw to rip the top free, leaving a perfect joint). Turn the box on its side, rep another quarter-inch off, turn again and again and before you know it you've got a drawer that's a 1/4" shorter. Obviously I would've had to remove the two nails from the offending box, but other than that I think it would've gone in about a half hour or so. I think.

The Solution

So, back to reality! What can I use besides the Japanese pull saw that would go faster? Coping saw? No-just no. A regular Western push saw? Definitely not, plus the kerf would be sloppier. The jigsaw? Hell no, my jigsaw's a piece of junk. It works-after a fashion-but it leaves a ragged line and the base plate can't stay perpendicular to the blade to save its life.

The band saw's out-the throat is nowhere near big enough to be able to handle this 13.5" box sliding through. Although that would've been a cool solution.

That leaves the trim router. My main router table would work unless I went straight down over a very wide bit and I don't think I have the skill or the bit necessary to do this. So I decided to use a straight edge, mark my measurements on all four sides of the drawers, then clamp the drawer to the straight edge using it as a template.

The idea is to put the trim router inside the drawer, then route away the waste to the template, using a flush trim bit. Sounds simple?

Right?

I realize because of the size of the router and it's base plate I wouldn't be able to go from corner to corner, but I figured the couple inches on each corner would be nothing for the Japanese pull saw take care of compared to ripping the entire length of the drawer. On each side.

So I tried it out. On the first drawer, I quickly went through two sides and it seemed to be pretty good. Smooth sailing. Loud, dusty, messy, yes, but it got the job done pretty quick. Just like I planned! Maybe this will take so long to fix after all.

I moved on to the third side. Here is where I encountered my first problem. The router bit caught a wild grain in the wood and the thing took off for about half-inch. No big deal, I was never in any danger and I had a good grip on the router itself. However, it did pull itself up off the template and took a nice chunk out of the drawer side. Worse than that, the grain in the wood decided to split from where the router stopped when I yanked it out-it cracked the side of the drawer almost in half. At the same time, the opposite side of the drawer popped loose from the nails.



At first glance, it looks like the drawer is ready for the fire pit. I uttered a few colorful metaphors, then realized that all of the damage could be fixed with simple glue. The split in the wood caused by the router was so clean and followed the grain so nicely, that when I squeezed it together with my fingers, it disappeared. So I broke out the glue, filled in the cracks, put three clamps on that sucker, and took it inside to dry. I'm confident that once I figure out a process to do this a little bit better, I'll be able to salvage it.

So, I turned back to the other three drawers as they stared in fright at the router. I decided not to risk that tear-out again. I got lucky this time, the damage done by the router seems to be easily fixable-we'll see after the glue dries-so for drawer number two, I decided to just do the pull saw. There were no nails in danger of being hit, so I figured it should be pretty quick, considering this thing cuts like a hot knife through butter

I used some clamps to set the drawer up on its side and after making my marks about a quarter inch from the top edge all the way around I started to make my initial cuts. Couple things I noticed was it was easier to use the crosscut side of the side to get the kerf going then switch to the rip cut. The other thing I noticed was that the saw chattered enough no matter what angle I used that I was worried I'd rip the drawer apart before I could make any cuts. Somehow I soldiered on and was able to use a few relief cuts to break away the pieces as I cut down the length of each side. It was a messy affair and the saw wanted to constantly wonder off of the line I wanted to pull it on, so the cut in the end was a ragged affair.



So, I rotated the drawer re-clamped everything and started the next cut. And cut and cut and cut, then relief cut then start over again. Rotate and repeat for the last two sides. In all it took me about 20 minutes to cut the drawer.

I should say at this point I started getting worried I wouldn't be able to do much more than this during today's session, as my hand was cramping up. Just before I came outside into the garage to work today, I happened to walk by the kitchen table and swung my hand awkwardly. I clipped the middle of my hand right on the corner of the table. It hurt like the dickens, but I figured it would just pass. Well it didn't. The middle finger started growing numb about the time I was halfway through cutting drawer number two. By the time I finished my sloppy cuts, my hand had grown stiff enough that it was getting hard to grip the saw. Rather than taking a chance and injuring myself further-or even worse the saw-or destroying the drawer, I decided to stop cutting for the day.

I wasn't quite willing to quit for the day, however. So I clamped the drawer down to the bench, brought out the block plane and started to smooth the rough saw cuts. In short order, I had nice smooth, clean edges again. Most of the saw marks were gone and I was able to bring the kerf back in line with my original cut line. It was minimal work, but it was hard enough to grip the block plane with an injured dominant hand. I got the drawer half done when my wife convinced me to hang it up for the day and get inside to ice my hand.

The entire time I kept telling myself if I had a table saw, I could've ripped these things off and be done and moved on to the next step. Instead, I'm looking at possibly another two or even three sessions out here just to fix the drawers.

Anyway, that pretty much sums it up for the day. A disappointment to be sure, but a glimmer of hope for next time as well. If I can refine my process of cutting and using the block plane, I might be able to get these drawers done in a reasonable amount of time.

I noticed while I was using the block plane that if the blade caught the opposite side, it tended to want to separate and pull the nail head right through the wood. So when I'm done using the plane, I intend to go back and put glue in all the corners.





I don't know if it would've been better to have glued everything up to begin with rather than just using nails, because the stress that the drawers have been under so far from cutting and planning may have actually broken the wood worse than just the seams. Either way, I'm confident that when I'm all done I will have finished the repair work and no one will be the wiser when everything is put together assembled. Except you people reading…this…post…oops.

All in all it's been a hell of a learning experience and I think I've learned a lot today. Nobody got hurt (well, not by woodworking), no tools were harmed, and the workpiece has been saved. I hope.
 
#13 ·
Sliding bottom idea...

After a quick check on the wounded drawer to see how things were drying, I came to the conclusion that my repair work accomplished it's goal. The drawer is nice and sturdy again after the glue. However, I'm a little concerned about the depth of the router cut. I may have to redo this one.



I decided to shelve the drawers and move on with the other trickery needed to finish the top. I need to make the little bins on the wings that will collect Legos the kids scoop off the main play surface. So! Here we go.

The Bins

I started by making a template out of scrap hardboard laying around. Here's the shape I want for the side pieces-just enough of an angle to get the Legos to fall to the bottom but nothing to terribly steep. About 45 degrees.



I took the 1/2" plywood stock over to the monster 9" bandsaw and cut out the shapes. I swear, since changing the blades to an Olson 6 TPI, this things cuts great! Really makes the bandsaw into a very usable part of my workshop. I'm not looking for ways to use it…

Before long I had all the pieces cut out (including the middle pieces). Then it was back to the bandsaw to rip the 27" long front pieces for the bins.

These came out a little wobbly, despite my best efforts (the stock was too wide to use my shop made ripping fence) at hand feeding. I just stayed a little past the layout line and trimmed it up with the hand planes.

Back to the sides. To allow the backing (1.4" maple-MDF core-plywood) to sit flush, I wanted to rout a rabbet in the side pieces.



It came out pretty good for my first time doing it this way!



Time for a dry fit! Now you can see a little better what I'm planning…The backing slid in just perfect! Really getting excited-I've never attempted this before.



Now it's time to sit back and think some more about how I'm going to rig up a sliding bottom for this thing. I've got a few options floating around but they all include lots of Little support blocks glued into inconvenient places.
 
#14 ·
Fixing the sliding bottom...

I had a eureka moment last night. How to get the false bottoms on the bins to slide in and out? I had envisioned two pieces of thin plywood or hardboard, sliding out through the sides, which allow all the collected Legos to fall out through the open bottom.

I had devised a few different ways to achieve this goal, but all of them included little guide rails sandwiching the moving part. It was all very complicated and involved tiny pieces.

Then it came to me: why not just cut the bottom off the sides, cut a notch and glue the bottom back on? Instant support! Like this:



Then I notched the middle pieces to allow free movement of the false bottom and installed it. I used glue and my brad nailer, but for some reason, completely forgot to get a picture of the actual fun part. Instead, you have a picture of the middle glued up and clamped, ready for nailing.



You can see part of the blue playing area there on the right. It will be installed much closer to the bin. Right now I just have it sitting there for storage. When the paint fully cures, I'll move it to the basement for safe keeping until assembly time.

In the meantime, here's a shot of the installed side pieces and the back (that line next to the right edge of the tubafore). I had to make the front piece next, a 27" long, 4" wide piece of that MDF core 1/4" ply. Because of the angle of the sides, though, I needed to bevel the edge of the front piece. My only option was a block plane:



Which worked like a charm. Then I had to install a small strip of wood for the false bottom to ride on as it's pulled out. This was simply glued on to the bottom of the backer piece. It was a tricky position to clamp, so I used all my smallest clamps…



But the result was what I wanted! Not the straightest cut, but it's going to be sanded and will be hidden 99% of the time.



Next time, I'll have to tackle the inside front edge of the bin-I test fit a false bottom and while it slid out nicely, riding on the bottom rail, it wanted to go all cock-eyed because there was nothing holding it from the front. Easy enough.
 
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