Lathe Table Drawer

When I first got my lathe, I knocked together a table for it with leftover melamine shelving and pressure treated lumber I had lying around. I didn’t have a good place to store my turning tools, so I decided to build something. I’m a woodworker, right? It’s what we do…

It’s all scrap wood, not a penny was spent on this project. The front is a leftover piece of 1x pine, sides and back are 1/2” plywood, the bottom is 1/4” Luan, and the knob is a scrap chunk of red oak.

This is my first attempt at “furniture”, so I figured I’d make it a full-on learning experience, and decided not to use any mechanical fasteners (other than the screws that hold the slides to the drawer and table top). I am pretty sure I used every tool in the shop… Hand planes? Check. Scrapers, chisels? Check. Miter saw? Check. Table saw? Check. Lathe? Check.

The half-blind dovetails are all hand cut, (for anyone who hasn’t tried hand-cut dovetails in 1/2” plywood, I strongly recommend it! HA!) the knob was turned on the lathe, and the drawer slides are made from a scrap strip of pine that I cut a dado in, then ripped in half to form the L-shape. The drawer bottom (not shown) fits into a dado in the bottom of the drawer, and the back of the drawer is secured using leftover dowels from many years of “some assembly required” cheap furniture. (“See, honey, I told you I’d need these some day!”)

My camera battery died, so there aren’t pics of the inside, which is lined with that stuff that holds carpets in place on your floor. I drilled holes into a strip of 1x pine and ripped it down the center to make a little “rack” for my chisels… maybe I’ll take some pics and add them sometime…

As always, thanks for looking, and comments/constructive criticism to make the next one better are always welcome!

-- Ryno