LumberJocks Woodworking Forum banner

Project Information

My wife teaches reading and ESL at the local junior high school. Seventh graders. Most of the time she's either moving around the room all day or she's letting the kids read on their own. Sometimes she reads to them, however, and that's when she needs a lectern.

No, it's not a podium. A podium is something you stand on. A lectern is the thing you stand behind, the thing that holds your papers or book so you can give a speech or read to someone else.

This is the design I came up with. Like I said, she teaches seventh graders. They aren't known for being dainty, so I built this thing to last. It's heavy, and it's very durable. All the wood is birch plywood, mostly 3/4". It features a wide top with three holes drilled into it for pens, and a single shelf underneath for papers. It has adjustable feet with ultra high molecular density plastic on the bottoms, so it's easy to move about on her carpeted floor. And it has 4 coats of satin polyurethane overall and 2 more on the top.

The center column was made by first laminating two sections of 3/4" play together, then ripping them into 1 1/2" square strips. These were cut to length (4 were cut to 4' and the other 4 to 3' 8"), then glued up to form a square column with the corner pieces aligned 2" proud of the side pieces on both ends. There's also a 6" long piece inside each end in the center, aligned with the ends of the shorter side pieces.



The legs are joined together with a half-lap and glued in the middle. A five inch lag screw is driven through this joint into the bottom of the center column and the legs are also fitted into a mortise and glued to the column. The cross-piece at the top is joined to the column in the same way, and the top itself is glued and screwed to the cross-piece.



My wife is quite happy with her lectern. Several other teachers expressed an interest in it, and one of them commissioned an identical piece for her classroom over at the intermediate school.

This was an interesting project to design and build. I usually make things that can be considered "art," but this was a lot of fun.

I have my lectern listed at Etsy and will probably list it at MadeItMyself soon, too. I think lots of people would enjoy having a nice, heavy lectern available. You never know when you're going to need one.

Gallery

Comments

· Registered
Joined
·
19,753 Posts
well done
 

· In Loving Memory
Joined
·
10,409 Posts
Great job Jay.
 
Top