Project Information
I saw my first lap desk at the reenactment of the Feast of the Hunter's Moon of 1790 in Lafayette, ind. this fall. They had many varieties of them and most had a square hole for the ink well. I thought it would be nice to have one when I'm out away from home and want to do some design work. I can carry all the materials inside. I made mine a bit more modern.
They scrapped these old wine crates at the party store where my daughter worked and she asked if they would be of any use to me. I never say no to free wood so I chucked them in the wood room for a future project and this is it. The crates were pretty rough and with the inked writing on them that I wanted to preserve, I could not sand them at all. I tried to center the wording on each piece but some got cut away with the tapered sides
The box is built with lock miter corners so I really did not need a spline to hold it together, but this is the project for which I built the X spline jig. The sides are 3/8" French wood?? and the bottom is 1/4" of the same. The top is 5/8" wood that I built my second folding stool out of and I don't know what is it but it is light weight. I veneered all the sides so the end grain did not show.
I like special features so I put in a pencil drawer that is held in with 2- 10mm rare earth magnets. The brass pull has a 40 cal shell front soldered to it just for looks. Then when you take out the drawer, there is a hole for you to push out the inner panel which is a hidden dollar bill tray. It is held in with 2 of the same magnets.
The bottom has a pocket milled in that is 1×3 x 1/8 deep so you can pick up paper easily. The top has a pencil groove milled in with a wide spot to pick up the pencil easily
The splines are walnut. I had to cut and finish one half and then load the box in the fixture and cut the other half and finish it. That is the only sanding I could do without ruining the lettering. It is finished with Satin poly but the surface is not all that smooth. That's okay because I foresee some rough use for it.
The last shot is the desk before I glued on the top. It is located with 2 dowels and just glued together.
It is 3 5/8" x 12 3/8" x 13 3/8"
They scrapped these old wine crates at the party store where my daughter worked and she asked if they would be of any use to me. I never say no to free wood so I chucked them in the wood room for a future project and this is it. The crates were pretty rough and with the inked writing on them that I wanted to preserve, I could not sand them at all. I tried to center the wording on each piece but some got cut away with the tapered sides
The box is built with lock miter corners so I really did not need a spline to hold it together, but this is the project for which I built the X spline jig. The sides are 3/8" French wood?? and the bottom is 1/4" of the same. The top is 5/8" wood that I built my second folding stool out of and I don't know what is it but it is light weight. I veneered all the sides so the end grain did not show.
I like special features so I put in a pencil drawer that is held in with 2- 10mm rare earth magnets. The brass pull has a 40 cal shell front soldered to it just for looks. Then when you take out the drawer, there is a hole for you to push out the inner panel which is a hidden dollar bill tray. It is held in with 2 of the same magnets.
The bottom has a pocket milled in that is 1×3 x 1/8 deep so you can pick up paper easily. The top has a pencil groove milled in with a wide spot to pick up the pencil easily
The splines are walnut. I had to cut and finish one half and then load the box in the fixture and cut the other half and finish it. That is the only sanding I could do without ruining the lettering. It is finished with Satin poly but the surface is not all that smooth. That's okay because I foresee some rough use for it.
The last shot is the desk before I glued on the top. It is located with 2 dowels and just glued together.
It is 3 5/8" x 12 3/8" x 13 3/8"