Sit/Stand Office Desk

Around the same time I bought the lumber for my office bookshelf - it may have been the same trip - I bought the lumber to build a sit/stand desk. 

Back when I worked in an office I briefly had a sit stand desk in my cubicle. It was nice to be able to stand part of the day and to sit part of the day. Now that I am permanently working from home - it will be a sad day if somehow I am ever forced to return to an office - I wanted to make my office work for me.

Step one of that was to build the Slant Front Bookshelf from my prior post. Step two was to build a sit/stand desk. My requirements were:

• I wanted a little more space than I had with my 30" x 60" metal office table
• I wanted it to be pretty
• I didn't want to go overboard on design and construction - no frills

The story of how this desk finally came to be is the same as my Slant Front Bookcase. In brief, shortly after buying all the supplies to build the desk we lost my father-in-law. The subsequent year and a half was busy readjusting to life helping take care of my mother-in-law.

However, after finishing my bookshelf over this summer I realized if I hurried I could finish my desk before it got too cold to use my garage as a finishing room. I double checked the weather forecast and saw a one week window where the weather would be in the 60's F.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take so I buckled down and spent what weekend and evening time I had available to get the desk top built.

I started by milling the 5/4 Sapele boards for the desktop getting them flat and straight. After arranging them in as good of a pattern as I could I glued two up two sets of two. After letting the glue dry overnight I glued the two halves together.

Then it was two or three evenings of sanding and scraping to get the tops flat and scratch free.

I trimmed the ends with a circular saw and straight edge, then rounded the corners with a 1/2" router template, and rounded the edges with a 1/4" router bit.

A little more sanding - about and evenings worth - and dust removal and it was ready for finishing.

The finishing process took about a week. I used General Finishes Oil and Urethane thinned with mineral spirits to make it into a wiping varnish. It works well for me; however, it is slow to build. Also with the weather being cooler than optimal for curing I was giving it a full day between coats.

After letting the finish cure for about 10 more days I attached the legs and set the desk in place.

The weird thing on the wall is a temporary shelf stuck vertically in a French cleat. When I want to use my personal computer at the desk I can close the lid on my work laptop, re-orient the shelf, and use my personal laptop pretty much the same as my work one.

I had plans for building shelves but as you can see from the red leaves outside my office window we were well into fall at this point and I was afraid I wasn't going to get another span of days nice enough to do finishing.

Then, not a week later I saw four days of acceptable weather predicted in the long range forecast. I figured I may as well try to get the shelves done. Worst case I just have some wider boards sitting on my lumber rack for the winter.

The 3/4" Sapele boards I had for my shelves were long enough and wide enough that I could cut them in half and then glue them back together to make all the parts of the shelves. I raced through the milling process so I could get them glued up.

I probably should have taken a little more time with this step as I didn't get the best joints I possibly could have. However, I was able to put those parts in inconspicuous spots so I am not too worried about it.

After scraping the glue I was able to put these boards back through my planer to get them flat again. It was nice to not have to scrape them. However, sanding actually took longer. The shelves have more surface area than my desk. C'est la vie.

I built a quick straight edge for my router to make the stopped dados for the joinery. It worked great. The only failing was when I didn't clamp it down tight enough and it slipped. Fortunately I caught it before I totally ruined the side I was working on. I "fixed" it by finishing the dado I was cutting, then slid the straight edge down a little to just cut the dado a little wider.

Unfortunately this meant I had two separate setups for cutting the matching tongues but it wasn't too bad. I normally use a dado blade in my table saw but these boards were too long. I have a radial arm saw I could have used but it isn't fully set up yet. After much pondering I used my 2 HP router with a rabbeting bit to cut the tongues. I had nearly no tear out on the ends. I love working with Sapele.

I was a little nervous about cutting the middle dividers to length but I measured three or a dozen times and then cut them. I really didn't have time for teeth gnashing and just had to get it done. Fortunately, my measurements were correct and all my dry fitting showed everything was fitting well.

I spent a lot of my non-workshop time thinking about how I was going to glue up these massively long shelves considering order of operations and with what I had available in my workshop. What I ended up doing was gluing and clamping the dividers into the shelves and letting the ends hang off my outfeed/assembly table.

I wasn't excited about clamping to internal structure but I only have two of the really long k-body clamps.

I was a little worried about the weight of the sides bowing the shelves upwards while the glue was still trying so after taking these pictures I took a couple of short k-body clamps and used them to shim up the shelves at the edges of my assembly table. I don't know if it was necessary because I did it and my shelves have no bowing.

The blue tape on the joints did help. However, I also got some tape stuck in the joints. I'm not sure if I'll try it again. I had minimal squeeze out regardless and cleaning up the tape was not zero effort.

After some final finish sanding it was time for the finishing room.

After applying the same wipe on poly as I'd used on the desk I moved it inside to finish curing. I was a little afraid the shelves would beat up the relatively soft sapele of the desktop so I used some double sided tape to tape some felt to the bottom of the legs. It stuck plenty well especially considering gravity is going to help keep the two pressed together.

I'm really happy with how it came out considering the short time - for me - that I spent making it. It's somewhat basic but I don't need anything fancy. I'm kind of a utilitarian sort of guy.

As a side bonus all my measurements came out exactly right. I was a little nervous bringing the shelves and the desk together the first time but they fit with just the right amount of margin. My new desk is about a foot longer than my old desk which required moving the bookshelf over. The door opens with inches to spare. Just as I planned it.

I've only tested the standing feature of my desk once. I need to make sure my cable management is completed such that I don't pinch any cables on the window trim and I don't want to yank anything off the desk if a cable is too short. I'll get to cable management over the next month as things start settling down again.

This was a fun if somewhat rushed project.

Office Slant Front Bookshelf

 Back in March 2020 my office closed and told everyone we were working from home for the indefinite future. Now four and a half years later I am permanently working from home.

Two years ago I built a quick-and-dirty desk for my wife's home office. She really needed a nicer desk more than me. I've been using an old steel office desk I bought used at a metal salvage. It worked fine for holding things off the ground and had enough space for my monitors and computer. My wife had been working on a 2ft x 4ft student desk that didn't have space for her monitors and a keyboard.

Once I had my wife situated with a temporary desk made from a butcher block and some poplar legs I put on it my plan was to build myself a bookshelf to replace the old Sauder one I had been using to hold extra stuff.

I found plans in my Woodsmith magazine that I liked. I was going to use some free soft maple I have sitting on my lumber rack but I couldn't find enough clear maple to make the bookshelves. Since I ad enough leftover 12/4 maple from a prior project that would be appropriate for the legs I decided to go buy enough maple for the carcase.

This was to be my 2021/2022 winter project. I got as far as milling and gluing up the sides and shelves before tragedy struck.

Between multiple deaths in the family over the next two years I didn't have the bandwidth or energy to get into my shop. At least until this last summer (2024).

Step one was checking my shelves and sides to see if they'd warped, twisted, bowed, or done other unspeakable things over the years they were in storage. Fortunately before "shelving" the project I had stickered everything and it all stayed dead flat.

Step two was cutting the joinery on the parts. I made a quick and dirty jig for my Dewalt 2HP router. It's a horrible jig and I did a horrible job cutting the dados. I'm going to blame being rusty from 2 years of little or no woodworking. Living, learning, and growing.

The long groove on the back on on the shelf is for a captured 1/4" plywood back.

The next step was cutting all the tongues on the shelves. I a dado blade in my table saw to get close then used a shoulder plane to fine tune them until they fit the dados snuggly.

Unfortunately on my first dry fit I found out that my shelves fit one side but not the other. My plan was to cut the taper on both shelf sides using my circular saw and a straight edge. The "second" side I cut a little wide of the lines so I could use my router and a flush trim bit to make them identical.

Unfortunately I think I forgot the second step. I admit there was a brief panic. Then some overnight thinking. Then I checked and fortunately I had kept my stopped dados well enough short of the front that I could just trim the side side back. Then it was trimming the shelves to fit...  again...

It made me glad that I've matured in my woodworking hobby past the point where I just throw glue on everything and figure out fitment problems on the fly with wet glue.

Anyway, after dry fitting I took it apart again, added glue and put it all back together.

Then onto the base. The base was a lot less stressful. Fewer joints, simpler woodworking.

I have to admit, I thought I wanted to hand chop the mortises. I failed. I did one or two. They were pretty ugly. I don't actually have a mortising chisel so I was trying to use a bench chisel. It probably wasn't sharp enough either. Failure can be a learning experience. I keep telling myself that and hope it's true.

Anyway, I "cheated" and drilled out the bulk of the waste using my drill press and Forstner bits. I then went back with the bench chisel to flatten the sides. Regardless of the technique no one can tell after it is all glues up.

In the above picture you can see the template used to shape the front rail. I think the instructions said to shape the front and the back rail. I didn't bother because no one is ever going to see the back rail. I tapered the legs, made the riser blocks, rounded over the corners, sanded and then it was done.

I finished the carcass, the back, and the legs separately with water based General Finishes polyurethane. 

I was a little nervous about the back sliding in. Dry fitting it before finish it was really tight. Fortunately the finish actually made sliding it in place easier. It was a nice firm fit.

If you try this project I found adding the stand to the carcass a little tricky. Personally I prefer joinery to align parts but in these plans it's just "line them up and screw them together. I found I needed a straight edge to make sure everything was aligned properly and then a few shims to get everything aligned.

I guess I didn't get any photos of building the drawer. It's a 1/2" baltic birch plywood drawer with a maple false front. I did use side mount metal drawer slides. I'd considered options: no slides, wooden slides, undermount drawer slides.

I went with the side-mount metal drawer slides because I had them and I wanted to be done with the project. This unfortunately is one of my weaknesses. Knowing the mistakes I'd made on other parts of the project I just wanted it to be done.

All that said, it's a nice bookshelf. It looks good and holds things off the ground. Only woodworkers who look closely will see my mistakes. I would recommend these plans and the project to anyone who likes the looks of the bookshelf.

https://www.woodsmithplans.com/plan/slant-front-bookcase/

New Baby Gate Plans

When I got Ripley as a puppy I thought I was going to need to use baby gates to keep her out of our dining room - the room we feed the cats in. I built a gate to keep her out. Turns out Ripley is terrified of tile and hardwood floors so she's not willing to enter the dining room much less cross the expanse of tile to get there.

However, now that we have Lexi things have changed. Lexi is perfectly happy skidding her way across tile and hardwood floors. I need another gate for the other door into my dining room. I have a purchased gate in the opening right now but I hate it. It's much narrower than the entire door opening and I have to step through it sideways to avoid accidentally knocking it down.

So, using my newfound mad skills in Sketchup I designed my new gate.

This gate is going to be fundamentally the same style with the addition of the opening for my plus sized cat. She still fits through the front gate I made almost five years ago but it's a bit of a squeeze. I wouldn't be shocked to find her running through the house with a gate stuck around her waist.

This gate also has to work around some molding that the first gate didn't need to.

I'm particularly proud of figuring out how to make the cap to the gate top. There's a wide and shallow chamfer along the top of the rail that I had to figure out how to make in Sketchup. The trick is to make a template of what the profile is supposed to look like, draw the shape for the template to follow (the rounded end) and then use the "Follow Me" tool.

I haven't even checked to see if I have material for this yet. I probably do. It'll only need a small amount of walnut and I try to keep poplar on hand. I may try to bang it out over one of the upcoming weekends but I'm not sure I'm going to have a free weekend before mid-July.

Sweet Alexandria (Lexi)

 I got another puppy...

Left to right: Sweet Alexandria (Lexi) and Ripley

Lexi's owner sadly passed away unexpectedly. She was a Bernese Mountain Dog breeder and had six dogs that her family needed to get into homes. A friend in our neighborhood puppy play group saw a posting on Facebook, forwarded it to our puppy play group chat, and got me in touch with the poster. In less than 24 hours I went from being a single dog family to having two dogs.

Lexi is a sweet puppy but unfortunately has apparently not had a lot of formal obedience training. She's smart so I don't expect it to take her too long to learn. She is very excitable though.

The dogs had unfortunately been kept in squalid conditions. She smelled very bad when we brought her home and despite us giving her a quick bath and taking her to a professional groomer she still has some grime deep in her coat.

It took her a week to get over having her life upended and to be somewhat comfortable in our house. It took another week for her personality to come out.

She's a really sweet dog and is fitting in great with Ripley, our three cats, and the neighborhood doggie play group. (oh, and she's five years old and not technically a puppy any more).

Picture Frames

 Over the winter I made a couple of picture frames out of some soft maple I got a few years ago for free. I have a lot of the maple so I used a little bit of it to make the frames. I needed to wait until the weather got good enough to put finish on them.

Well, they got their finish, had the art put inside and have been hung on the walls.

The art is some water colors we bought from an artist on a trip to Saint Marten many years ago. Fortunately we stored them safely so they weren't damaged but unfortunately it took me over ten years to make the frames so we could appreciate them on our walls.

Hopefully the first couple of many more pictures to be framed and hung on my walls.

Radial Arm Saw Mobile Cart Progress

If you only count hours in the shop I've been making good progress on the Radial Arm Saw Cart. If you go by calendar it hasn't been that great. Regardless, last weekend I got the panels shaped.

My first step was to shape the tall outer panel as seen below.

Tall Panels

I cut the first rail slot by hand but then I got a little smarter and made a jig. I took one of the longer rail offcuts and cut it into three pieces. I then glued them back together to make a router template. To cut the rest of the slots in the panel I carefully measured, clamped the template in place, removed most of the waste with my jig saw, then trimmed to the exact size with a half inch pattern bit in my router.

I then used the first panel as a template for cutting the middle panel and the short outside panels. I used the same process. I lined up the first "template" panel on top of the other panels, removed most of the waste with my jig saw then used the half inch router pattern bit to get them exact.

Short Panels

Middle Panel and extra support rail

My first task this weekend was to drill the holes for the handles. I'd bought 1" black pipe for these and fortunately I thought to measure it. It's 1" inner diameter so the actual outer dimension was about 1-5/16". I don't have a Forstner bit that size so I just used a 1-3/8" bit. They'll be a bit loose but that's better than being too tight or not fitting at all.

Again, I carefully measured the position I wanted the holes to be on my template panel, used a center punch to mark the hole location and then drilled the hole on my drill press. It was a bit awkward because the positioning of the holes had most of the panel hanging off the table but I made it work.

After getting the holes drilled in the template panel I removed the bit from the drill press and used it and the template to mark the hole location in the middle panel. I then remounted the bit in the drill press and drilled the holes in the middle panel.

Now with all the joinery cut it was time to start gluing up the panels. I decided it would be easier to glue the center panel first. I'm not sure if I mentioned the source of these panels. In cleaning out my in-laws barn I came across a dozen prefabricated panels. They're thick veneer over a poplar core and they've been stained and have a film finish on them. To get a better chance of the glue holding everything together I'm sanding the finish off before gluing.

I sanded the back of the mid rail support and the top of the middle panel. I then spread glue by squeezing a bunch on and then spreading it with an old AAA membership card. It was when I went to apply clamps I realized my error. The little rail started sliding all over the place.

Fortunately I'd decided to buy a pin nailer over the winter and this gave me the perfect opportunity to pull it out and use it. So I quick got my compressor out and refilled, read the nailer instructions - at least enough to know what pressure to run it at and how to load nails, then pinned the board in place before adding a half dozen clamps.

I used the same process with the other two side panels but I skipped the frantic prepping the compressor and nailer step and just made sure it was ready.

Tall side panel glue up

I did use a lot of clamps gluing up the two side panels. I may have had the nailer ready but I didn't have any cauls ready. I did have the rails for the cart though so I used a couple of them to try to spread pressure across the panel. I noticed I didn't have any glue squeeze out on the bottom though so I took the other two rails and used them to put some pressure more in the middle of the panel. It isn't pretty but it worked.

My glue up of the short side panel went a little better as I was more prepared for the number of clamps I was going to need to use. I also used a lot less glue. The above picture of the long side panel looks like I am getting a reasonable amount of squeeze out but there was actually a lot in the middle opening. 

I was interrupted by dinner and other things while gluing but that worked out well because while that isn't all my clamps, that is most of my good clamps of this size. The interruptions came at just the right time for me to let the glue dry so I could get it while it was a little tacky.

I was kind of afraid at how the panels would come out alignment wise. I didn't cut the inner panels oversized at all so if anything slipped during glue up I would have misaligned panels. Fortunately tacking them together with my pin nailer did the trick. They all look fine so I guess I got lucky.

Left to Right: Short Panel, Middle Panel, Long Panel

Next step was to trim the panels cleaning out the rail cutouts, leg cutouts, and trimming the middle panel to length. This work was done with the jig saw, router and table saw.

My rails were unfortunately around 1/128 to tall so I ran then through the table saw shaving off a little at a time until they fit. I put a bevel on all the edges making sure to not bevel the rails where they were going to be inset into the vertical panels.

The the big glue up. I sanded the prefinished parts of the rails where they were going to be glued to the vertical panels and then carefully glued everything together.

As you can see from the above photo I needed a cross clamp to bring everything square but it was pretty close regardless. This was just making a very slight adjustment.

I glued up a couple of blocks to support the wheels, again sanding the finish where they were glued on. I intentionally left them a bit short of the rail so when I add drawers I'll have space to add the drawer rails.

And voila, done except for drawers I will add much later and a top.

And with the top...

I was intending to make the top out of a singe piece of wood/plywood but I happened to have two pieces of scrap panel that I could cut down and only "waste" a little bit of wood. I figured it would work as a temporary top and if it doesn't work I'll replace it later.

I had my neighbor - we'll call him Steve to protect his identity - come over and help me lift the saw onto the cart.

It still needs drawers and a table for the saw but at least it is up off the ground and is on a cart that will be easily mobile. I planned on putting adjustable feet on the leg side. I think I am going to wait a while before I put them on though. It seems to sit pretty stable so far.

I intended on putting of drawers for a while but then I came across a recycle bin full of accessories for the saw. I don't know when I am going to use them but it would probably be best to keep them with the saw. Maybe I'll add a quick shelf and see if I can fit the bin underneath.

We'll see...  For now, it is done.

More Sketchup - Four Drawer File Cabinet

 It is hard for me to get into the workshop during the week which is sad. However, doing design scratches the same itch as making sawdust for me. When I was learning to fly my instructors would call it chair flying. Basically, sit yourself in a chair and go through all the steps involved in starting, taxiing, and flying the plane. This is the same thing for me except I am building projects in my head. I am thinking about joinery, order of operations, etc.

I did design wheels for my tool cart.

They aren't perfect in every detail but they serve the purpose I needed. I'm tempted to go back in and make them more accurate as an exercise but I think I need to get a little better with Sketchup first.

With that done I remembered the other project I wanted to make. My in-laws had this beautiful quarter sawn white oak four drawer file cabinet. Unfortunately it has seen better days. The finish went bad and it suffered some water damage causing the veneer to buckle and separate. I briefly thought about trying to clean it up; however, I'm pretty sure building a new one will be less effort. So, I am going to design and build my own four drawer file cabinet.

A file cabinet is just another case of drawers. It shouldn't need anything too fancy. Sure it is going to get filled with hundreds of pounds of paper but does that really differentiate it from a bookshelf when just considering the case? I don't think it does.

I started my design with the drawer. Since the drawers need to be a specific dimension in order for the hanging file folders to work my drawer width is already fixed for me. I did decide that I wanted my cabinet to be 18" deep so that meant 16" drawers to leave room for the false fronts and cabinet back.

I'm going to hang my drawers on 16" full extension side-mount metal slides. These are easy to mount and should be plenty strong. I will not be opting for the soft close style.

Those slides look a little stubby because I could only find 24" and 14" slides in the Sketchup collection. 14" slides were sufficient to get the idea across and to help measure/fit the width of the cabinet. As you can see in the above photo I have a 16" deep drawer made from 1/2" material. The false front is 3/4" and is sized to leave a 1/8" gap all around. The 1' 1" width measurement is including the sides so there is 12" between rails.

The rails are 1/2" x 1/2" angle aluminum. I'm going to attach it to the top of the drawer sides using screws and epoxy.

With my drawers figured out I moved on to spacing them out. I put a 3" toe-kick on the bottom, added a 3/4" divider between each drawer, added a 1/8" gap, and topped it with a 2" thick top. Here's an image with one side and the back removed so you can see the internal structure.

You can see I left plenty of room for the 1/4" plywood back. I haven't included the rabbets for the back in the Sketchup yet and I don't know if I will. So long as I remember I need to do it when I am doing the construction it should be fine. Same reason I don't have joinery on the drawers yet. I haven't determined what material I will make them out of which may influence the type of joinery I will use.

The overall dimensions of the cabinet are 18" deep, 15 1/2" wide and 54 1/2" tall.

The stiles are going to be 2 3/4" wide. Both the top and bottom rail are going to be 5". In the above image the stiles are actually 3" wide but I thought they looked too big as they only leave 4 1/2" of panel. I'm going to shrink them to 2 3/4" which makes the panels 4 7/8" wide. This makes the panels twice as wide as the stiles vs only one and a half times as wide.

You can see from the above image that the sides are going to be proud of the drawer fronts and top. I initially planed on making it only 1/4" but on reflection decided that 3/8" might be better. I want to put a slight round-over on the sides and I still want to see a little bit of the flat sides in the reveal.  I think...

This is hard to see in Sketchup but I'll mock something up before construction and then decide. Fortunately I have plenty of space inside the cabinet to move the sides forwards or backwards as I want. I also want to mock up a drawer. I measure my metal file cabinets and it looks like I've got it right but I'll feel better knowing that the drawers will hold hanging folders before I go through the effort of construction.

I've already got my wood selected. I came into a supply of soft maple a few years ago and it's been just sitting in my basement. I think it is a beautiful wood and will make a superb filing cabinet.

I still need to finish my mobile tool cart for my radial arm saw and the bookshelf I started last winter but I am hopeful I will be able to get to this by this coming fall.

In the meantime I need to find something else I can model in Sketchup to stretch myself and learn it better.