<>...is sponsored by microjig. maker of the grr-ripper work safer, work smarter. why is a raven like a writing desk? of course this is one of the greatest unansweredriddles of all time, put forth by the mad hatter, and of course, lewis carroll. my personal favorite answer to that riddleis, "because there is a b in both and an n inneither."
i can't wait to see how ivan translatesthat into the spanish captions! speaking of ravens, i made a writing desk. mine is made out of maple and pine and it's got two drawers for storing stuff. there's something so quaint and sophisticatedabout a writing desk. i'm gluing together these 1x4s to make thelegs. with those dry, i can cut them down into 1â½" legs. and i'm cutting all the legs to 29 â½"long. the way i've made tapered cuts for legsin the past
is to make up a jig like this one. these are pretty simple to make, it's just a plywood board with another plywoodboard mounted at an angle,so i would put my work piece in like this against this cleat at the bottom and lockit into place. to make the cut, i would just run this alongmy fence. but i gotta tell you, having microjig as asponsor is pretty cool because they sent me one of their microdialtapering jigs, which, when i first saw it, looked overlycomplicated and very intimidating.
in reality it's very simple to use and isinfinitely adjustable. and rather than having to draw that line out, i can set this rise over run scale. and just like my homemade jig, this has alittle cleat down here that grabs your work piece and pushes it through your saw. to hold it in place, i will use these grr-rippers. i can make the first two cuts with this setup. to make the second cut, i'll turn it onits side and re-adjust my grr-rippers. for the next two sides, i need to double theangle to compensate for that cut.
so that gives me tapered legs that are aninch and a half square at the top, drops down five inches and then the taperbegins and goes all the way down to â¾" square. i find that the shorter pieces are a lot easierand more accurate to cut on my crosscut sled. this is one of the rare times that i was ableto pre-cut most of the pieces for this project. the only ones i haven't cut are the drawersand the drawer fronts, which i will cut to size once it's assembled.for the plywood back and side panels, i'm going to drill pocket holes on all sides. i'm going to glue and screw these plywoodpanels to the centers of these rails.
i'm just going to line it up visually intothe center. i'll hold it in place with a clamp whilei put the screws in. now i can assemble the sides. since my taper doesn't start until 5"down, i need to clamp this top part flat. i'll turn it around and do the same thingon the other side. i'll attach the back panel the same way. clamping this front rail on will help keepit square while i put the screws in. the center divider is a little bit different.it goes together like this. it's got a little overhang on this side,
and this block just lines up like that. to line up this middle divider, i've cuttwo spacers that i can use to center it. this front rail goes on this little blockand screws into the two sides. i'm driving a single screw into this centerpost. to use these side-mount slides, i need tomount it to this plywood piece which sets in a little from the legs, so ineed to add a half inch spacer. i've made this â¾" spacer that's goingto just sit on that ledge. this half inch spacer i've put glue on andi'm going to stick it on
and tack it to the side. now i can take this spacer out and use iton the next one. now i'll set that spacer on this one, andattach this spacer. this one's a little longer since there'sno rear post. i'm using â½" plywood for the sides ofthe drawers. i'm cutting rabbet joints on the ends ofthe front and the back of each of the drawer pieces. and i'll cut a â¼" rabbet along the bottomof all 8 of the drawer sides. i'm setting up these drawers so that i cancut the bottoms to fit.
to install the drawer slides, i'll put theselower spacers in again. that â¾" plywood leave a little ledge thati can set the slide on and get it into position. i'm using those holes that are kind of elongatedso that i can i can move this if i need to adjust it. now i can take that spacer out. to install the drawers i'm going to shimthem up â¼" using â¼" plywood. and i can drop this in like that. now i can pull it out a little bit more andget the next hole.
i'm adding some iron-on edge banding tothe drawer fronts that i cut out of plywood. since the drawers are â¼" higher than theframe, i've got an â…›" sheet of plywood thati'm going to use to shim up the fronts. and once i get that centered about how i likeit, i'll clamp it down. and i'll secure it with a couple of 1"screws. i've take the drawers out because i wantto attach the top and i just realized a mistake i made. i cut these pocket holes so that i could screwthe top on from underneath.
as you can see, these pocket holes are covered up by the drawers slides. when i was designing this, i thought i wasgoing to be using bottom-mount drawer slides so now i'm going to glue the top down. i'm making edge banding for the top cuttingâ¾" x â¾" strips. i'm going to use spray lacquer for the legsand the underside parts. that will be a lot easier. and for the top, i'm going to use brushinglacquer. i've you would like to make your own writingdesk, check down in the description for a free setof plans.
if this is your first time here to woodworkingfor mere mortals, welcome!! and you should know that i post brand newvideos every friday on this channel and i'd love to have you subscribe. and i'd like to invite all of you to checkout and subscribe to my other channel, mere minutes, where i post two videos a week. and finally, if you have an answer to theeternal question, "why is a raven like a writing desk?" leave it down in the comments! it will be fun to read all of those.
thanks everybody, i'll see you next friday.
