(strolling guitar music) marc: welcome to another installment in our series of collaborative project videos between the wood whispererand finewoodworking.com. i'm your host marc spagnuoloand today our goal is to make a stable base forour new assembly table. that sucker is heavy sowe need something that can take the weight, but itdoesn't need to be elaborate. you could just make a simple base
from two-by-fours and plywood. but if you're like me and youcould always use more storage, this is a great opportunityto get creative and design a functional arrangementof doors and drawers, and i think i'll throw a fewcreature comforts in as well. the overall plan is to make a stand that has three main compartments. the first will be a shelfinside of a door, followed by a set of drawers, and thenanother shelf inside of a door.
because our table is fourfeet wide we can actually have the design repeated on theother side of the table, so we're basically doubling our storage. my plan calls for a very simple structure consisting of fourvertical plywood partitions that are connected withplywood stretchers. the pieces themselves will beconstructed using dados and rabbets, and these two jointsare fundamental to good cabinet making so it's well worth ourtime to review this process.
let's start by cutting the dadosin our vertical partitions. with our vertical partitionscut i number them one through four so that ican keep them in order. it's very easy to cutyour dado in the wrong place so don't be afraidto dummy proof it. i'm going to cut my dadostoday using a dado blade in a table saw, that's reallyjust my preferred method. alternatively you coulduse a straight edge and a router with a straight bit.
if you're not familiar,a dado blade is nothing more than a stack of blades that gives you a wider cut than aregular table saw blade. it's really the perfect tool for the job. i have to use shims to get theperfect fit for my plywood. if i set my dado forthree-quarters of an inch the joint will be too loose. this is because plywood thesedays generally runs about 23/32 of an inch instead of theadvertised three-quarters of
an inch, so you usually haveto use a special combination of chippers and shimsto get the perfect fit. at this point it's very important that we develop a cut strategy. in order to ensureconsistency we should try to do all of our identicalcuts at the same time. once the fence is setwe really don't want to move it until all those cuts are complete. in the case of our standhere each vertical partition
gets a dado that's threeinches up from the bottom. once i set my fence at threeinches i'll cut the dado on each board before imove onto the next cut. let's get started on our dado cuts. i use a combination of chippers and shims to get the exact width i'm looking for. i then set the fence to three inches from the blade, and cut all of my bottom dados. i'll then reset the fenceto cut my top dados as well.
notice that i'm using ananti-kickback roller to help me keep even pressure wherethe wood meets the blade. now it's time to cut our dados and rabbets for our stretcher pieces. it's critical that our dadosand rabbets line up perfectly from stretcher to stretcherbecause we're relying on them to keep our verticalpartitions in proper alignment. if they're off by just a little bit it's going to cause us trouble down the line.
the best way that i knowto ensure accuracy is to cut the joints ahead oftime from a larger piece. then once the dados andrabbets are cut we can easily rip our three inch widths from the larger piece and all ofthem will be perfect. i would love nothing morethan to just cut these dados and rabbets righthere on a table saw, and it's tempting, but it'snot really a good idea. whenever you have a piecethat is significantly
longer this way than it is this way, we've got a high likelihood of kickback. in order to avoid that i'm actually going to use my router witha special plywood bit. these plywood bits are available from most router bit companies. not all plywood isexactly 23/32 of an inch so make sure you cut afew test joints first. i use my router with an edge guide to cut
the rabbets on both sides of the board. then using a clamping straight edge i cut the two inside dados. with the two dados and the two rabbets cut i can now rip our threeinch stretcher strips. with all of our dados cutin our vertical partitions, we have to turn our attention to the toekicks at the bottom of each partition. we need to cut out a threeinch by three inch square from
each bottom corner, and the besttool for that is the jigsaw. i like to use blue tapeto help prevent chipout whenever i cut plywood with a jigsaw. assembling this monster canbe a pretty tricky ordeal. the easiest way that i findto do it is with pre-assembly. each of the sidecompartments offers us a good opportunity for pre-assembly,meaning you would use the two partitions and the twoshelves that go in between. once all that, the glue is dry, things are
a little bit morestable, then we can bring the whole piece togetherusing the stretchers. let's get started with that. i begin by placing one ofthe vertical partitions on the floor, and then i spread a generous amount of glue through the entire dado. the shelf drops easily into the dado and i secure it with brad nails while keeping the shelf perpendicularwith a speed square.
after installing both shelves i add glue to the dados of thenext vertical partition. with a little coercion the shelvesslide right into the dados. once again i secureeverything with brad nails. with both sub-assemblies completed it's time to add the stretchers. you guessed it, glue and brads. and the same treatment for the toekicks. now that the case is builti'm going to show you how to
measure and build the drawers.let's start with the width. the drawer slides that i'm using here are full-extension slides. these guys are a half inch thick each, so to get our drawer widthwe need to subtract an inch from the total widthof this center compartment. then if your space is19 3/4, then the final width of your drawers would be 18 3/4. i measured my vertical spaceand it comes out to 24 3/4.
i'd like to have aquarter-inch gap between each drawer, and i also want four drawers that increase in depth as they go down. all i need to do now iscalculate four drawer heights that work with those parameters. the easiest way to do this for me is to draw it out on a piece of scrap. i've got all my quarter inch gaps here and the drawers themselvesare four inches,
five inches, six and a halfinches and eight inches. finally we need to determine our depth. the total depth acrossthe stand is 38 inches, and since i want my drawersto be on both sides we only have half of that to workwith, so that's 19 inches. the drawer slides that ipicked up are 18 inches so i'll just make my drawers 18inches, and that will give me the extra room that i needin the middle to run things like cords and air hosesthrough the stand later on.
my drawers themselves will be made from three-quarter inch birch ply on the sides and they'll have half-inchbirch ply bottoms. these drawers are going to hold a lot of power tools so i want to make sure that they're going to standup to that extra weight. based on all the numbers we've calculated we can now cut our drawer parts. with all of our drawer parts cutlet's talk about the joinery.
there's a number ofways that we could make our drawers, from a simple butt joint to a more advanced joinery like dovetails. since this is just shopfurniture i'm looking for something that's simple, buti also need it to be strong. the think the best choice here would probably be a reinforced rabbet. we're going to start bycutting a half-inch deep rabbet on all of the ends of thefront and back pieces.
just a quick note, the finallength of your side pieces will vary depending on the typeof joinery that you choose. just plan everythingout before you make your final cuts and everythingshould turn out fine. to cut the rabbet jointsi'm using a dado blade again but this time witha sacrificial fence. this allows me to safelycut right up to the edge of the board withoutdamaging my fence. i cut the rabbets a half-inchdeep and 23/32 of an inch wide.
now we need to make aquarter-inch deep dado on all of the inside facesof our drawer pieces, and that's where our half-inchbottom panel is going to go. now that the joinery is allcut for our drawers i could do a quick dry assembly,take a couple measurements, and then i have the dimensionsfor my bottom panel. don't forget you take the insidedimension and then add the extra distance for your twodados on both sides, and that gives you a perfect numberfor a perfect fitting panel.
with all the drawer bottoms cut we can start assembling our drawers. the one problem i just realizedis i don't really have an assembly table yet to work on,so the easiest thing for me to do at this point isclear off the table saw, take the splitter off, putthe blade down and then maybe put a piece ofply on top of everything and use that as amakeshift assembly table. i lay out all the drawer parts and
spread glue in all the dados and rabbets. next i drop in the half-inch bottom panel. and then i assemblethe rest of the pieces. next i shoot brad nails intoboth sides of each rabbet joint. a speed square helps confirm alignment. our drawers are going to behung on full-extension slides. that means that the drawerswill extend all the way out, giving us easy access to theitems that are way in the back. for most folks installing slideslike this can be intimidating,
but like many things itwoodworking it can be a piece of cake if you justuse a systematic approach. as always, let's keep itsimple and dummy proof it. let's review what we already know. we know that we wanteach slide to line up at the bottom of the drawerswhen they're installed. we also know that we want there to be a quarter-inch buffer aboveand below each drawer. and we know that the drawer compartment
itself starts threeinches above the ground. i'm going to take all thepain and the frustration out of this installation by using spacers. here's a three-inchpiece of scrap left over from the stretchers, andthen here's a strip of quarter-inch plywood withveneer tape added so that i could bring it up toexactly a quarter inch. since we want the bottom ofour drawer to be a quarter-inch above the toekick all we needto do is drop in our three
inch spacer, put our quarterinch spacer on top of that, now we've got the perfectheight for our drawer slides. in order to install theslides i need to separate the slide itself fromthe drawer bracket first. with my three inch and quarter-inchspacers in place i drop the drawer slide on top, andkeep the front of the slide about a 16th inch awayfrom the front of the case. i then use a self-centeringdrill bit to drill a pilot hole, and attach the slide with one screw.
after securing the firstscrew i use an adjustable square to confirm that theslide is actually sitting perfectly perpendicularwith the front face. because i have this piecesitting on concrete there's always a possibility thatit might not be dead flat, and it could actually beraising or lowering the back of the slide so i'llconfirm that it's square, use that for reference, andthen attach my other two screws. once i attach both of myslides to the case it's time
to attach the adjoiningpiece to our drawer sides. fortunately, this is a piece of cake too. i scribe a line seven-eighths of an inch up from the bottom of the drawer. seven-eighths of the inchis the distance from the bottom of the slide to thecenter of the drawer bracket. be sure to measure yourslides because there could be differences from onemanufacturer to another. i make sure the bracket is flushwith the front of the drawer.
then i line up my holesand attach with screws. now it's the moment of truth,let's see how this guy fits. push the slides into thelittle plastic guides. as you push this guy through, the first time you pushit in it's actually pretty tough to push in,so don't get nervous. just push it all the way untilit contacts and registers. very nice. now let's weight test it.
yeah! that's 175 poundsof pure italian man. for the remainingdrawers it's very simple. we add our quarter inchspacer and put in our slide. if you like the way yourdrawers look here you could just throw some handles onthere and call it a day. it's just shop furniture so it doesn't need to look really elaborate. but i personally would like toclose up some of these gaps, prevent a little bit ofdust from getting in there,
and the way to do that is to put on drawer fronts on topof these drawer faces. the way i'm going to do that is using a single sheet ofmaterial, i'm going to cut all of my drawer facesfrom the same piece. this way i'm going tohave grain continuity from top to bottom and it'sgoing to look awesome. it's a technique youwant to use in any type of furniture you make,not just shop furniture,
and it really makes thepiece look that much better, it gives it an amazing visual effect. to measure for the firstdrawer face i attach a piece of ply to the bottom of the case. this gives me a stablereference point to measure from. i measure to the top of thedrawer and add a 16th of an inch. before i cut my first drawer face i mark the board with a large triangle. that helps me keep the boards in order.
with my first board in placei add a one-eighth inch shim to the top edge of the drawer face. now i can measure formy second drawer face. with the second drawerface cut i can use the same method as before tomeasure the next drawer. i repeat this measurementmethod all the way to the top. the result is a bank of drawers with exactly one-eighth ofan inch between them. attaching the drawer frontsis relatively simple,
you just need to keep everything aligned. i'm going to start with myfirst drawer at the bottom. i'm going to keep mysupport board in place because we're going to use that again. i don't really, i'm not toocareful with the glue here. put that in place. center it as best you can. once you feel you'repretty close to center ... i'm going to shoot a fewbrad nails from the inside.
you can add more bradnails if you need to. i'm going to use a fewclamps to hold this in place and give it about 30minutes for the glue to dry. drawer number two is donein exactly the same way. only difference, we put ourspacer here just like before. put the glue on theback of the drawer here. line everything up, now i justline it up with the bottom, the bottom drawer that'salready installed. that looks pretty good.
then once again with the brad nails. i'm going to install some simpleplywood doors on our stand. i'm going to hang the doorsusing european-style cup hinges. this is the ideal hinge for shop furniture because it's strong and it's durable. and installing them is pretty simple too. cup hinges have two parts:the cup that attaches to the door and the bracketthat attaches to the case. i start by making marks forthe bracket on the case.
i scribe a line three-and-a-halfinches from the top and bottom, and extend that lineto the inside of the case. this is our center line for our hinge. then i use one of the hingesto establish a reference mark that will show me where theedge of my door will be. this allows me to measurethe final width of my door. plan for an eighth inch gap between the door and the bank of drawers. with a piece of scrapclamped to the bottom of the
case i take a verticalmeasurement for my doors. with my door cut to size irest it on the support board. i then transfer my hinge centerlines to the inside of the door. to attach the hinge bracket to the case i line up one of thehinges with my center line, and slide the hinge all the wayuntil the cup hits the case. then i pre-drill for my screws. before attaching the bracket i disconnect it from the cup portion of the hinge.
nothing to do now but drive the screws and test the fit. to attach the cup sideto our door we need to first drill a 35 millimeterhole for the cup to sit in. this can be done with aforstner bit and a jig. a jig like this is relatively inexpensive and will save you time and energy. i simply line the jig up with my center line and start drilling.
the jig has a stop collar on the bit that makes sure the depthis perfect every time. i drop the hinge in place,pre-drill and attach the screws. with both hinges installedit's time to attach the door. if the door doesn't fitperfectly there are several adjustment screws on each hingethat can really come in handy. we won't get very farwithout some handles, so i've selected somevery simple metal handles, pretty much the cheapestones i could find, and we're
going to attach them to thedrawer fronts and the doors. to install the handles i mark the center point of the top drawer. using a large square i transfer that line all the way down the drawer faces. then with an adjustablesquare i strike a horizontal line at the approximatecenter of each drawer. next i make a quick little marking gauge out of a small piece of scrap.
i simply mark the locationof the screw holes, and then i measure andmark the center point. all i need to do now is lineup the center point of the marking gauge with thecenter point of the drawer, and transfer the marksfrom my screw holes. i line up my handle, pre-drill,and drive the screws. the door handles are installedin much the same way, only i place my lines an inchand a quarter in from the edge, and four inches down from the top.
let's take one final tourof our assembly table stand. this stand is exactly what my shop needed. it looks good, it's sturdy, and it provides lots of extra storage. on the right side i installeda switch for the compressor, a 25-foot flexible air hoseand a heavy-duty power strip. on the left side i installedanother power strip, as well as a small frenchcleat storage system. using this system i canhang just about anything
using shop-made holdersmade from scrap wood. here's our table and our stand together, i think it turned out great. if you want to finish yourstand something as simple as a wipe-on polyurethanewill work just fine, but remember, shop projects are a great place to practice finishing techniques. it's also a great place to use up some of the leftover finishthat might expire soon.
and of course, you canalways leave it as is. a stand like this not onlyprovides ample storage but it also allows you toget creative and add some features that you normallywouldn't expect to see. you could even addspecialized storage in each drawer for specific tools,like the biscuit joiner, and these braid nailers. you're only limited by your imagination. i hope you enjoyed ourassembly table project,
and i can't wait to seewhat cool ideas you guys come up with for yourassembly table and stand. as always, if you have anyquestions you can e-mail me directly at thewoodwhisperer@gmail.com.thanks for watching. (blues music)