Desk Organizer Final

The molding profile I wanted for the top was not readily gotten from router bits, so the block plane was the tool for the job. The shape was drawn on each corner and the end grain worked first. On the exit side of the board I worked to the shape and there was then no “spelching”as the plane moved to that edge. Very pleasant work.

Next up was drilling the holes for the dowels to pass through the shelves and into the underside of the top. For this I made a jig with bushings. Once the shelf holes were drilled I then re-drilled them, but not the top, with a fractionally larger bit.

Finishing would obviously need to be done prior to assembly. With all these parts it seemed a good idea to have a tidy system to keep them together and without difficulty when applying the rust stain and finish. For the leg pieces I made a stand with vertical dowel supports and spacers, and for the shelves and tops I made frames with small screws protruding.

Making spacers

Drilling out spacers

Applying rust stain to legs

There needed to be precision in the length of dowels prior to clamping the piece together. Dowels would be glued into the tops of each block to a particular depth. I cut a thinner diameter dowel to a certain length, inserted it into a block and tapped a glued dowel from above until it bottomed out against it.

Dowel depth stop

The assembly process went well. Remember that forty-five degree line that I had scribed on the top end grain of the leg blocks? In the clamping stage it was the reference for the blocks to be positioned. : tape with pencil marks on the shelves and legs. The first round of clamping was with the top upside down and the top course of blocks. Afterward it was shelf and blocks. What I found was that the clamps needed to be moved very slightly to position the force so that, with a raking light from behind, there was no light where the blocks and shelves met. Very slight adjustments to the clamps made an important difference.