How to Make a Wireless Charging Nightstand // Woodworking // Faux Metal Base

I made a nightstand that has built-in wireless charging this build is my take on wood magazines plans for this season's builders challenge I switched up a lot of the techniques in the joinery and even though this looks simple there's a lot going on inside here there's some tongue and groove dowels and even dovetails I accomplished a lot of this with the router table thanks to this week's sponsor and I'll see s woodworking so let's get into it I used elm for the main portion of this build I got it from a local woodworker and it was so beautiful was really hard to decide how to glue it up into panels I marked off where I was going to make my cuts and then marked off where I'm going to insert some biscuits so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to put the biscuits where I'm going to cut the board then I made a triangle so I know how to put the boards back together and then I used a slot cutting a bit on my plunge router to make the slots for the biscuits these biscuits are only really to help align the glue up it's not for any added strength so once I got all those grooves routed out I started to glue up the panels I inserted glue in all the slots and then put the biscuits in put glue on and then repeated the same process on the other boards definitely made it a lot easier lining these long boards up with the biscuits and after getting everything in the clamps or so he's a huge sigh of relief when it works out really well after the glue set up I took the piece to the table saw and I trimmed it to final width before cutting it to length I wanted to make sure that the grain was gonna be flowing up and down in the box so I cut it in a specific order I cut one of the sides first and then I cut the large top panel and then I cut the second side that way the green is going to be flowing all over the edge and I cut the piece for the bottom shelf last now since these are solid paddles I wanted to allow for wood movement when attaching it to the base so I decided to go with the tongue and groove I did this by using a rabbeting bit on the router table and I made a quarter inch tongue that was three eighths inch deep and I did this around all the edges of the top box panel for the draw and the bottom shelf before assembling all these pieces I had to work on the wireless charging feature so I made a template out of half-inch MDF and I used a four inch hole saw which was the perfect size for the wireless charger that I had and then I just had to work on the cord so I just made some straight edges and it turns out that I didn't end up actually needing this part because I didn't have any guide bushings but whatever it still came in handy so I use the table saw just to make the straightest lines that I possibly could and then I'm going to be using a template bit on for the part where the charger meets the court so I wanted to make sure that my router bit was going to fit into that space so I marked that up and then cut away at it at the bandsaw so it took me a minute to decide which table would be mine and which one would be my husband so after I figured it out I marked it accordingly and it makes a difference because it depends what side the charger is going to be on I used a combination square to figure out what would be a good location for the charger and then brought those markings over on to the underside of the board then I place the template and made a circle just a bit ahead of reference of where to place it after I put on the double sided tape I used a square to make sure that it was straight but no one's ever gonna see it so it really doesn't matter I did some tests to see it what thickness the wood needs to be in order for the charger to work so that's what not to be about 1/8 inch thick so I took a piece that was that thick and then I set the depth stop on my router now I was so scared to do this I really thought that I was gonna plunge through the top but having the depth stop and taking slow shallow passes it went really smoothly and it the result was amazing before removing the template I just wanted to make sure and test out to see if the charger worked so I flipped it on upside-down and it worked so I could take off the template and now since I don't have a guide bushing for that router I decided to use my regular trim router with my router edge guide so I just marked off the lines that I needed to cut on and this edge guide it lines up to the center of the router bit so I just lined it up in between those two lines that I had made I clamped it down and then I made a group that was about a quarter-inch feet because it doesn't need to be so deep for the cord because that groove isn't as deep as the pocket for the charger there's like that little transition there that was a little bit sharp and I didn't want the wire to be resting on it so it just carved away on it with a little carving tool and then the wire sat nicely into place off-camera I glued up the panel that's going to be the bottom of the main draw box I made it out of poplar because no one's ever gonna see it it didn't want to waste the Elm so I cut it all - sighs and now everything's ready for assembly I'm going to use dowels to join the main box and I have the center finding dowel jig but that doesn't help with face crane so I made this jig that has the hole locations on both sides and there has the markings of the holes on the edge there's also an arrow showing the direction of which is the front of the board so I clamp that down onto the board and then I set the depth stop on my drill bit and then I just drilled into the holes now when drilling the holes on the other side I made sure to flip the jig over making sure that the arrow was facing the front of the board again and I repeated the same process now to drill the holes into the end grain I used that template and marked it up making sure the arrows were in the right direction and I brought those Center lines for the holes that I drove out on to the edge and then I used my Center drilling dowel jig to drill into the end grain of those boards I've done this method a lot in the past and I'm always really happy with the results and how everything lines up really well so when it comes to gluing it up I know that everything's going to line up and it's a little bit less stressful so I put all the glue into all the holes put all the dowels in I started with the bottom panels first and then I could clamp that up and then I worked on putting on the top part it's always so satisfying for me to see when everything lines up really well and I would love to have something like a domino one day but for now this method works and everything was really square while that was drying I was able to start working on the base I made it out of poplar and I'm going to make it black because I really wanted to mimic metal so you be the judge let me know if I did so I ripped them to size I'm using five quarter poplar here so it ends up being about an inch and a sixteenth square and then I cut them to size on my crosscut sled and started working on the grooves the tongue was going to sit into I used my combination squares to set all the measurements that I was going to bring over to the router table and since I made the tongue a quarter inch thick I could use a quarter inch router bit at the router table to make the groove I set the height a little bit higher than 3/8 because that's how long the tongues were and I wanted to leave some room for movement when the seasons change the tongue and groove fit perfectly except I needed to make a notch on the side pieces because of the difference in the thickness of material and they needed to make room for the leg so I marked off where I need to cut and then used a saw to make the base line and then use a chisel to cut away at the rest and as for the corners I needed to make room for the legs so I just used a handsaw being really careful and not too sawed into the top so after cutting that away I just needed to refine it a little bit with a chisel and now all the side pieces fit nicely into place and there is room for the legs to sit flush into the corner I'm going to be joining all the base pieces using dowels again but I could not make the dowel in the center because it would be too close to the groove so I had to make a jig using a little piece of scrap and nail so I marked off the edge of the board that was halfway the thickness of the material and then I made a mark that was a little bit off-center then I drilled a little pilot hole to make room for the nail and then I bang the nail into place this is going to be a marking gauge for where to drill all the holes so the nail sticks out and it puts a point into the wood as to where to drill the holes so I marked up all my pieces to where I wanted them to go and I had to mark left side and a right side so first I did the left and then I did the right so that some of the pieces will have the hole drilled on the left side of the groove and some will have them on the right first I will do them that way and when I flip it over I'm gonna move the nail to the other side to do it on the right since this little mark engaged jig is the same thickness as this material I just had to make sure it was flush on the sides and flush on the front and then tap the hammer to make the hole then I flipped that over to the other side and then put the nail in to the other side and then I continued marking out the holes that are going to be on the right-hand side for all the leg pieces I could drill the holes on the drill press because they're on the edge grain but then for the all the side pieces it's in the end grain so I did the same thing with the marking gauge I made a spot for where to drill and then I took the depth stop on to my drill bit and then I just clamped the pieces down and freehand drilled them just kept my fingers crossed that I was going straight all the holes were drilled and it's time to start assembling the base so I started with just the side panels of the base first and then I'm going to assemble everything together afterwards I put glue in all the holes but glue in all the dowels and then I clamped everything up after the glue dried I then sanded all the parts to make sure that everything was flushed before finishing but what I should have done before clamping it up was sand the bottom edges to make the chamfer for the legs so that the wood doesn't split when the table is dragged I was still able to do it after it was assembled but I definitely would have been easier to do beforehand I mentioned earlier that I wanted the base to look like metal so I used India ink to stain all the base pieces black this is super super black but it is water-based so it will raise the grain and then I sealed it with three coats of satin spray lacquer for the Elm I wanted it to stay as natural-looking as possible so I used this Osmo in their natural color which has a little bit of a white pigment so the wood does not yellow the wood will darken over time I think so it will get a little bit darker but I really love the natural look the last step to do before assembly is to prepare be 1/2 inch plywood that's going to act as the main draw box support that's going underneath I put a rabbet around all the edges and then it was time to assemble everything I put some dowels into all the holes and then I only put glue in the center of the groove for the main draw box that way the whole draw box will stay in place in the center but will still have room to expand and contract throughout the seasons but for the plywood panel that's going on the bottom of it I put glue throughout the entire groove because the plywood is dimensionally stable so I put glue and also all the grooves that are on the side pieces for those but I did not poke glue on the side pieces for the bottom shelf and the top draw box so then I continued to put glue and dowels into all the top parts and then I put the second side piece on top and then clamped it all up using that marking gauge that I had made from the dowels made this glue up just a little bit less stressful while that dried I cut all the pieces for the draw so I cut them to length at the miter saw and then cut them to width at the table saw and then I used my dovetail jig for the table saw to make the dovetails for the draw using a flat bottom blade I made the pins for the draw front first then I brought the draw front with the pins over to the pieces I was using as the sides of the draw and I marked out where to cut the tails and then I cut them out using my tail ramp jig on the table saw I set up a fence at my bandsaw to remove most of the waste for the tails and then after that was removed I clean them up and refine them up with a chisel I made a lot of mistakes on these but I'm pretty proud about how they turned out I like to use quarter inch plywood for draw bottoms so I used my kerf maker to set the measurement and then I made one groove into the sides of all the pieces and then I flipped my kerf maker over and then made a second pass so it was the perfect width for the draw bottom while the table saw was still set to the height of that top of the groove I cut the piece that's going to be the back so that I could put the piece of plywood in after I assembled the draw then I made a dado for the back of the draw again using my kerf maker to get the perfect width for that dado I then cut the plywood for the draw bottom to size and it was time to start assembling the drawers I put glue in all the dovetails and then I put glue into the dado in the back I also reinforced that dado on the outside with some Brad's and then I put a little bit of glue in the front groove put the plywood into place and then clamped it all up make sure everything was really square before setting it to dry while that dried I prepared the pieces that I'm going to use as the draw front i cutted them to size based on the measurements of the table and then I cut a piece of plywood for the back I made a little notch in it so that it would have a place for the wire to hang out now time to install the charger so I used some hot glue and I just went around the circle of the charger I didn't cover the whole thing I just held it into place around the edges and then held that down while that glue dried and then I put some hot glue into the grooves and I overfilled it a little bit and then use a credit card to hold down that glue that way it would be flush with the top to make sure that the draw front was spaced evenly into the opening I used the playing card trick where you line up some playing cards and then split the difference and then put the difference on the bottoms and the sides and then I hot glued it into place so that I can temporarily put it into place and know where to reattach it so I pre drilled some holes and then drove in some screws not all the way but just a little bit so that the head was poking through into the front edge of the draw front and then when I removed it remove the hot glue and left some mark so that I couldn't reach the board into the correct place I would poke the screws out onto the front of the board line up the draw front clamp it into place and then screw it down and it was perfectly in place then I put the plywood backing into place and I pre-drill some holes and just attached it with screws so that I could remove it if I ever need to access the charger to attach the draw Pole I made a template so that I wouldn't mess it up and then I put a backer board in there and clamped it up so that there wouldn't be tear out through the back and then I just drilled through the front and they were perfectly aligned these poles attach into the draw with a nut and I did not want that going through into my draw so I made some room for a socket wrench to go into the piece of wood I used a Forstner bit sorry for the out-of-focus shot - just drill a little bit into the wood so that my socket wrench can fit in there the threads on the pole were just a tad too long so I used a cut-off tool to cut them to length and then I stand it over and round it over the edges so that the nut would fit on perfectly I put the handle into place then used my socket wrench to lock it all down put the draw into place and then it was done I am so thrilled with the way these turned out I really wanted the beast to look like it was metal that's why I went with the dyed black poplar so I think it kind of looks like that I think that if I use metal I was out able to get the base a little bit thinner which might look a little bit sleeker but still happy with the end result the drawers were so much fun to do the dovetails this is my first time doing drawers with dovetails and I'm totally going to do it again the elma is so beautiful it was a little tricky to work with at times because the grain was running in all different directions but in the end I made it work and I'm really happy with the results the wireless charging feature is awesome except there's one problem I am a phone wallet person user and it doesn't work through there so I'm gonna have to take it off of the case every night which isn't such a big deal my case comes off pretty easily but my husband has one of those thin cases and it works with his so just do some tests if you're planning on doing something like this with the cases that you have and the wood that you're using so thank you guys so much for watching thank you again - MLCs for sponsoring this video I love their router bits and their router tables I really couldn't have made these without them so thank you again and I will see you on the next project you

Channel: 3x3Custom - Tamar

Views: 376,433

Rating: 4.9488764 out of 5

Keywords: wireless charging, how to build, wireless charging furniture, side table, hidden wireless charger, wireless charger in table, modern nightstand, woodworking projects, diy project, bedside table, diy nightstand, diy furniture, diy modern furniture, hidden wireless nightstand, dowel joinery, dovetails, tongue and groove joinery, woman woodworker, how to build a table, side table build, side table diy, diy hidden wireless charger, end table with drawer, woodworking, diy, how to

Id: e5HSDNUcfQE

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/NickMc53]

Next time you have to cut a bolt like that you could put the nut on before you cut and it will re-thread the end of the bolt when you remove it.

[u/UnbreakableElephant]

For MY phone?? Where do you live, gotta try that shit out. No honestly great job, well done!

[u/BigDicJess]

I never knew just how much work is put into qualify furniture, this was a great job!

[u/Shinji246]

Loved the end product and the video, took me quite a while to figure out what you were talking about when you said "draw" though.

[u/dec10]

I love all of the tools she made for herself! Here are the videos for those from her channel:

• Kerf-maker jig
• Dovetail jig
• Router edge guide

[u/chief89]

Love when I see one of your videos on here. You jump right in and show how it's made. No 3 minute intro just to breeze over important details.

[u/mtfw]

Amazing build! The wood is beautiful.

For the wireless charging, try putting your phone face down for a second, then flip it over and see if it starts charging. I use a pop socket and am still able to use the wireless charging with this trick.

[u/[deleted]]

You should sell them and start a business man. It's a good concept

[u/drozek]

I wish the whole top was a wireless charger. None of the wireless chargers I have tried work with my wallet case in my note 9.