The perfect bedside tables | NIGHTSTAND PLANS AVAILABLE

I want to get all eight legs out of this one  eight foot long board each of the legs is 24   inches long the problem there is the kerf of  the saw the thickness of the saw is about an   eighth of an inch so I'm just going to lose  that much wood into sawdust so it's going   to make the legs a little bit smaller so I'm  kind of thinking that the legs will be around   23 and a half inches long once I cut this  up and I'm gonna have to square them up a   little bit after the glue up just something  to keep in mind is that kerf of the saw and   if you can it would be good to get a board  that's a little bit longer Unfortunately   this eight foot long board with the longest  that they had at the Big Orange Box Center the important thing about doing glue UPS  like this is to just make sure that you   have that glue spread completely across  the surface you don't want any gaps so   here I'm just using basically every clamp  in my shop to squeeze this all together   and while that's drying I can move over to  the Cherry Lumber and cut out the pieces   to glue up the top and lower panels of each  of the nightstands when you're Edge joining   boards together it's really important that  you joint one edge of the board and that   just means cutting it nice and square and flat  removing any of the unevenness or imperfections   so the way I do that is I just shave a little  bit off of one Edge square that up and then   I can flip it over and use that squared up side  against my rip fence and cut out the actual widths oh and if you'd like to make this project yourself  I've got a detailed set of step-by-step plans for   sale over at shop wwm.com I really appreciate  your support your purchases allow me to keep   making project videos like this one so these  three boards make up the upper and lower shelf   once I cut them apart I just thought it would be  easier to glue these together into one panel now   and then cut that into two so I spent a little  time just kind of arranging these to see what   grain pattern looked best you know just by kind of  Shifting them around and I came up with this setup   which looks pretty good to me and for once I've  got my clamps and everything all ready to go so   there won't be any surprises usually usually I'm  not very prepared when I go to these panel glue   ups for some reason so all I got to do is put  some glue on the edges of each of these boards you know what these on the top side oh all right now before I tighten this  down I'm going to put these clamping   calls in place that's what I've got  this for is just to raise this up now I can get these underneath here  to flatten the boards out that way   these are just boards that I've screwed  together and I've got a piece of just   plastic packing tape on it so that the  glue doesn't stick to it so I'm going   to put the pressure of these clamps right  on these joints or you know close to it foreign it out the key to panel glue UPS like this is  just don't tighten these pipe clamps   down too much if you really put a lot of  cranking pressure on those these panels   are likely to kind of buckle a little bit  it doesn't take a lot of pressure you just   need to hold it in place for that glue to  dry so I'm going to remove these boards they don't get glued to the underside now I could square up that panel it just  barely fits into my saw using my miter gauge   but I needed to use my miter gauge  here so that I would have a square   reference side if I were to just put  one of those uneven ends up against   my rip fence it would not be a square  cut all the way through most likely now I can get back to making the legs those two  Maple boards I glued together are an inch and a   half thick so first I'll just rip these down into  one inch wide pieces then I can flip those over   on their side and cut those down to an inch and  now I can cut these down to their final lengths and of course I decided to pick the two  types of woods cherry and maple that are   most prone to burn marks so I've got a  lot of sanding to do on each of these   I try to eliminate burn marks on the table saw  as best as possible by using a sharp blade and   making sure that it's Square to the rip  fence but sometimes it's just inevitable   I'm using a chamfer bit on my router to make  a chamfer on each edge of those legs and I'll   chamfer the foot of each of those legs now I  can cut out all of the aprons and framing pieces I'm going to use pocket screws to join all of the  frame pieces together I can drill those holes now these two holes are going to be what holds the  lower shelf in place I need to drill two holes   in each of the upper side frame pieces and this  is easily something you could do using a handheld   drill this using my drill press is just going to  make it go a little bit faster so what I need to   do here is first drill half inch wide hole about  halfway through this board that's making a counter   bore it'll just kind of hide the screw this  is what's going to attach the top to the frame now I can do is switch out this half inch bit   to a quarter inch bit this is going to be  bigger than the screw I'm going to be using all right so the way this is going to work is that I'll  just use one of these pocket screws with the   wide head on it you could also use a pan head  screw or screw with a washer and then it's just   going to drop down into that hole and then grab  on that little ledge in there but the thing that   this does is this provides some movement back  and forth for expansion and contraction of the   wood I'll talk a little bit more about that later  I'm putting chamfers on the lower edge of each of   those frame pieces it just gives it a nicer feel  if you're to grab the nightstand I don't want to   put any chamfers on the opposite edges because  those are what the top is going to connect to   and that's everything that's all of the pieces I  need to assemble two night stands this is one of   those rare projects where I can cut all of the  pieces at the beginning to their final size and   then just assemble it the only exception to that  is the lower panel on each of the nightstands I   need to cut that down to an exact fit and I'll  need to notch out the corner so that one's a   little oversized and also the two drawer faces I'm  going to cut those down a little bit smaller too   to fit into that opening but everything else is  ready to assemble the first thing I'm going to do   is assemble the two sides and to help me do that  I've cut out a scrap board this is just a piece of   plywood that's six inches wide I can use that as a  spacer to align these frame pieces that's going to   let me keep the distance of this top frame piece  and this lower frame piece consistent on both   sides but for now what I need to do is just kind  of clamp this together so I can put these pocket   screws in again these are the large holes down  here and it's going to screw into the top up here   but since the legs are one inch thick and these  two pieces are three quarters of an inch thick I   want this reveal here to be on the front side  so in other words it's going to look like this   and what I'll do is I'll just clamp it up this  way then flip it over so I can get the screws in now those pieces are flush with the top  and with the back and just as a reminder   if you're using hardwood like this cherry  and maple make sure you use the fine thread   pocket screws not the coarse thread coarse  thread would only be for soft Woods like Pine now I can join together those two side  assemblies and this is just really a   matter of taking my time to make sure  that each of those pieces is in the   right location and squared up and clamped  down before I drive the screws in place I just want to make it clear what's going on here  I've chamfered these bottom edges of all of these   rails the top edges aren't chamfered because  that's going to go right up against the top of   the nightstand so these are all set back a little  bit and they all meet up in the corner there foreign now I can cut down this lower panel to fit  inside of here with The Notches for those corners here I'm just using my jigsaw to cut out  these Corner notches it'll fit around the legs so in order to test out that lower  shelf I'm going to need to remove   one or two of these braces we'll see  if I can get by with just removing one I just needed to make that Notch  a little bit bigger in one side and of course I'm going to put  a chamfer around all these edges here I can attach the top of  the table using four screws all right so notice what I'm doing here is  I've just put the two screws on this apron   not the front and back piece this is typical  table construction here so that this will   allow the boards to expand out this way  and contract in this way if they need to foreign the lower shelf using those pocket holes I want to talk just a moment about wood movement  wood is of course an organic material that's   going to expand and contract due to changes in  humidity in wetter weather of the Year wood will   expand and in the dry months it'll contract this  can lead to a board buckling if it's not allowed   to expand or split if there's no room for it  to contract the amount of wood movement varies   depending on the species of the wood you're using  and your geographical location this is something   that Woodworkers need to be aware of and yet it's  also something I think a lot of Woodworkers spend   way too much time stressing over so first of all  this only applies to solid Lumber if you're using   plywood or other manufactured materials you don't  need to concern yourself with wood movement at   all second expansion and contraction only occurs  across the grain of the wood in other words the   width of a board will change not its length at  least to any significant amount third I think   this is the most important thing to know the wider  the board is the more noticeable that change can   be the amount of expansion and contraction in  say a two inch wide board is usually so tiny it   won't affect your project at all and it probably  isn't worth worrying about but when you edge join   boards together to make a wide panel those tiny  measurements compound and a wide panel then acts   like a single board so this is where wood movement  is usually a concern usually you see this on table   tops a large table top say a three foot wide table  top could move maybe a quarter inch and that needs   to be addressed or that solid wood table top is  likely to crack over time this is why you never   want to glue solid wood table tops down a typical  solution is to screw the top to the apron in such   a way that allows the wood to expand and control  act as the seasons change the good news here is   that you really don't need to worry too much about  wood movement in smaller projects using an online   wood movement calculator tells me that this Cherry  might move nine one hundredths of an inch at that   wide that's barely over a sixteenth of an inch  or about a 30 second of an inch in each Direction   that's almost irrelevant but still it can't hurt  to build this project accordingly so the screws   are going to allow the top and the lower shelf  to move and then I've cut these notches in the   corners slightly larger than they need to be so  that the wood doesn't get trapped between the   frame and legs and I think adding chamfers in  that little Gap makes it look more intentional the drawer Runners get glued into place okay I'm using half inch plywood to make the  drawer box and quarter inch plywood for   the base of the drawers but  if you wanted to be a little   bit more frugal you could just use half  inch plywood for the drawer bottom too   I'm going to join all of the drawer sides together  using rabbit joints to make those I've set my rip   fence a half inch away from my saw blade and I'll  just kind of cut out that Notch halfway through   the wood by the way I always want to point out  that using the miter gauge in combination with the   rip fence is fine and safe and normal for these  kinds of cuts rabbit cuts and dados that don't cut   all the way through the wood because there's no  cut off piece that could potentially get trapped   between the saw blade and the rip fence and thrown  back at you if you're making any kind of cut   all the way through a board never use the miter  gauge in combination with the rip fence like this and I'll cut a rabbet along one long edge  of each board to hold the bottom in place temporarily clamp these drawer frames  together using my strap clamp that way   I can get an accurate measurement for the  bottom the main thing you got to be careful   with if you're using one of these strand  strap clamps is not to crank it down too   tight because it'll actually cause this  half inch plywood to just bend and give   you an inaccurate measurement now I can  measure the inside of this rabbet joint thank you perfect I'll just glue this together those rabbit joints give it plenty of strength but  the main reason I like to use those is because it   helps just keep this box square it's sort of a  self-squaring joint and I think it's important   to drop this bottom in at the same time before  the rabbit joints on the ends dry this bottom   of this glued in place is really what's going  to give it most of its strength and stability yeah it's not a bad idea to  check make sure that it's Square bricks to do this but we ended up using those  bricks somewhere in the yard I think for some   reason I don't have my bricks anymore I  probably should have saved some of those   oh well I mean really I could just  raise this up on some two by fours   and I could put clamps around it too but whatever uh oh I think I glued it to my workbench there's the drawer one drawer so the drawer  will slide in like that this drawer face is   going to stop on these Runners it'll stop it  from going in too far but what I need to do   is I need to shave this down a little  bit because I don't need it that tight so what I did is I made a chamfer around this  whole front face all four edges and then I'm just   this one bottom edge here so when this is in place  you can grab a hold of that and pull it open you   could I guess traditionally screw this face into  the drawer but I'm going to glue it on instead I   don't see any problem with that all I need to do  is line this up flush with the top of that drawer thank you I'll finish these with a clear coat of  spray lacquer the nice thing about this   Cherry is that it's going to darken up  really nicely over the next year or two foreign

Channel: Steve Ramsey - Woodworking for Mere Mortals

Views: 66,827

Keywords: woodworking, woodworking project, how-to, DIY, easy woodworking, steve ramsey, WWMM, Mere Mortals, The Weekend Woodworker, woodworking plans, Free plans, wood, making, building, makers, hobby, weekend projects, Weekend Woodworker, power tools

Id: Hvb3ERqgriM

Length: 23min 0sec (1380 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2023