Backs Attached

Now that the base frame is complete I can start adding stuff to it. First up is what I’m calling the “back”, which is the surface in front of you when you’re sitting down with the player tray extended. This is where your storage drawer goes:

First I joined and planed the backs and dry fit them to the base:

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Cutting the drawer front out of the back presents an interesting challenge: how do you cut a perfectly square piece of wood out of another piece? And maybe more importantly, how do you cut it out leaving a zero-width kerf so that the drawer fits and almost disappears when closed?

My solution was to rip the boards in half lengthwise, cut out the drawer, and then reassemble the remaining pieces into a single board again:

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I also took the opportunity to cut a couple of openings in the ends: one for the cupholder’s drawer slide to poke out of, and another for the spring latch that will pop open the cupholder when pushed:

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When reassembling them, I used an old woodworking trick to keep the pieces from sliding around while trying to glue them back together: You drive a nail or staple into one side and then snip it off. Pressing the other half together creates little dimples in the edge which holds them in place, even once they want to start sliding around when glued and you start applying clamp pressure:

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As the old adage goes: there’s no such thing as being too rich, too beautiful, or have too many clamps:

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Next up another dry fit to the base to make sure I didn’t make a huge mistake somewhere:

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Looking good! Now to drill some pocket screws to attach the back to the base:

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I cut a groove along the top of the back that will serve a dual purpose: holding game cards, and as a spill catch in case someone knocks over a glass on the top! The easy way to do this was to make 1/4” deep groove on the table saw, running the entire board through. However, the corners didn’t look great:

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I really wanted that groove to turn around the corner and continue. To make that happen I pulled out my chisels and cut a right angle to the existing groove:

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Then cut a little patch and filled in the part of the groove I wanted to eliminate:

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After gluing and sanding you almost can’t tell it was ever there!

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A small thing, but so far my favorite detail of the table.

Cleaned up the shop real quick and then got ready for BBQ and fireworks!

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#wood #woodworking #gaming #boardgames