[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] It's time for another episode of "The Woodsmith Shop."

our projects on today's show are building a small home office setup.

First up is this desk.

It's just the right size to spread out whether you're going to pay bills, work from home, or even have your kids do a little work.

Follow that up with this compact wall cabinet that doesn't take up a lot of space, but holds just enough to keep all of your essentials close at hand.

It's a great way to use your tools skillfully.

Let's start building.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg --from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ And by... Inventables -- Tools for designing and building your products.

Inventables.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ You know, Chris, we live in an age that a lot of us are working from home and children are going to school at home.

They need a workspace in the house.

And that has to be some of the reason for this design.

Well, it is.

You know, with all of us working at home and the kids at home, I felt it was time that we did a simple, durable desk that could go about anywhere in any home and help out with that.

You know, the construction on this guy is pretty simple.

We have legs, some battens and a stretcher, and then on top.

And it really doesn't take a whole lot of tools to build.

No, it is very simple.

Now, one thing I did add was durable laminate.

It'll take crayons and Magic Markers and pens and easy to clean.

For a little bit of extra storage, you've designed this wall cabinet as well.

Yeah, I thought it'd be a nice complement and a good place to hide things that keep the clutter off the top.

It's a great grouping.

I think you'll really enjoy it, and you'll find it at WoodsmithShop.com.

Construction of the home office desk begins with the construction of the base.

Now, the base consists of a couple of parts -- rear leg, front leg, a batten which joins the two, a second pair of legs, and a stretcher that joins the assemblies.

Well, the question is which part to start with?

Now, all these parts are joined together with mortise and tenon joinery.

And when using mortise and tenon joinery, it's always best to cut your mortise first and fit the tenon later.

So the first part, it's going to be the batten, which joins the front leg and the rear leg.

I have marked out here the two mortises.

This is the rear leg.

This is the front leg.

Now, there are a lot of ways to cut a mortise, but what I'm going to do is go back and use a machine that I made for "Woodsmith" a number of years ago.

And with this machine, I'm going to use a four-flute roughing bit and take a 1/2-inch pass on one side of the mortise.

I'll flip my workpiece around, finish the cut up, and finally I'll be back at the bench and clean up the corners with a chisel.

To finish up the battens, I went ahead and routed a 1/2-inch roundover on each of the ends, and I went to the drill press and I added screw holes, which will be used to attach our leg assembly to the top.

Well, what's next?

I'm going to go to the table saw and start to cut tenons on our ends of our legs that will fit into these mortises.

To cut the tenons on the end of our legs, I'm going to be using this jig that slides upon the fence of the table saw.

Now, the advantage of using this jig and the fact that our legs are in a vertical position is that we get a very nice, smooth cut, forming the cheeks of our tenon.

And once I make my first pass, I'm going to take my leg off the jig and I want to test the fit in the mortises that we previously cut on the battens.

And I want to be careful and sneak up on a perfect fit.

Once my cheek cuts are established, I'll take the legs back to the bench and I'll end up cutting the tenon to the final length so it'll pop right into that mortise.

Having made the cheek cuts for our tenons on the table saw, I now need to cut them to their final width, which is 3 inches, to fit into our mortises in the battens.

I thought the easiest thing to do would be simply to come to the bench and use a handsaw to trim them.

Once I've cut my tenons to width, the next steps to complete the legs are going to be to cut the long taper which establishes the shape of each leg and go to the router table and ease the edges with a 1/4-inch roundover.

It's time to finish up the base.

As you can see, I glued the rear leg and the front leg into their battens.

I've also added a mortise in the rear legs to accommodate the stretcher.

So what's left is for me to glue up the stretcher.

Well, I think that completes the base.

All I have to do now is let the glue dry and then we'll be ready for Logan to build the top.

So now that Chris has the base of our desk all finished up, we can go and concentrate on the top.

Now, looking at the original here, you might think that this top is solid hardwood, but it's not.

There's actually a plywood core in here that's wrapped in hardwood edging.

On the back side, we have a little bit wider edging.

That allows us room to rout these dishes.

Then we cover the front half with plastic laminate.

So the first thing that we're going to do is go ahead and get our plywood core ready.

So the core for our desktop is going to be 1-inch thick plywood.

Now, obviously plywood doesn't come in 1-inch thick sheets, but we can make a 1-inch plywood by laminating two 1/2-inch sheets together.

So I've cut one of these to finish size and I left the other one a little bit oversized.

That way, when it's all glued together, we can flush trim that oversized sheet to the one that's the proper size and we'll end up with our sheet ready to go.

Alright, now, instead of clamping this down, instead, I'm just going to throw some screws in here and that's just going to hold it together while that glue cures.

So the glue on our plywood is dry, and I flush trimmed it.

So now it's all finished size and ready to go.

Next thing we have to do is a slot in the edge of it.

And that's going to be for a hardboard spline that's going to tie the plywood core in with the hardwood edging.

Now, to cut the slot, I'm going to use a slot cutter here at the router table.

And the thing I like about using the setup here at the router table is I can use the same bit and the same setup to cut the slot in the plywood core as I can in the edging.

Now, the back edging is going to be a little bit different because that's going to be a little bit thicker because it doesn't have the plastic laminate on top.

So we'll go in and cut these slots and then we'll reset up for that back edging.

Okay, so I've adjusted the bit up.

Because this back edging is a little bit thicker and it sits flush with the laminate, needed to raise the bit an additional thickness of the laminate.

So I've done that and it's locked in.

And the other difference between this edging and the side edging we just did is this slot that we're going to cut cannot go through the ends, otherwise you'd see it at the edges of the desk.

So instead, what I've done is I've marked a starting point and a stopping point on here.

And I'm going to plunge one end over the running bit and line it up with that start point, more or less, and then I'll rout down until I hit my stop point.

Once I've reached that mark, we'll shut it off, pull the edging off, then we can go ahead and glue some edging on.

So with the slots cut in all the edging, there's just a couple other things I need before I can apply it to this plywood core.

The first is a set of these hardboard strips.

And these are just going to be splines that are going to slide in the edging and really just give us a registration point while everything's getting glued up.

The other thing I need to do and I've already done here is mitered where the front edging is going to meet the side edging.

So now we can go ahead and get everything glued up.

♪♪ ♪♪ Okay, so now that we have the edging glued on and it's dry, we can go and trim these side pieces.

And what I'm doing here is I'm just using a handsaw and I'm leaving just a hair proud of the back of this.

And then I'll come back and sand it flush.

Okay, there we go.

Now, you can either hit this with a block plane to flush it up or sand it.

My preferred method is to use a sanding block.

It helps from rounding over this far end.

We don't want to get a curve in this.

We want this to be straight across.

That looks pretty good.

So now our top is ready for the laminate, so I'm going to clear the bench off, get some paper down, then we'll talk about applying it.

Okay, so I have my laminate cut, and we're pretty much ready to apply the laminate to our core.

And I've done a couple things here.

The first is I went ahead and smoothed everything out on this, so I just hit it with a sander quick and removed any lumps and bumps that could kind of transmit through the laminate.

I've also covered the bench and I have my adhesive ready.

Now, to attach the laminate, I'm going to use contact cement.

For something like this, I like to use just a spray can of adhesive.

With contact cement, you have to cover both surfaces that you're going to bond together and you have to allow it to dry.

So I'll spray on a couple coats on both the laminate and the plywood and I'll let it tack up for a minute, maybe two minutes at most, and then I'm going to stick it down.

I'm going to start in the center and smooth it out, and then I'll grab a roller and I'll roll it down so there's no lumps or bumps anywhere.

So now that our laminate is stuck down, we just have to trim it flush, and that is easy to do using a flush trim bit in a palm router.

This is going to cut through the laminate really nice and smooth and make it so it's the same size as the plywood.

So I'm going to go ahead and cut that, and then we'll talk about adding the back edging.

Okay, so the last thing to attach to our top is going to be this back edging.

And looking at this, it looks a little different than the last time we saw it.

I've routed these dishes in here.

Now, the dishes are designed to hold things you might need at your desk.

And depending on what you're using this desk for, you could really customize this back edging.

You put scissor slots in it, paintbrush holders, a cup holder, whatever suits your needs.

But creating these dishes is pretty straightforward.

So what I did is I used a couple of pieces of MDF basically as a template, and I just cut those and they're loose, and I used double-sided tape to hold them down to the edging.

Then I used a bowl and tray bit in the router to rout out these dishes.

The bearing just follows the MDF.

Now, a bowl and tray bit's best used with a plunge router, but if you don't have a plunge router, that's okay.

You can set the depth you need, turn the router on, and then tilt the router in to the work.

That way, you can get down to the final depth and make your pass.

This back edging, once it's attached to the top, there's no real good way to stand it.

So I went ahead and hit the whole top with sandpaper.

So this is pretty much a finished surface right now.

But at this point, we can go ahead and get this glued on.

Alright, so once this glue is dry, we only have a couple things left to do before we attach it to the base.

Alright, so the last two things to take care of our top before we can install it are going to be to round over the corners.

And on this one, I just did the front corners and I rounded those over with about a 1/2-inch radius.

I just did that with a file.

I'm going to leave the back corners square.

More than likely, this desk is going to sit up against a wall.

And I like the look of the square corners back here.

So now I'm going to go ahead and soften the edges.

I'm just going to do that with a chamfer bit in the palm router.

And I'm going to do that on the top side and the bottom side as well.

Once that's all done, it's ready to mount to the base.

Okay, so I have the base attached.

And it's just attached with a series of screws through each of these battens into the top.

Now, while you have the base attached, top's upside-down, now is the perfect time to add a little bit of storage, if you'd like.

For example, on our finished desk, we have a slide-out plastic tray.

That just screws to the underside of the top, and the tray is all one piece.

It just slides into the runners.

Now, I think we'll go ahead and skip that storage for now.

But it's a great option in case you do want a little bit of storage underneath the desk.

For the second part of our home office suite, we're building a small wall cabinet, and that's what I'm working on here.

What's nice about it is that it's pretty shallow.

I have the two pieces for the top and the bottom here.

Now, the joinery on this wall cabinet is all going to be stopped dados and grooves.

So it's an ideal time to use one of my favorite tools, and that's a handheld router.

But the first thing that you want to do is to lay out all of those grooves and dados.

So that's what I did.

I put the two pieces back to back here and then marked so that I have consistent and accurate lines for all of the pieces.

You'll also notice on these dados and grooves that I put X's to mark what side of the line I'm going to make these cuts on.

It's really easy sometimes to get confused with that.

Now, you'll find all of those dimensions in the plans.

They're at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

Now, like I said, I'm going to use a router to take care of most of this work.

So I have a small plunge router here with an 1/8-inch straight bit in it.

To guide the router, I've attached an edge guide.

And you can see on this orientation, it looks a lot like a small portable router table.

I have a fence that sets the location of the bit in relation to the edge of a workpiece.

And I'm using a plunge router because I can start and stop a cut exactly where I want to.

Now, the other nice thing is with your layout here, you can use that to set up your router and the edge guide so I can set the edge guide in place and lower the bit right on the edge of my layout line and then make sure that the fence is located in the right spot.

So what I've done is set up to route a groove on the front edge of the bottom, and then I'll reset the fence to cut a groove along the back edge of both the bottom and the top.

Then I'll switch out for a slightly larger-sized bit to do a groove on the front edge of the top.

The groove at the front edge of the top is wider and deeper than the other ones and presents its own unique set of challenges.

I didn't have a 3/8-inch wide bit to do it in a single pass, so instead I used a 1/4-inch bit and then I made passes to get down to my final depth and then also to readjust the edge guide and get it to its final width.

It takes a little bit more time than if I would have had the bit, but I was able to get there pretty easily.

Now, you can't use the edge guide when we're routing the dados that are going to hold the dividers as well as the ends of our wall cabinet.

So instead I've pulled the edge guide off and I'm just going to use a straight edge guide.

This is just a piece of some scrap material that I have that has a straight edge on it, and I used double-sided tape to attach it to my workpiece.

You'll notice it's offset from my layout line because I used the router again and the bit to locate where that edge needs to go.

And it's just a matter of plunging in at the start line, routing until I get to the end line, and raising the bit up out of the cut.

The ends and dividers for our wall cabinet have tongues cut on each end that fit into the dados that I just got done cutting.

Now, that's going to be kind of tricky to do on these small pieces with a hand-held router.

So instead I've set up here at the router table.

For the bit, I've installed a rabbiting bit, and I've raised the bit height and set the fence to cut a tongue on each end that's going to fit snugly inside those dados.

I don't want it to bottom out either because I want to keep a nice, tight joint line once everything's assembled.

To make the tongues, I'm going to make a pass across each face, flipping it in between to form the right size tongue.

The wall cabinet's ready for assembly, but before I got to this stage, there are a few details that I needed to take care of.

Now, on the two end pieces, as well as the dividers, I needed to cut back the tongues a little bit to match the stopped dados.

Now, this is pretty easy to do.

And you saw Chris do a version of it earlier.

I used a saw to cut down the shoulders and then popped out the waste with a chisel.

Then if there's any material left over, you can just clean it up with some paring cuts.

Then I took all four of these pieces over to the router table and used an 1/8-inch roundover bit to take care of the leading edges.

It softens the look and helps match the desk a little bit better.

Now for the top and the bottom, we needed to create a radius on the front corners before we could do that same roundover on both the inner face and the outer face of it.

So here we are, ready to assemble.

There are a lot of pieces that need to come together all at once.

To give myself a fighting chance, I'm using a slow-setting liquid hide glue.

So what I'll do is apply glue to the tongues, just a real thin bead on the two end pieces, and then fit those into their dados.

What's important here is that the groove on the inside edge lines up with the groove on the top and the bottom, so you may need to persuade it... ...a little bit to get it to fit.

And then I'll do the same thing on the two dividers, just a small amount of glue.

But here what's important when I slide these pieces in is that the back edge of the divider is flush with the groove at the back.

Now, speaking of the back, we made the back out of 1/2-inch plywood.

Now, the plans originally call for a solid wood piece here, but using plywood means I can run a bead of glue into the grooves and lock it into place, and it's going to add strength to the whole assembly.

The final part of our wall cabinet to make are the two sliding doors.

Now, in order for them to fit into the cabinet, we need to cut a tongue on the lower edge of those doors.

I'm going to do that again right here at the router table.

I've used a test piece from sizing the doors to size what that tongue is going to look like and to set up a straight bit that I have installed here at the router table.

Now, what you'll do is start up the router table, make a pass along one face, then flip the door over and make a second pass.

I'm using a push pad here to keep my hands safely away from the bit and provide firm pressure on the bit.

To wrap things up here, I'm ready to install the door, but before I got here, I took a step over to the drill press and drilled a finger hole on one end of the door.

Now, what I also did as I was going along here was to use a a block plane and a shoulder plane to trim the door and ease the edges on the top and the bottom and then fine tune the fit of this tongue because you want the door to be able to slide back and forth in its opening pretty well.

To get them into place, you'll remember that the groove on the top is pretty deep, so we can start by fitting the door into that upper groove.

And then bringing it down so that the tongue engages with the lower groove.

And the door just slides back and forth wherever you want it.

It's also a good idea that once you have finish on the whole project, put a little wax on the door and in the track to help it slide smoothly.

At this point, we're ready to hang it on the wall and load it up.

One of the things I like about the two projects that we built on today's episode is that it gets away from the idea that a home office has to be an elaborate, dark-paneled facility.

Instead, you just need a great place to spread out and do some work.

So this desk is perfect.

And then you need some storage.

And that's where I like this wall cabinet.

You'll find the plans for these at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

It's also the place to find a lot of other great woodworking projects, plans, as well as some tips and videos to help you do more in your shop.

And we look forward to seeing you right back here in the Woodsmith Shop.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ And by... Inventables -- tools for designing and building your products.

Inventables.com.