The last couple of days have afford me good weather here in the Midwest along with nice progress on the CNC computer desk project. Both are always good news but to the point here. I have managed to get all the parts for the desk cut out of the 4 x 8 foot plywood sheet and the 2 x 4 lumber that has been sitting in the shop. After all the cutting came all the sanding. Three and a half hours worth. Needless to say the shop already needed a good cleaning after that day of work. So let's get to the photos of the progress.
I thought the most complicated assembly for the CNC desk would be the drawer. Actually this turned out to be simpler than I had hoped. I cut the inner sides and front and back of the drawer with a 1/4" dado cut for the bottom. The parts were held in place in my Rockwell Jawhorse and some corner clamps. All I needed to do was glue and nail these pieces together once I had everything lined up the way I wanted.
The back and sides of the drawer were glued and nailed together and a 1/4 inch plywood panel was slid into the dado slots of these three pieces without glue. The bottom panel was cut just a little smaller than the overall size of the drawer to allow for expansion of the wood. It slid together perfectly the first time out.
Here the drawer has been completed with a front face panel made from 3/4 inch plywood that is glued and screwed to the drawer. The lower portion of the front face of the drawer is made 1 1/2 inch longer so that it will hide the drawer supports once the drawer is closed. You'll see this in the next post when I mount those parts in the framework.
This is a good shot of the inside of the drawer. I used six wood screws that were counter sunk to hold the front face panel of the drawer in place. The screws for the handle which were only 3/4 of an inch long had to have the holes drilled in the front portion of the drawer to allow the mounting of it to the front face panel. Took a little doing to get it set up right but it all worked out.
Next on the agenda was the assembly of the adjustable mounting bracket for the monitor. This bracket needed to be mounted off center so that when the monitor was pushed back against the vertical mount it would be centered.
The holes for the adjustable monitor bracket were drilled through one of the vertical support stiffeners and counter sunk to allow enough thread so a washer and nut could tighten everything up perfectly.
After the assembly of the adjustable monitor mount had been worked out I took the vertical support and drilled a 1 1/2 inch hole in the center of the support. This will allow the wiring for the monitor and the keyboard to be neatly routed to the back of the desk so that it will not have a cluttered look once everything is plugged into the computer. The drill press was the perfect tool for the job. Once I clamped everything down it was a snap.
The next step in the assembly was putting the framework together for the desk. This was done using a Kreg drilling jig. I've used this tool before and it makes fast work of drilling holes to mount things together. The Kreg jig locks the wood in place and has the special drill bit that will set up the perfect angle for the mounting screws.
Two holes were drilled into both ends of the 2 x 4's using the Kreg jig. Simple and fast to do.
Next screws were screwed into each hole using a standard drill and special square bit that came with the Kreg jig kit. The square bit works great and I've never had a problem with stripping out a screw with the set up.
Here one of the side frames has been completed after the eight screws have been mounted. I clamped the parts together to keep them nice and true and then screwed it together. Quick and easy and strong.
This is the framework all completed and ready for the desk top, sides, and back to be glued and screwed to it. It paid off having all of these pieces sanded smooth before assembly as it would have been a real pain to sand afterwards. Pays to do a little planning on this kind of project. I set up the framework so that the screw holes will be covered by the outer 3/4 inch plywood panels. This will give the desk a nice clean look with these holes hidden. I've checked the remaining parts and all look to be correctly cut and so the final assembly should go well. Stay tuned for this portion of the assembly soon.
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