Category: Carpentry Page 1 of 2

My next small woodworking project is making removable drawers to organize my dungeon tiles so that I can start using miniatures in our bi-weekly Dungeon World game. I currently have my tiles in various sized boxes on this very messy kallax shelving unit. Within a single cubby I will create dividers from 1/4″ MDF to accommodate five 2″ deep drawers. Because the drawers are not very big I am confident I can get away with a 1/4″ MDF bottom (floating in a dado 1/8″ from the bottom of the 2 3/8″ high sides, leaving 2″ of depth inside each drawer). I will make the sides from hardwood which I will mill to 3/8″ thickness from the birch or maple stock I have on hand. Really the deciding factor will be whatever species of wood I can get around 25′ out of. I should have enough leftover hardwood to mill 1/4″ thick lengths for the dividers inside each drawer. I’ll notch the front and back of each drawer for easy handling and I plan on making some jigs for all this so that if it works out I’ll do a similar hack for storing my miniatures.

Tonight I sketched out my idea roughly on several pieces of paper and made a cutting/material list. I am going to do box joints on the drawers so basically all my drawer side pieces need to be the full length. This will be my first try with box joints but they look simple enough and I can cut the majority of the material away with the table saw, in fact my dado stack has a pretty flat kerf so I might be able to do them completely on the table saw. I can use a hole saw with a sacrificial block to cut the notches and then router their edges round. That also should be quite simple although it would be better if I had an actual drill press, oh well jigs to the rescue.

For finishing I’ll try to match the brown-black of my kallax for all the MDF pieces, I will pre-paint them before I assemble anything. I’ll simply do a clear coat (rub on poly) on the hardwood. I figure I can attach the inner dividers with glue using pin nails to hold them in place, so I’ll be careful not to finish one edge and tape off the drawer bottoms where the dividers go so that the glue properly adheres . In fact I need to make a cardboard mock-up of the bottom of a drawer and work out how I will organize all the various tiles so that I know exactly where the dividers need to go. I also need to make sure that I can get my fingers into the drawers to easily pull the tiles out.

I plan to do a few build videos along the way. I’ve been itching to try out a video camera on a boom mic stand so that you can see what I’m doing this time. Much as I’d like these drawers in time for our next game night, I think it might take me a few weeks to get them completed. I’m eager though because I think this is going to be a good solution for my miniatures as well. I have a lot of miniatures!

Another big day and the trim is done! Well almost all done. Tomorrow morning I will caulk and fill in the brad holes. Tomorrow evening Sharon wants to paint the trim that we didn’t have a chance to pre-paint. The most exciting part is that there is no more cutting in the basement, my chop saw is back in the shop. I have a small paint station set up in the hall downstairs, but I swept up all the sawdust and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new shelves.

To celebrate I hung up a picture that my awesome daughter Chelsea drew when she was just starting out. Yeah, she was talented like that from the start. I have another whole wall to decorate when I find the right pieces, but I’ve had this picture in a frame since we started the build in the basement. I think it looks fantastic.

You can bet we will be gaming in this space Friday evening!

Sometimes life feels really full. Those aren’t bad times, in fact they can be very rewarding times. But it is a fine line that separates feeling productive and feeling like you are sinking under the weight of it all. This was one of those weekends where I stood precariously on that line.

Sharon and I poured on the steam to get the basement finished, at least functionally finished. That meant sanding all the drywall in the last room as well as in the stairwell, priming everything, and painting. I managed to finish up the sanding and move my chop saw out of the main room on Saturday (I’ll bring it back to finish up the trim this week). We had lots of other things on the go so the order of when we completed tasks is a bit of a blur. I managed to prime and caulk everything Sunday after church. I was also able to do a prime check which I would quickly prime this morning. Then I started in on the ceiling paint while Sharon sealed the stairwell, this was necessary because previous owners were heavy smokers and the last owners sealed the ceilings but not the walls so that now the nicotine in the walls is starting to emerge! Not pleasant. We did not want to have that happen in the new basement so all of the existing drywall has been sealed.

We had just enough ceiling paint for the game room (main area). We did not have enough wall paint to finish the walls in the game room, although I almost managed the second coat. I’m going to pick up some more paint tomorrow and finish the job, I think Robert is coming by to help me install trim. Oh and tomorrow is already packed with the car going in for repairs in the morning and a Skype call with my good friend Beth Stovell in the afternoon. But I am motivated to finish because I ordered the Kallax shelving which arrives Thursday Afternoon! Finally my games will have a new home.

So add to all of that preparing worship for our small group tonight, going to small group, visiting with my buddy Kadry to see his kitchen upgrades, Sharon taking in Les Miserables, and a surprise flat tire (not one, but two screws!). It was a pretty full long weekend.

In the picture my buddy Richard Dufault and I are battling my dark Jedi daughter Chelsea. This was from a photoshoot Richard did for us to promote a game Chelsea and I developed called Quack, Quack, Duck!