(Talking to her fellow gamers) "Nomad's camping in astronomy room..."
We've lost her.
Today I'm going to start building a desk to accommodate a gaming system that my husband
is building for our daughter for Christmas.
Instead of winging it like I normally would have, I decided
in this case to try a plan from Ana White. And I gotta say, I was pretty impressed.
There are some really great plans, especially for something like a desk, on that website,
so if you're thinking about doing something like this, this is not a bad way to go about it.
I did, however, increase the dimensions a lot from this plan,
because I wanted this desk to be a lot bigger than what was on the plan.
And luckily, the day I went to Home Depot to check out the wood section, they had a nice piece of birch,
that I thought would be lovely, and there was a very nice man there named Emilio who was
willing to do some cuts for me...which was really helpful, because I still don't have a table saw!
Of course I took measurements before I went to buy the wood, but when I got it home,
it seemed like that tabletop was going to be GARGANTUAN!
So I went up to her room and I measured out
the space that it would take up on the floor, just using some ribbon, and I *think* it's gonna fit okay.
This project requires the use of a pocket hole jig,
which I have actually never used before. I've had this for a while -- my kids got it for me as a gift,
and I am very embarrassed to say that I never learned how to use it. But hey, now's a good time.
I did a couple of test runs first on some scrap pieces, just to make sure
I was getting it right, and I'm really glad I did.
AAAA!
Ahhhh! Sh*t!
Ohhhhh...crap!
Something else I just figured out: there is a difference between pocket hole screws
and regular construction screws. Pocket hole screws are self-tapping, and what that means is
when you drill it in, you don't have to pre-drill the additional piece of wood that you're screwing
your first piece of wood into. If you're going to use regular construction screws, that's fine.
But just make sure that you pre-drill your hole for this second piece of wood
through that original pocket hole, so that you can screw this in and it won't crack.
Alright, so now that I've gotten the three main pieces of this put together, I'm getting
pretty close to being finished, and just putting the finishing touches on.
But I'm finding that I really don't like this raw edge of this wood.
It just looks a little unfinished.
So I went and I got some simple trim from my local home improvement store,
and I'm just going to glue it onto the front like that.
Now one thing that makes this project a lot easier is that I have this miter saw.
Because not only can I get nice straight cuts,
but I can also do 45 degree angles perfectly.
Now not everybody has this, of course, but you can do this with a circular saw
or a jigsaw, or even a hand saw, especially on little trim like this.
Your lines might not come out quite as perfect, but it's definitely doable.
Now, in an ideal world, I would have one of these big clamps every foot or so.
But unfortunately, they're pretty expensive, and I only have two of them.
But I had this crazy idea in the middle of the night,
like you do, laying awake in bed.
And I have a ton of these little clamps that are about a dollar
at your local home improvement store, so what I'm going to do is
take some of this fabric, just little swatches of fabric, a little t-shirt...rip it up.
And just stretch it as tight as I can, using that clamp
to kind of help hold it in place and apply some pressure
to make sure that the glue adheres well between the trim and the top of the table
So I just ran to Home Depot real quick and I got myself one of these.
This is a "Hole Dozer" and it's to drill a nice, big, fat, perfectly round hole
in the back of the desk, so that the cords can drop through it.
Oh that was kind of terrifying actually.
With as much work as I've put into this,
To all of a sudden be drilling a hole in it is actually quite scary.
I was really afraid I was going to mess it up.
Now I've heard a lot of people say that you should use a foam brush
to put on a top coat, and although that does seem to eliminate brush strokes,
I've found that it also increases the bubbles that are in there,
And that doesn't really help me at all, so instead what I'm using today is
just water-based polyurethane from Varathane, but it's this triple thick version of it.
And it says "self-leveling" so hopefully that'll give it time to kind of
let all the bubbles come out and level itself out so there's no brush strokes.
I'll just have to see, I've never used this.
And I've also sprung for a new fancy brush.
I paid about 12 bucks for this brush, so it better be good.
I did a total of five coats of polyurethane on this project,
sanding and cleaning in between each, of course.
And on the last two, I used a foam brush, because I noticed that I was still
seeing a lot of brush strokes and bubbles in the finish.
The self-leveling feature of this product is kind of bogus in my opinion,
because it just dries way too quickly for it to be self-leveling.
All right, so it's Christmas Eve, I'm about three glasses of wine in at this point,
But I had a few more things to on this, so I had to come back downstairs.
I added this tray to accommodate a power strip,
so that you don't have cords laying all over the place, which is nice.
And I also added these LED lights, which was my husband's idea.
And they are magnetic, so I just added a
little metal strip here at the bottom for those.
Of course the computer is gonna be the big deal to a 12-year-old,
but I'm pretty damn proud of this desk, so I'm excited to give it to her tomorrow.
Um....
Bro....
Dude...
DUDE!!!
WHAT?!
Dude...
(a nice Christmas song by Sam Gallagher playing)
It's Christmas Eve, I'm about three glasses in now,
Uh, I finally put the flinishing...fluph....
(laughing)
I should do more videos where I'm slightly drunk.
that would be awesome, right?
Drunk power tool videos! That's an awesome idea!
Two thousand twenty one BABY!
As long as I'm not using saws it's probably relatively safe, right?