This Valentine’s Day, I wanted to build something for my wife.

I looked at her standing desk and wanted to replace the boxes and books she’d been using to support her keyboard and trackpad. Although it makes her look a learned woman, it lacked storage space and stability.

I had some leftover poplar from my last couple builds which I thought I could use. Since I’m working with leftovers, I had to measure my spare lumber before I could design the riser. I wanted to maximize the size of the platform using the materials on hand.

Thankfully, all of the leftover pieces were 5/4 boards. This gave me a uniform place to start with, but it also meant that I would be working with very thin boards, as I needed to re-saw the boards in order to create enough surface area for the desk riser.

The sequence of work

1. Sketch a design that made use of the spare cutoffs I had handy
2. Chop the pieces to rough size
3. Joint the boards flat
4. Plane them down on the other side
5. Split my 5/4 board on the bandsaw to get ~5/8
6. Plane again to smooth out the rough banding—this took us down to ~ 1/2″
7. Glue up top platform
8. Cut dado grooves along the sides, center, and back
9. Sand down the inside of the grooves to get a snug fit
10. Sand down all the boards to 180g grit
11. Glue up the sides, back, and center support
12. Break the edges with a sanding bar

Skill Development

There were a few new skills I developed while making this piece

• cutting dado grooves
• re-sawing with the bandsaw
• using a nail gun
• dry fitting
• glueing

Learnings

As part of my journey into woodworking, inevitably, mistakes were made. I’ll incorporate this into future builds.

1. Start thicker: I started with too-thin boards. This was set by my leftover cutoffs, but if I was planning to make this again I would start with 6/4 or skip the re-saw and use 4/4 boards without splitting them.
2. Create even more glue-able surface area: Had I had thicker boards, I would also have been able to cut dado grooves into the back side so that I could have the legs slot into the back instead of just butting against the panel.
3. Measure twice: I would also have been more meticulous with the measurements of my boards for flush fits along all planes.
4. Consistent groove depth: I would have found a way to make my dado groove depth consistent after removing the sled from the crosscut saw. I got away with it in this case, but it would be nice to have all the panels line up fully flush.
5. Get a second opinion: I have the luxury of working in a woodshop with other people. Especially if my plans involve something I haven’t done before, it doesn’t hurt at all to get a second opinion about my plans before I cut myself into a corner.