A cherry lap desk. I built a pair of cherry lap desks in the winter of 2022 as gifts for my daughters. One as a birthday gift and the other to maintain balance and keep the peace.
This lap desk is based on a design I saw in a woodworking magazine a few years ago. I'll only photograph the building of one of the lap desks for the sake of simplicity.
The cherry lids are a little over a foot wide and about 20" long. I'll edge glue two boards per lid.
Jointing the boards with an old fashioned shooting board and a miter plane will create a tight glue joint.
Edge gluing the lid. I taped the lids together on the back side with a stretchy masking tape. I've flipped the lid over and popped open the seem in order to add the wood glue.
I weighed down the lid with a hefty plane then added tape to the top side. The tape acts as a clamp.
Breadboard ends are a great way to keep a thin and wide board flat throughout the seasonal changes in humidity. I used a table saw to create a long tongue on each edge of the lid. A shoulder plane cleans up the saw marks. The breadboard ends will have a corresponding groove.
Seasonal movement occurs throughout the year in wood. Mostly, boards increase in width in the summer and get a little narrower in winter when the humidity is lower and moisture is drawn out of the wood. Since the grain direction of the breadboard end is perpendicular to that of the lid, I've elongated the outer draw bored pin holes of the tongues.
Pinning the breadboard end with hardwood dowels locks the joint together. I glued the center 4" or so of the breadboard end to the lid. I also glued the 2 center pins.
Cleaning things up. I hand-sawed the pins flush to the bread board ends. Now I'm block planing the breadboard ends flush to the lid. The breadboard ends were just a touch thicker than the lid prior to assembly.
A draw-bored pin.
A breadboard end will keep this 5/16" thick top relatively flat throughout the years.
Building the box. I'm building the box with simple hand-cut, through dovetails. The process starts with a marking gauge which scribes the ends of the boards about 5/16" from the ends.
The tails of a dovetail joint are fan-shaped like the feathers of a bird's tail.
I'm hand-sawing 4 sides at a time. I'm able to gang-cut the tails for both boxes in one step by clamping them together.
Chiseling away the waste with a 1/4" chisel and a mallet.
Transferring the tails to the boards that will have the pins cut into them. I'll saw the pins by saving the pencil line.
Cutting away the waste creates the pins. Once in a while I get lucky and my hand sawing is accurate enough that the parts fit together right off the saw. Most of the time I have to fiddle with the pins a little with a chisel and a knife until the parts fit together tightly.
Gluing the lining to the box with wood glue and clothespins. The lining has the cross-section of a right triangle. It will support the bottom of the lap desk.
Layout for the hinge mortises is straightforward with a knife. I will have to grind or sand down the width of the hinge leaves that will attach to the box.
Hand chiseling the hinge mortises into the box and the lid is straightforward and satisfying hand-work.
The hinge screws for the lid were too long so I sanded them short with a belt sander.
Shooting the lap desk with polyurethane creates a beautiful and durable finish in short order.
The finish is a water-borne whey based furniture finish in satin made by Vermont Natural Coatings. I tried to embrace the knots in the boards that I used to build these lap desks. I filled this one with super glue and sanded it flush prior to finishing. I only bothered doing this because it's on the writing surface of the desk.
All done. I hope my daughter enjoys her birthday gift.