Behemoth Drawer #2

Being the Fourth Part in the Continuation of the Ongoing Build of 

The Behemoth

a Desk of Monstrous Proportions that will Take Up the Whole Room

We take your now to the Weird IKEA Bookcase...

This is a weird little bookcase I got at IKEA when I moved into my first apartment.  I kept it bare wood for years...Dave painted it white to match the file cabinet/bookcase thing.

It's part of that "design your own desk" thing they do where you buy the legs and top piecemeal.  Which is exactly what I did, only I used a file cabinet from my parents for the other leg, two shelves side-by-side for the desktop (that now reside on the wall in the laundry room, like respectable shelves), and a piece of scrap wood to level it out (it's MDF, yeuch).

So...now we're using it (the bookcase thing) as a leg for another desk (lovingly referred to as The Behemoth).  It's the unit on the far left, if you couldn't tell.

(This is an updated picture of the B.  I'm playing with the idea of boards for the desktop instead of ply...maybe)

But the poor bookcase is too short for the job, so we had to add a 2" box to the top.  This houses Behemoth Drawer #2, seen in the drawing.  We also added another book shelf (out of one of my earlier cutting mistakes). 

These pieces are the box for the drawer.  I painted the insides of the boards first, then (since the drawer would be too narrow to get in there with a screw driver) I attached the drawer glides and assembled the box.

With the drawer glides in the way, my Clamp-It wouldn't fit into the inside corner.  Happily, I discovered that this is an easier method that I really prefer, so now that's how I do. I know it's 'the wrong way', but it works for me and makes me happy.

So, you know how I pre-painted the insides of the boards...? I forgot about the part where wood glue doesn't bond to paint.  So I had to sand this edge.

...and now there's a gap where I inadvertently rounded down the corner.  Well, nothing's perfect.  (And that's the real reason they invented caulk!)

The box attaches to the top of the bookcase from the underside using countersunk screws and prayer that I hit the middle of the piece and don't split the wood.  God was gracious in my failure to measure...no wood was split.

Dave cut all of these pieces himself, including the channels on the drawer sides.  This is the fitting before assembly of the drawer:

(These are the slides we're using, btw...they were about $7 a set cause we got the real long ones)

From there, I attached the sides and bottom to the face.  I used countersunk screws straight through the face into the drawer sides.

...and went straight into the mortises.  Just like drawer #1.  Only this time, I didn't fix it.

See the screw through that gap?  Oh, trust me...it's in there.  But now the drawer bottom doesn't jiggle anymore, so I guess that's good.

And this is where that piece sits as of right now. 

The top is primed, the drawer is assembled without the glides, and the face has been wood-filled and sanded.  This unit can't be considered "done", though, because of the glides...I can live with a not-totally-painted bookcase, but the drawer doesn't slide right with only half the glides.  Silly.  The little screws would've taken 10 seconds to install...I just ran out of time before I went back to work.  I opted to clean the kitchen instead.

Luckily, I have a teammate.  He takes up my slack!  He's got my back!  He listens to rap!

Those are all 100% true!

Happy Saturday!