Wood and Steel Wireless Charging End Table

Hey Everyone! Thanks for checking out this build. I slapped this article together really quickly but the best way to get a feel for what I'm doing is to watch my YouTube video. There's not set plans to this, but rather, I hope you walk away with some solid techniques to apply to your own builds.

To get started you'll need some basic woodworking tools like a table saw and have some plywood around to make some simple jigs. I used a domino to bring everything together (ohhhh he's using a domino... boooooo!) but you can use dowels to join or a plunge router to make floating tenons. Marc Spag released a video on that recently.

In any event, as far as source material, hardwoods are preferred. I build this using three 3x4's and a few scrap pieces laying around the shop. It's not really a science. Just find what you got and use it. I milled this stuff but there's nothing that should keep you from using dimensional lumber either.

So here we go!

Step 1: Milling and Cutting

I started by reclaiming some white oak skids I found at the steel yard and getting them split relatively straight with the track saw. These were rift sawn and holding a ton of tension so I went with multiple passes.

I needed to square one face and one edge so I went to the table saw and set up the fence for some basic rips and checked for square.

With that done, I brought the pieces to the lunch box planer and used my flat face down to skip plane the rough surface, running all the pieces to even thickness about a thirty second of an inch at a time until everything was even.

When that was done I brought the pieces back to the table saw and ripped the last edge to get my stock squared and surfaced.

I cross cut the stock for the legs to length with the miter gauge and then ran them on my taper jig to get a subtle taper for the insides of the table’s legs.

Step 2: Cutting and Detailing Joinery

Using my marking gauge, I marked the depth for the mortise and tenon of the bridle joints that connect the legs to the carcass stretchers. I then used my tenon jig to make a cut on the stretcher before flipping it to ensure that my tenon was even and then used the miter gauge to cross cut the waste off. This was done on both ends of each stretcher.

After marking the mortise on the leg using the tenon on the stretcher, I cleared out the waste in the mortise with the tenon jig again, being sure to stay on the inside of my line and repeated it on all the legs.

With that being done, I broke out the chisels and cleaned up the shoulders on the tenons, all the mortises, and worked it real good until I had a solid dry fit. Best tip for folks is to always work with sharp chisels to prevent tear or chip out.

I went with big box store five minute epoxy and mixed it with black pigment to stabilize the knots and cracks. After cure, I used a block plane to take down the excess and then card scraped it flat. Spit on the finger for the reveal is optional.

For the sides of the carcass, I went with my table saw and a bevel jig, aka a really tall fence, to re-saw this five quarter stock since my bandsaw doesn’t have capacity, being sure to take small bites out of it by raising the blade just a touch on each pass.

There’s going to be lower rails of sorts that will accept some stretcher strips for a shelf, and I’m bringing those together with dominos. Instead of a solid shelf, it’s going to be slotted so I cut some strips to set that up and cross cut them to identical length before taking the domino to those as well.

Then I dominoed the top stretchers which connect the left and right leg assemblies to actually pin the bridle joint.

With that done I went ahead and glued and clamped everything together. After, I sanded everything down to clean up all my surfaces and joints and card scraped the whole piece.

Step 3: Drawer and Wireless Charger

To mount the full extension soft close drawer slides I had to add a little thickness to the carcass to clear the sides, so I'm just sneaking up on the cut to make sure it snaps in perfectly.

For the drawer itself, I went with box joints to bring it all together and after the joints were done, I planed the panels with my smoothing plane before card scraping as well.

I wanted to do a stop dado in each of the drawer sides to accept a bottom panel, so I whipped up a jig style setup with a framing square, a straight edge, and hot glue before using a plunge router with an upspiral straight bit. The idea is to find the location of the bottom and then set the fence up based on that. I always use the round edge of my base plate to ride the fence for consistent results and then cleaned up the ends of the dados with a sharp chisel.

Quarter inch plywood was cut down to size for the bottom panel and then the box was assembled. With a small cutoff, I used a hole saw and a chamfer bit to create the tray for a wireless charger. The slot for the cord was cut on the table saw.

I mortised domino tenons into two sides of the charging tray and then switched to a wider mortise setting and hogged out two wider mortises into the carcass. The tenons won’t be glued into the carcass, so that the tray can be removable in case the charger needs to be changed.

I’m going to be wrapping this in plate steel, so I’m adding a slight roundover to the carcass as the inside corners of the steel will have a slight radius.

I then went ahead and installed the full extension drawer slides, marking and pre drilling everything ahead.

Step 4: Steel Shroud and Finishing

I removed all the hardware to finish the carcass and made the maloof-esque style finish of equal parts boiled linseed oil, pure tung oil, and wipe on poly. Wiping it on generously and wiping it off to prevent runs and sags. After a few hours, I rubbed another generous coat on to ensure penetration before letting it dry for 24 hours.

For the drawer front I went with walnut and selected the section with the knot to have some unique grain flow. I trimmed this entirely with the track saw before sanding and finishing and mounting with this brushed nickel pull.

For the plate steel, I used a sheet of 14 gauge hot rolled plate steel. I cut it to size with a ferrous metal cutting blade in a circular saw and straight edge before setting up a fence of angle steel to score the bend points with a cutting disc on the angle grinder. Then we cold bent the steel to a right angle around the fulcrum. As a fun fact, most steel yards will do this for you with a press brake.

I used a hole saw at the charger mounting point to drill a hole through the plate steel and then used a flap disk to soften up all the edges. I then drilled and countersunk holes into the steel and the end table itself and off camera painted the screws black. Then I used stage two of the finish, boiled linseed oil, tung oil, and beeswax to finish the plate steel as well as the rest of the piece inside and out.

Then you're done!

Follow me on Instagram! @cowdogcraftworks

To watch the full build check out my video on youtube!