Sneak Peak

A sign of things to come. A dry fit of the project. The final project will have a panel on both top and bottom pieces and therefore look a little different.

Prepping the Column

The center column is relatively complex and not yet finished. The hand planned splined mitre joints have been finished for a while. Now the ends are trimmed at respective 15 and 30 degrees. Holes for wiring.  The edges rounded. A quick sand. The next and more complicated part is the locking mechanism.

Lectern Panel Prep

The lectern project is essentially to carcasses joined by an adjustable column. Each carcass is a dovetailed box sandwiched between two panels. Today I made some headway on the panels. The panels were marked out based on the carcasses +7mm, sawn, planed, and rounded over. 

There's still a little work to go. The bottom bottom panel needed a glue up to make the width. The top bottom panel will need a hole for column cut at 15 degrees.

The Lectern Dry Fit

 It's always a good time when the pieces come together and the project comes to life. 

The internal frame of the lectern top is complete. The joinery (all done by hand) is formed by interlocking half-laps and rebate. The angles sat at 15 and 30 degrees made for a bit of fun. 

The design at this point again becomes complicated. A series of holes need to be drilled for the adjustable height mechanism and to tunnel the wiring. Final decisions need to be made in relation to the location and size of the holes. This is not a step to be rushed.

(And I really need to clean up my bench.)

Lectern: Locating the XLR sockets...

 

Part of the lectern design brief was to incorporate microphone cabling within the structure. Essentially this acts as an extension cable from a socket at the tope to one at the bottom and looks neater. By using two increases flexibility; it allows redundancy should one break, stereo microphones if required, or one can host a gooseneck lamp. 

Now I need to decide which of two options would be best to place the mounts. The first  inside the top carcass, the second outside it. Placing them inside is easier and neater, but runs the risk of the documents on the lectern overlapping. Placing them outside requires extra pieces of wood as the top is too thin.

Any suggestions?

More to come on the construction of the top carcass. But here's a sneak peak.

The Post

The post is designed to be adjustable in height. To accommodate this it is formed by two pieces which telescope; one within the other. The pieces are mitred, then splined together. My set up was less than ideal, some by hand, some on the jointer.

Internal frame of the lectern base

I completed the joinery for the cedar carcuss sometime last year. With the post now finished I could size up the internal framework.

I''m using a light soft timber I sourced from Boutique Timber. The timber was ripped and cross cut by hand but dressed by machine.   

Impressed upon me again is how nice it is to use good quality tools. My Lie Nielsen saws makes quick and easy work of this sort of joinery work. And the Chris Vespers marking tools are still as solid and comfortable as ever.

The internal frame is rabbetted into the external carcuss and then half lapped to each other.

Before final glue up I need to fine tune the plan for the electrical components. This will involve a series of holes for the wiring and mounting the XLR microphone cable plates into the timber. Should be fun.

The Lectern Project: The Post

So anyway... two years ago I started building a simple adjustable height lectern... and today while procrastinating from needed study... I did a bit more. 

The adjustable main post is made of two sections which telescope together. Each section is made of four 3/4" pieces of cedar, mitred together and re-enforced with a long spline.

The mitre was cut by machine on the jointer. The groove and the splines where hand planed. A bit of fun. 

The pieces fitted together reasonably well. A small gap along one edge which I burnished into shape with the edge of a screw driver. The twin leg vises served well to hold the piece while the glue dried.

The next step will be trim the edges and fine tune the fit with the smaller section. 

To 'lock in' the adjusted height, I'm planning a series of holes and a wooden or metal rod that slides through to lock the selected height. I'm happy for any further suggestions on this. Remember though that two microphone cables will run through the centre smaller section.