Travel Easel

SWMBO is a person of many talents. She enjoys all sorts of crafts and, despite what she may think, she's quite adept at most of them! She enjoys watercolors, and a couple of variants of watercolor paints (who knew there were different types of watercolors??), and she wanted something portable so she can keep her supplies contained and take them to go...

This is a travel easel that I made from some wood shelves I found in a 'take me' pile left out by some students as they moved out, sometime last year. Solid fir, most likely from a free standing cabinet set or something. My plan was to build something with minimal external latches or catch points hanging off it. She wanted it without legs, to be set on a table. The painting surface needed to be adjustable, and it needed to have storage. I found some small friction hinges that I thought would be perfect for this, but the lid/painting surface is just too large. Using larger hinges would add more bulk than I wanted, so I eventually settled on a combination of small friction hinges and a kickstand, but I wouldn't figure that out until the middle of the build.

The drawer needed to be able to be secured inside the carcass, but I wanted it to be able to extend out the front and serve as a reservoir for her supplies while she painted, readily at hand in front of her. In retrospect, I should have turned the whole thing 90º sideways and hinged the cover landscape. That would have put the drawer out the side and would have made more sense in practical use, but this works out fine. I started with laying out her supplies, then sized the drawer around those needs.

I wanted to do something a little unique to secure the drawer in place, without using traditional latches, so I came up with some retractable pins. I bent over some 1/4" brass round stock to make two canes, and fitted them into the rear wall of the drawer in a dado. There are holes on each side to allow the rods to protrude, and a spring in the middle to provide tension. Eventually, I would cut down the pins to fit and would cover most of the dado with a cap to keep the rods inline with the holes as they're squeezed together, otherwise they want to slide up into the top of the dado near the middle. 

Then built the rest of the drawer. Nothing special, just butt joints reinforced with pin nails. I milled the found-on-road slabs down to a 1/2" to reduce weight, and they were still thicker than they needed to be...but it's not going to fall apart. 

I then made up a set of spacers to keep stuff organized.

Next I built the carcass around the drawer. This included locking holes at the end of the sidewalls so the drawer would lock into place when closed, and guide slots down the sides to keep the drawer tracking level. I stoped the slots short of the end so the drawer can't be pulled fully out of the carcass without pinching the rods in again.

Lots of test fitting to get this working the way I wanted it.

At that point, I sorted out the hinges and built up the lid/painting surface. I wasn't sure (yet) that the hinges weren't going to work out on their own, but that would soon become evident.

So, the thing with the hinges is that they work great to hold the lid open when it's all the way open, but the lid is just too heavy for them in a lower angled position. In comes the kickstand. This one took some noodling and I kicked around a couple of ideas, including curved blanket chest supports, some other types of hinges, etc. but I was already committed with my dimensions, so I went with a multi position kickstand that is secured inside the lid, and can be flicked down to engage with the back corner of the carcass to hold the lid at an angle when painting. I wanted something that wouldn't slip, so I created a corrugated pattern using a 90º bit and the Shaper Origin. Then cut it in half along the long axis so that it mates perfectly. I then routed a grove down the middle of one side to allow a nut & bolt assembly to fix the position after adjustment, and hinged it inside the lid. It's held in place in the 'up' position by a magnet in the lid that grabs the back of the bold head when retracted. It's maybe a little more fiddly than I'd like, but it's very secure and has a lot of adjustment.

 

I did end up using a proper latch to hold the whole assembly closed and made up a simple, wrapped sisal rope handle so it would be flexible and could be squished without an issue. This is a pic of creating the handle. Nothing but rope and d-rings with flanges.

Sanded, pre-finished, then assembled and finished with liberal coats of wipe-on poly. I didn't go too decorative with it, as I usually would with some laser engraving or something, because it's truly more of a utility piece and will end up covered in paint. SWMBO is a sweetie, but she's messy... That blue box is for holding paints. I guess you can fill the little reservoirs with paint from a tube, then left them dry out overnight and they just stay stuck to the reservoirs for no-spill traveling. Then, when you're ready to paint, you reconstitute them with a little water and paint away. She prefers to tape her paper/canvas to the lid, so there is no clip or ledge to hold it as you might expect to see on a traditional easel. That's also why there's a slot for a roll of blue tape in the drawer. I ended up cutting a slab of open cell foam to fit inside between the lid and the drawer to make sure the contents don't slide around or leave home when it's being carried.

Here's the finished drawer assembly.

And the finished project.

Overall I'm happy with it. I'd actually like to make it again to incorporate some changes, but I can't see why she'd need two of them!