JMalone

But I'm tighter than I am patient!

Which makes for a good combination.
I priced out what a rubbish desk would cost down at the local shopping centre and decided that I had a better use for a couple hundred dollars.

And this way I get a solid wood desk rather than chipboard and laminate.

My motivation is that when I get this finished I intend to reward myself with an upgraded computer. It's not long now....a couple of months at the most.

Cheers,
John

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nordhagen

I agree. Since the wood is basically scraps, not to mention the fact that the project has already lasted 7 months, it should be pretty stable by now. If you've kept it at roughly the same temperature and humidity as will be it's natural habitat once the desk is done you've also minimized the chance of any delayed surprises.

I'm told the reason for this tendency to warp is because wood generally grows much faster and is allowed less time to dry that back in the days when anything wood was as good as it gets.

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JMalone

I worked on the tenons for each joint, nudging here, tweaking there.
It didn't take a whole lot, and it was nice to spend some time with the wood without a power tool screaming away. Just me, the wood and a chisel.

I decided to do a dry fit of the work so far, to see how it was coming together.
I must say that it looks pretty much how I had it planned in my head, which is a relief.

Now I've got a couple of design choices to make.
1) What to do with the leg corners? Round them, chamfer or leave them square? Do I do the round/chamfer the whole length?
2) What do I do with the top? I'm leaning towards a round over of the top edge, but I don't know about the bottom.
3) What sort of finish do I put on this wood? Currently leaning to a golden type stain, but I don't know what to put on top of that.

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
John

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curiousgeorge

Looking good, John.
My suggestions:
1. Chamfer the legs leaving about 2 or 3 inches top and bottom square. I think this would match the raised panel look better.
2. Round over the top edge and leave the bottom square (but soften the edges a little).
3. Polyurethane.

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harrysin

What a first class piece of woodwork, I have the same fetish as George, I run around everything with the trim router.

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Harry

Check twice!

Hi John

A great job and your design is structurally sound. I really like it.

My suggestions
(1) Round over top and soften the bottom of the top.
(2) Soften the legs with a fine chamfer,,, the whole legs
(3) I would poly the unit without stain,,, I like as much of the natural wood grain and knots to show through. Mind you a light stain as you suggest may look very nice.

I am just a "plain" sort of finisher, and not into stains, so take what I say take with a grain of salt. Plain and simple is my preferance, but not necessarily the best.

I take my hat off to you on your build, it really looks great and no matter how you finish it the craftsmanship will show through. You also picked a wood I really like.

Great creation.

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John

Cleaning my glasses will not make me look any better, but will make what I'm looking at better!

AxlMyk

That is a first class desk. Very good job.
It looks like your assistant can't wait to use it.

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JMalone

I stood and glared at the desk last night before I went to bed.
That warped top is going to be a problem.
I don't think there's any way around it: I've got to cut it up!

I really, really, really don't want to cut up the top, for a whole bunch of reasons, mostly to do with the amount of work to put it back together again, but also due to the fact that each cut will reduce the total width of the top and I don't have any more timber to make it wider.

But it's not going to work the way it is.

So close, yet so far.

I think I'll cut the pieces into 2 and 4 foot lengths, get them as flat as I can and hope that the multiple smaller pieces won't cause an overall warp like fewer larger pieces did. It's going to be a trick glue up, and I'll have to find a flattish part of the garage floor to do it on, but it should work.
I'm not going to bother with the splining that I did the first time around. I did that mainly to keep the longer pieces in line. With the shorter pieces I hope not to have that problem.
Either way, it's going to be a tricky job.

*sigh*

I thought I was getting to the end of this piece and I'm back at the beginning.

Cheers.

karateed

Hey John,

The build looks great. Is there no way to plane it flat? Or something like that. It's hard to tell that it's warped from the pics but planing (I'm thinking hand plane) might be a possible solution....and save a ton of time for you.

Ed......:-)

Check twice!

Hi John

I had a similar problem before with a laminated top. I cut it in half and reversed (fipped it over end to end) the one piece and re-glued the cut. I had to clamp it together as well clamp across the flat sides. It worked well enough to get the rest with a belt sander. Just one cut and a 1/16" loss.

Maybe of value. It is still looking good.

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John

Cleaning my glasses will not make me look any better, but will make what I'm looking at better!