Architect's Table
doubletenon Sep 03, 2019
This desk is based on Tom Fidgen's Architect's Table from his book "The Unplugged Woodshop". Tom's design is awesome, but I thought it would look a little heavy sitting in my smaller office so I lightened things up a bit. Overall it worked out pretty well, but I think I went a bit too far on the curved stays. The desk is sturdy enough to use as intended, but I wouldn't sit on the top. Leaving the stays thicker and wider would probably have been better.
The base is cherry and the top is maple with curly walnut breadboard ends.The curved stays are each made of three pieces of maple, assembled using dominos. The dominos are drawbored (that was fun) with walnut dowels.
The top locks in place flat or at an angle using brass pins with some walnut handles I turned. I haven't turned in a couple years so they're not the best looking and I'll probably redo them at some point.
I used Osmo Polyx for the finish. This was my first time using it, and it mostly went OK. It needs to be applied thin and your sanding needs to be thorough and complete. I'll probably sand and refinish the top because I missed a couple spots of tearout and it becomes very noticable with the osmo. Next tool is a drum sander, so I'll just wait until then.
#desk #drawing #cherry #maple #walnut
The base is cherry, the top is maple with curly walnut breadboard ends. The top can lock in at an angle or parallel with the floor.
When parallel with the floor, it's a reasonably comfortable height for standing, or sitting at with a stool
The walnut breadboard ends are drawbored on with shop made maple dowels.
The top pivots on a 1/2" shop made maple dowel. The curved stays are each made with 3 pieces of maple held together with dominos which I've drawbored with walnut dowels. To drawbore a domino, glue in one side first. Once that's dry, proceed like it's a regular tenon. It works surprisingly well. The stays are held to the top supports in the same way.
The stays lock in place with 3/8" brass rods that I've turned walnut handles for.
I didn't take too many build pictures, but hopefully these give an idea. Here the base lumber is milled up. The upper support is using dominos, the lower support will be a tusked through tenon.
Through tenons cut. These were cut with a router and squared up with a chisel.
Mortises for the tusks were drilled out with a forstner bit and squared up and angled with a chisel. And some swearing.
Dry fit of the base and support frame. I have no build pictures of the top, so it's appearing here as if by magic.
The support frame is attached to the top with (probably too many) screws.
Dry fitting everything.
I glued the legs to the feet first, there are beefy dominos in there.
The rest of the parts were pre-finished with osmo polyx before glue up.
The support frame is also dominos.
Base glue up.
Final glue up.
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Excellent craftsmanship! Very nicely done.
Holy crap! You are very talented, my friend. The table is outstanding. Thank you for sharing here on SimpleCove, I hope to see more of your work.
Thank you!
@miketulchinsky said:Thanks, Sean! And thanks for running this awesome site, I'll definitely be posting more here!
@Sean said:Very cool, Scott! That makes me happy to hear, thank you!
@doubletenon said: