Desk
Dylan Jun 16, 2016
I wanted to build a new desk with minimal storage space because if I have an empty drawer I will fill it with things I don't need or want and keep them until I go to paradise and spend my endless days in paradise wondering what I put in those drawers.
I based the desk on this BDDW design
QS Cherry and Wenge
Boards for the top and skirts planed flat and joined
Top glued up
Cleaning up the edges of the top
The idea is to remove that triangle of material and fold the piece up to create a side shirt with the grain running continuously from one side over the top and down the other side, of course this means the side skirts are going to expand with the top, not very orthodox but well see how it goes
Look OK
The front skirt will have two drawers, one of the drawer fronts is taken from from the skirt itself
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Front skirt assembly
Pretty happy with how it came out.
On to the legs
Sized and squared
I have rarely had good results with this machine, this time it worked
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I didn't want the wall to blow out while cleaning them out
I do this frequently to clean the marks and little ridges form the mortiser, it pretty much guarantees a uniform fit for all the tenons
Mortises for the side skirts
The side skirts have floating tenons because of the awkward grain orientation. I found that floating tenons were much easier to make than a traditional tenon. If I had done the sides before the front and back I would have done floating tenons for all the joints.
Had to remove a bit of material so one tenons doesn't obstruct the other
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Looks good so far
The small drawer is made from Wenge
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The original idea was to use a jigsaw and a router with a template to clean the inside but the grain and the router bit weren't having it, so I cleaned up the inside with the bandsaw and just plugged the bandsaw cut with a scrap piece.
This was the idea for the halfblind dovetails
OK
If I hadn't decided to use this piece for the drawer front I would have redone the dovetails, but I really wanted the continuous grain look. I find Wenge is a bit of a pain to work with, but really I just I rushed these.
Leather scraps
For the drawer bottom
Not sure I like the leather color, there were about 40 different browns to choose from
The completed drawers
Top is sized
Wenge feet
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Cut notches into the tops of the legs so the top would sit properly
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Removed the waste with a router and chisel
I cut slight angles on the feet with a tenoning jig, this one was the last one and was way off, still not entirely sure what i did wrong here.
Gluing the sides
Glueing the top into place
So the top can expand without moving the drawer supports
