Beyond Beautiful Custom Desks
I bought a 12 foot long, 27" wide, 12/4 slab of maple that was in an outdoor stack covered in dirt and mushrooms, and brought it home on a trailer in hopes that it would reveal itself to be worth the $200 I paid for it. I had to build a huge slab flattening jig for my router and spent days and days running the surfacing bit over it until it was finally warp-free. Then I decided I needed a desk to use for drawing, computer work, and fly-tying.
I decided on a waterfall style - cutting both ends off and "folding" them down so the grain is uninterrupted from the surface to the floor. To join the parts, I cut very large dovetail splines out of cherry for contrast and made jigs and did math that was absolutely at the limits of my small brain. The flag design was done with my Shaper and lots of time and epoxy. The result is quite a nice desk. I also plan on building a stack of 3 drawers that will hang under one end of the desk.
THE IRRESOLUTE DESK
This is the raw slab after some clean up- I could tell it was going to be a winner. At about 120 pounds, I couldn't wait to cut it into more manageable pieces.
I built a flattening jig and used a 1.5" surfacing bit (I know they make bigger routers and bigger bits, but we work with what we have). I also built a "dexter kill room" sort of deal in my shop because this process makes a huge mess.
The hounds are always there for support, unless the loud scary machines are running. Then they show their support from much further away.
End pieces mid-surfacing. It's a slow process, especially at this size. here
Table top being sanded smooth. Kids, if you're going to do something like this, get a very good sander and bring a whole bucket of patience.
Once I get parts about 80% where I want them to be, I tend to put a coat of finish on them (especially if they are big nutso pieces like this one). It helps keep the wood from expanding and contracting during the rest of the process.
At this point, I decided it needed and artsy fartsy touch of some kind. I had reservations about this because if I messed it up it's not like I could find another piece of wood that would match the grain, but I came up with an ingenious solution to this problem - don't suck.
With the piece covered in ShaperTape (seriously look up the Shaper Origin if you are curious. It is pure awesome), I was prepared to hopefully not suck for several hours. I decided to cut 1/8" deep and fill the void with epoxy.
Starting at the bottom, and eating up the shaper tape as I go up, I slowly remove the wood that doesn't look like freedom.
Starting at the bottom, and eating up the shaper tape as I go up, I slowly remove the wood that doesn't look like freedom.
After about 5 hours of cutting and listening to podcasts, it looks pretty good. On to epoxy.
This is another one of those steps that either works, or ruins the project. Mixing epoxy correctly is key- if not done right, it will not cure. Oh it might make you think it will cure, but in a few months you'll see a little puddle of goo on the floor next to your fancy desk, and guess what? there's really no way to fix it. You just ha
This is another one of those steps that either works, or ruins the project. Mixing epoxy correctly is key- if not done right, it will not cure. Oh it might make you think it will cure, but in a few months you'll see a little puddle of goo on the floor next to your fancy desk, and guess what? there's really no way to fix it. You just have to be reminded what a horrible failure you are every time you look at it. I've done it many times.
Having not messed up the epoxy, I surfaced it again and almost ruined it because I didn't do my checklist on the router. As I was sliding it over the last "e" in "people", the depth stop came loose (because I never tightened it) and dug almost all the way through the epoxy, leaving me with a super badass "we the peopl" desk. Fortunately
Having not messed up the epoxy, I surfaced it again and almost ruined it because I didn't do my checklist on the router. As I was sliding it over the last "e" in "people", the depth stop came loose (because I never tightened it) and dug almost all the way through the epoxy, leaving me with a super badass "we the peopl" desk. Fortunately There was some material left and I was able to save myself...from myself. Also, the wood was very soft due to decomposition on that side of the piece, and the epoxy soaked into the grain, leaving a water stain look that wasn't the end of the world since the whole look is pretty grungy and natural. They say the best woodworkers are the ones that can hide their mistakes, and by that measure at least I'm getting better.
I love the look of a slightly tinted epoxy that shows the grain underneath. When people use opaque colors or powders, it looks like the image was printed on the surface of the wood to me. But if you commission a piece, I'll do whatever you want. Since you didn't ask.
Another tricky (but not critical) part was getting the ends attached to the top. It took some planning and creativity, but that's the way things go.
A glue joint alone would not be strong enough to support all of the awesome that would be happening on this desk, so after some consideration, I decided that some big dovetail splines would be the most difficult and likely to cause irreparable damage to my psyche, so I went with that. The first thing I had to do is figure out how to cut
A glue joint alone would not be strong enough to support all of the awesome that would be happening on this desk, so after some consideration, I decided that some big dovetail splines would be the most difficult and likely to cause irreparable damage to my psyche, so I went with that. The first thing I had to do is figure out how to cut a 7 degree angle at about 3" deep on a 90 degree corner. So I built a jig for my track saw and Rube Goldberg'd that thing to the desk to see what happened.
The splines were cut out of 8/4 cherry. I wisely chose wood that I had a lot of, because I screwed up a bunch of these splines before I figured out the geometry.
Here goes nothing...
Looking good after some clean up and chisel work.
This had better fit.
Dry fit looks good. Proof of concept. Now I just have to cut 4 more.
I put 2 splines on the narrow end, and 3 on the wide end. Once I got them cut flush and sanded, I felt like I did a thing.
In an ongoing effort to give myself unlimited opportunities to hose this whole thing up, I decided to get this cool pop-up power supply because I hate crawling around under desks to plug stuff in.
Brushed steel has absolutely nothing to do with this desk, so how to hide it without making it look like a total hack job? Again, don't suck.
The first thing I did was to measure the part that would pop up above the desk and cut a very narrow kerf into the top of the desk about 3/32" deep. That will be attached to the top of the power supply, and the grain will match.
Pocket is cut...
Assembly fits nicely...
And...blammo. Excellent semi hidden power outlet.
Finishing touch- the brass signature plate.
