Desk Project Log

nightwish

nightwish

nightwish

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Joined
28 Jun 2004
Posts
883
Location
Sheffield
I have spent literally years designing my perfect desk for my home office and gaming PC setup. Now it's time to build it!

I am not a pro woodworker, and I don't have a fancy workshop, but I've watched lots of YouTube videos! I've bought the materials and found a corner in which to work. So let's start!

The design


  • It's a one-of-a-kind custom design, by me.
  • Simple, classic design, based on the Shaker style.
  • It will be big and heavy, with loads of desk space and storage.
    • Space for a big ultra widescreen monitor and chunky hi-fi speakers, plus space for side monitors, printers or whatever.
  • It comes apart into several pieces for transportation.
    • 2 pedestals, a back section, a center section and the top.
  • The top and drawer fronts will be oak, the frames will be pine and the panels will be baltic birch plywood.
    • I'd have loved to have built the whole thing out of solid oak, with maybe walnut panels, but that would be prohibitively expensive! It's not cheap as it is.
The workstation
  • Not a lot of space, as it's really just one end of the dining room, but hopefully it will be sufficient.
  • Main tools are a table saw, mitre saw, pillar drill and small router/trimmer, plus an assortment of hand tools.



Starting work
  • A few parts cut to length. The side stretchers of the web frames and some stiles for the back and center sections.
  • Made a stop-block for the mitre saw to ensure they all ended up the same length, which worked pretty well.


The future
  • No idea how long it'll take to finish, or how often I'll have updates. I have a job a wife and two kids, so I can't really commit to any schedule.
 
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john_smith said:
Congrats at being brave enough to do that level of wood working in the house. My wife would kill me!
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She's pretty tolerant, but she does say she'd like the dining room available for Christmas dinner! Probably be in my interests to respect that boundary!

964rs said:
Are you really going to be cutting all that wood in a carpeted room
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It's an old carpet. Besides, that's what the hoover is for!
 
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I’d include myself in the “I can’t believe you’re doing this in the house” brigade!

Nevertheless, looks like a great project. I think I’m about 2 years behind you - I’ve been eyeing a desk up and think I’d quite enjoy the challenge! Never done anything more complex than a bookshelf myself. Edit: a bookcase, rather than a single shelf!
 
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Have you got a Henry?! Gaffer tape it to the dust extractor on your saw! A little bit less hoovering needed afterwards! I’m doing wardrobes in our new loft conversion and ‘er indoors has insisted upon a plastic sheet over the doorway.

On the plus side with my mask on I can pretend I work for the CDC.
 
A few more pieces cut to length. That's all the 50cm long pieces. The stop-block really is very handy!



Not very interesting yet I realise, so here's a bit of a teaser of how some of these parts will go together:



There will be 4 web-frames with dust panels like this for each pedestal. They will join the two sides together and separate the drawers from each other.

The next job is to practice the joinery techniques I will need to assemble them.
 
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Small but important progress over the weekend. I wanted to try out making the grooves and stub tenons for assembling the web frames.

So here's my Makita trimmer with a 9mm straight bit and edge-guide set-up to cut a groove in the center of a 25mm board:


Seems to work well:


Next, the plan is to cut all the tenons I need on the tablesaw. This also seems to work pretty well, although I'm going to need to take off the riving knife (which is usually needed to prevent kick-back on through cuts). I'm not cutting all the way through here, so it's not needed, and moreover, I can't push the board all the way with the riving knife in the way. So that's going to have to come off.


Also the tablesaw is really loud, so bought some ear-defenders:
 
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Looks good. Make sure you buy a bunch of extra large clamps/ Gorilla wood glue.

Edit: Spied them in a previous pic :D
 
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I love a good desk project :D

I built mine out of Ash back in 2020, nothing on the scale of what you're undertaking but I learned a few things along the way...

1. You can never have enough clamps... especially for the larger glue ups
2. A biscuit jointer is a must for large straight edge joints (like a desk top for instance)
3. Invest in a decent Planer/Thicknesser to get all your components to the correct size and squareness.

I'm now looking forward to getting my old house back as the wife has given me permission to turn the garage into a carpentry shop!! :cry::cry:
 
Noakesy85 said:
I love a good desk project :D

I built mine out of Ash back in 2020, nothing on the scale of what you're undertaking but I learned a few things along the way...

1. You can never have enough clamps... especially for the larger glue ups
2. A biscuit jointer is a must for large straight edge joints (like a desk top for instance)
3. Invest in a decent Planer/Thicknesser to get all your components to the correct size and squareness.

I'm now looking forward to getting my old house back as the wife has given me permission to turn the garage into a carpentry shop!! :cry::cry:
Click to expand...

1. Agreed. The top will take all the clamps I've got! Think I've got 4, or maybe 6, of the large ones, which hopefully will do.
2. I'm using oak dowels elsewhere in the project (to attach the web frames to the sides), so will probably use dowels for aligning the boards of the top as well.
3. In most cases, I'd agree, but I couldn't justify the cost or the space for these large items for just this one project, and so I've bought the timber already machined to the right thickness and width from https://www.timbersource.co.uk/ Costs more of course, but I then don't need to find the budget or the floor space for a jointer/thicknesser. Big saving on the work too, as I only have to cut stock to length in most cases, so can avoid the (I assume) time-consuming and monotonous machining process. If I get a taste for the hobby and start making tons of stuff, then maybe I'll get these in the future.
 
nightwish said:
1. Agreed. The top will take all the clamps I've got! Think I've got 4, or maybe 6, of the large ones, which hopefully will do.
2. I'm using oak dowels elsewhere in the project (to attach the web frames to the sides), so will probably use dowels for aligning the boards of the top as well.
3. In most cases, I'd agree, but I couldn't justify the cost or the space for these large items for just this one project, and so I've bought the timber already machined to the right thickness and width from https://www.timbersource.co.uk/ Costs more of course, but I then don't need to find the budget or the floor space for a jointer/thicknesser. Big saving on the work too, as I only have to cut stock to length in most cases, so can avoid the (I assume) time-consuming and monotonous machining process. If I get a taste for the hobby and start making tons of stuff, then maybe I'll get these in the future.
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Dowels will do the job just as well!! I didn't have a biscuit jointer when i made my desk so a carpenter friend biscuited the top for me. I've since bought one but not had the chance to use it as i ended up moving to a mid-terraced house without a garage so all my tools ended up going to live with my Brother In Law.

I ended up buying a Titan Planer/Thicknesser from Screwfix when i started on my carpentry journey. They don't take up a huge amount of space and not overly expensive but the dust collection is terrible unless you have an industrial extractor. My Henry taped to the extraction just doesn't cut it.
 
Starting to cut mortises in the front and back stretchers of the web panels.

Initially I tried to just use the router, but it jumped around a bit when I switched it on, so first attempt was a bit shonky - should have practiced first! All of these pieces are internal though, so any minor mishaps won't be visible.

Settled on using the drill press to drill holes at the start, end and middle of the mortise, and then use the router to finish the job.

Honestly not sure if these are really necessary - with the groove in the front and back pieces, stub tenons on the side pieces, plus the panel can be glued, as it's plywood, so no wood movement to worry about - and there's 4 per pedestal - it would probably be strong enough without these extra mortises and tenons, but they don't hurt and I will need these techniques elsewhere anyway.

 
Personally i would not have stepped the tenon and would have started the groove a little bit in from the end instead.
However i don't think it matters in your use case and is looking like a well thought out design
 
964rs said:
Personally i would not have stepped the tenon and would have started the groove a little bit in from the end instead.
However i don't think it matters in your use case and is looking like a well thought out design
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Why would you prefer that way? Leaves a bit more meat at the end, so maybe a bit stronger I guess?

The whole build uses the same techniques - various forms of frame-and-panel essentially - so I could experiment a little with future joinery.

You probably wouldn't believe how long I've spent designing this thing, so I'm pleased that you think it's well thought-out! For me, the computer design is the easy(er) bit - making it real is a whole different skill-set! lol
 
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