Project Description:
This simple desk was a present for my mom. I don’t normally work in softwoods, preferring locally sourced English Hardwoods, but she wanted something that was made out of old wood. The wood is old scaffolding boards, resawn beams and pallet wood!

Not too complicated joinery really.just some biscuits, dowels and rebates. The main problem turned out to be keeping the wood flat due to it mostly being 10″+ wide and flat sawn. Cupped like crazy!

A nice little project and I got a lot out of it. Mainly that pallets are a good source of softwood in an crisis.

Location: Reno, NV

Hobbyist or Pro: Hobbyist

Materials: MDF and Laminate

Project Description:
OK, I don’t know if “L” is allowed on this site, L being for laminates. Yeah, I said it! But I had never worked with them before and I built these two counters for my church. The first is an 11 foot long computer counter with hidden doors on the sides which open up to reveal a pull out tray that the computer sits on and a drawer. The second is a 16 foot long two-level reception counter with storage in the back. The “S” curve is made up of 5 different radii. And the brushed aluminum on both was very expensive and easy to mess up.

In a lot of respects his wasn’t as painstaking as some actual wood furniture projects I’ve done, simply because there’s a little more room for error in something you’re going to laminate. However, in many ways this was by far the most difficult thing I’ve ever built. The shear size was a huge part. I had to build an adjustable height assembly table that could roll around and also hold 800 pounds. I used the torsion box construction that Marc demonstrated. The installation of the dang thing was nearly as hard as making it. Joining two 8 foot cases by scribing a weird shaped toe kick to the floor to make them level and remain at the same height over the whole length was a challenge.

Anyway, I could go on and on. I know it’s using laminates but I’m still grateful for the challenge and what I learned. It was a good project for a good cause!

The Chest of Drawers

My wife’s sister asked that I build her son a chest of drawers similar to one that she had seen in a furniture store near her house. It was a painted item of poor quality. This would be my first opportunity to design and create a piece from start to finish.

I started with the overall dimensions and began creating the shop drawings for the piece. I am a Professional Land Surveyor by trade so I was able to utilize Autocad for the drawings. I went through every piece in my home to get different ideas on how to design the case for the piece. The design I ended up using seems pretty simple once I broke it down into the components. The sides are a frame and panel between the two legs. The supports for the drawers are a simple frame design and really worked well. The top is an edge glued panel of the best stock I had on hand.

The drawers are constructed using a type of locking rabbet joint in front and dado in the rear. As can be seen on the photos I reinforced all interior corners with small mitered pieces just to add more strength to the joints. This piece is going to a small child and I wanted to be sure he could not pull the drawers apart. The drawer slides are full extension glides. A little unusual for a furniture piece but again I wanted to make sure that if he was to lean down on the drawers or to climb on them that they would support the load and not give way.

The drawer fronts for the top three drawers and the middle two were cut from one piece of stock to insure grain continuity across the piece. Really makes the piece stand out when completed. All joinery on this project are Domino’s from Festool. Thanks again to Dennis Kent of Woodcraft for suggesting this tool for my shop. It is an awesome tool that makes quick, strong and accurate joinery.

The finish was lots of fun to watch come together. The cherry really comes to life during the finishing process. I started by sealing the raw cherry with a wash coat of shellac to help control blotching. This was followed by two coats of Minwax “Cherrywood” gel stain. The gel stain was easy to work with and ended up being very transparent. It really allowed the grain to show through on the completed project. The second coat was when the character of the cherry began to show. The top coat is lacquer sprayed on with my Earlex HVLP system. Multiple coats were applied to allow wet sanding and hand polishing up to the desired sheen. I think the top came out nicely once the sanding and polishing were completed. Antique brass hardware completed the look and matched nicely with the cherry.

The Doll Desk

My daughter Sarah has several American Girl dolls and loves to play school with them. She asked daddy for a desk for “Julie” and I set out to see what I could come up with.

This project was built pretty much on the fly. Sarah had seen an old type desk at our church and wanted Julie’s to be like it. I decided that since I had some nice Red Oak left from from another project I would use it. The desk compartment is a simple box with a slant top that opens to storage below. A pencil groove was routed in the flat area near the top. Corners are simple rabbets and the bottom is tempered hard board floating in a groove milled into the sides.

The chair is sized to fit Julie and utilized some thin stock that was left over from another project where I had resawn some oak for another use. The sides utilize a half lap joint and are surprisingly strong. The seat and back stretchers are the thin resawn stack that I mentioned earlier. The chair support and desk support is again built from some scrap pieces I had around the shop from larger pieces. The original thought was to have the vertical support for the desk and chair be the only pieces under each. Once the pieces were assembled it became obvious that more support was needed laterally to prevent each from racking. I added the mitered braces to help with the flex of the thin stock. I finished the piece with two coats of satin polyurethane.

Now Sarah and Julie can play school in style!

I have never submitted anything like this before, but I feel especially proud of this piece. This is a writing desk, made out of solid oak. I used a brown gel stain and varnish to finish. The reason I am proud of the desk is because I have CP, and woodworking is a hobby that I have taken up a few years ago. Only recently in my life have I found the gumption to try to make furniture for someone else. This, I find, especially daunting when I know the piece will be a central item of furniture in someone else’s home. Yikes. But the woodworking world is comprised of some very patient and generous people. And you, Marc, are on that list. You are an excellent teacher, and take the time to explain what many others may consider to be the seemingly mundane. However, for someone new to the craft, and eager to learn, those lessons are invaluable.

The desk is approximately 5 feet wide, 30” tall, and 26: deep. The top is comprised of 5/4 oak and the balance is ¾ oak. The drawers are half blind dovetails, and are supported by mechanical slide: The $7 pairs at Home Depot work perfectly fine. Aprons are joined by mortise and tenons. Finally, for those amateurs out there like me, I want you to know, that I had to finish the top 4 times (!!!) before I got it right, the drawer slides took forever to adjust so that there is a smooth in and out action, and I was absolutely shaking-nervous when I installed the center drawer pull, as I knew that the 2 holes needed to be spot-on and level. But I have learned the most from my mistakes, and I have only grown by trying something new. And if I can do it with CP, so can anyone with patience, imagination….and sometimes just a good beer.

“OK, so the story is I scored two great deals from two different guys and was able to stock a good amount of Maple and lots of other various wood. I put it aside and dreamed of lots of fun projects. We are expecting a baby, so this is the perfect opportunity to re-arrange everything. My wife decides we need the computer in the bedroom, not the living room, so the Ikea table won’t work anymore. She wants to get a desk from Target, and now that I have delved into the world of woodworking, badly connected particleboard is no longer a value for $120. So I say “I’ll build you a table” – she agrees. I begin to mill the stock and while I am admiring the beautiful grain (which was clearly visible only after planing and jointing the rough surface) my wife declares she wants the table to be painted black! I understand matching the other furniture, but to paint something so beautiful. Well, I allowed her to let me finish, and then see.”

“On to the actual construction details. I started by cutting the legs. They are double tapered, cut on the bandsaw, and then jointed and sanded. In hindsight, I’ll skip the jointer and tackle the tapers with just the sander. I did use my belt sander to finish the shaping. The construction of the frame is basic mortise and tenon for the aprons. One of the apron pieces had an interesting effect where a bug had bored a few holes, making what I thought was a beautiful accent. I decided to use this piece on the front, I figured that it added to the individuality. I cut the mortises first with a drill press followed by bench chisels. Then I cut the tenons with a dado blade on the table saw. I glued up the frame, sanded to 220, and started on the top. I had a rather large, wide (11.5″) piece of Walnut. Jointed the edges and glued it up. Used a scraper to clean up the glue line, and cut the top to size. I rounded the edge over with the router and a 1/4″ roundover bit. I sanded the top and then attached it to the frame with figure 8′s.
“The finish is two coats of tung oil followed by two coats of clear poly, all with steel wool sanding in between. Once I was done, the wife did not demand a black paint job. In fact she is now on my case about starting a matching dresser.”

“I’ve been watching your videos for the last few months, and find them very enjoyable. I watched Part 1 of the gadget station last night, and what you’re working on is very much like a project I built for myself earlier in the spring.”

“Back in the old days, Stickley built a desk called the #706. It’s a small secretary-type desk, and the top of it is basically a gadget station with a drop down door for a laptop (like your first station, but this one has a better way for supporting the door). For somebody who wants a gadget station but also needs a small desk for a laptop, it’s perfect. That’s what I use mine for.”

“The desk itself was built entirely with hand tools…vintage panel and back saws, hand planes (most vintage, but a few new Lie-Nielsen and Veritas planes), and chisels (short chisels are Ashley Isles, long chisels are mostly vintage). The top and bottom shelf are attached to the sides using hand cut wedged through-mortises. The back is ship lapped pine boards. The door utilized haunched mortise-and-tenon joinery with floating solid panels. I will admit to using a random orbit sander to get the inside of the door perfectly level though, but I did get it pretty close with just hand planes. :) I finished the desk with shellac….something like 18 coats padded on.”

“It’s built with clear pine…I’m a total hand tool person so quartersawn oak was not going to happen (original Stickleys in QS oak looks AMAZING though). One pic is when it was brand new and one is with the adjustable shelving system I built for it. Devices that need charging sit in the middle (iPod, cellphone, etc.), and the side shelving is wide enough to accommodate CD/DVD storage. When not in use, the laptop stands on edge and leans back against the shelves….it tilts backwards slightly so it won’t fall out.”

“You’ll see that the door’s pivot location is about 1/4 from the bottom, so the shelf in the desk actually supports the door when it’s open (better than using mechanical supports). Overall, I’m really happy with it….maybe somebody else watching the videos might find the design to their liking as well, or maybe this will give you a little inspiration or something.”