Art desk - WIP

[rafezetter]

well well - I was commissioned to make one of these a couple of years back but she pulled the plug about halfway through (annoying) so it wasn't completed. My design, ideas were instead of having drawers at the front it was going to be a sliding drawer from the side - davenport style, which comes out fully then hinges 90 deg to be beside the tabletop so you could still access the pens and whatnot - I had also thought about having the drawer itself have a slide out lid for putting the paint so it was right beside you while you worked.

Obvs none of that happened - so I'll be watching this with interest.

 

[NickM]

I've made a bit more progress over the last week.

I finished the mortise and tenons on the second side and also on the rear apron which got me to here:

I then decided to tackle the front apron. I've changed the design so that there will now be a single, central drawer. I started by flattening a board. The blades in my cheapo planer are a bit dull (new ones on order) so I decided to do it by hand. I flattened one side, resaved off most of the wast on the band saw and then flattened the second side.

I decided to make the apron by ripping it into three parts, cross-cutting the drawer and then gluing the top, bottom and side pieces back together.

I then cut tenons on the end and mortised the legs:

Putting that lot together brings me to here:

Now that it's taking shape, I'm pretty pleased with the overall look of it. There are a few gaps in the joints which I may be able to fettle a bit, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[NickM]

I think the next task is to put in cross-pieces between the front and back aprons. They will be the full height of the apron as I want to put drawer runners at the bottom and the "deckchair" supports for the tilting top at the top along with buttons to hold the side parts of the table top. The left hand piece is marked in red here:

I'm trying to decide what joints to use.

I think the best choice might be a tapered sliding dovetail but I think that's too ambitious for me at the moment.

Second option is a stopped sliding/housing dovetail. I've had a got at one practice and it wasn't very good to be honest. I'll do some more practice and read about/watch videos on the technique but I'm a bit reluctant to try it really.

Third option would be a stopped dado housing which I should be able to handle. I thought I might need some kind of dovetail to hold the front and rear aprons together, but I think I'm worrying about nothing (especially when the top is fixed). I suppose I could try the stopped sliding dovetail and revert to a dado if I can't pull it off (the worst case should be that I have to make new cross pieces.

Option 4 is pocket holes... (hammer)

Any thoughts?

 

[NickM]

I've been making some progress on this, so it's time for an update. (The photo quality is better if you click on them.)

As noted in the previous post, I wanted some pieces running from the front to rear aprons. These would incorporate the drawer runners and, in due course, the mechanism ("deckchair notches") for holding the lifting section of the top as well as buttons for the fixed side parts of the table top.

I decided to do these pieces with stopped housing dados which worked well.

After a bit of thinking about how the drawer runners and deckchair notches would work, I decided that there was nothing sopping me from gluing everything up, so I took a couple of brave pills and went at it. It was a bit hairy at times but overall it went pretty well. I think one of the legs is slightly out of line with one of the other legs in one direction but I can live with that.

I decided to do the drawer next.

I made and fitted the runners first. They're made out a single piece. I cut a wide dado with a dado blade on my table saw and then ripped that down the middle to leave each drawer runner. I then planed the side and bottom to fit each one before screwing them on.

On to the drawer itself. Half blind dovetails at the front and through dovetails at the back with a plywood bottom running in grooves in the side and front. I had wondered about doing a solid wood bottom and drawer slips, but I decided to play it safe. I was also going to go for slightly fancier dovetails (e.g. narrow pins) and even started trying to cut the tails. I got as far as realising that my smallest chisel was too big and abandoned that pretty quickly. As a complete novice, I also struggle a bit being accurate enough in oak so decided to go with something I've done before.

After cleaning up the dovetails and making the sides and front/back flush I fitted the drawer. The drawer front needed a bit of work to get it flush with the apron (having fitted some stops at the back of the drawer runners) but I was pretty chuffed with the outcome.

After that, I tidied up the tops of the legs and aprons to get them flush.

Next I need to turn my attention to making the top. The first step there is to take a long look at the boards I have left to work out if I have enough(!) and, assuming I do, how best to orientate them.

 

[AndyT]

That's looking great! I think you are on track for a really satisfying project there.

 

[MikeG.]

Fantastic stuff, Nick. Well done so far.

 

[John15]

As said above Nick. A very nice design and excellant workmanship.

John

 

[MusicMan]

Looking very good. Lovely grain continuity across the front - at first I couldn't see the drawer! I think you are well past the novice stage now .

 

[NickM]

Thanks for the nice comments. They're much appreciated.

Buoyed with my achievements so far, I decided to start having a look at the boards for the top. I carefully calculated the lengths I needed, taking into account the fact that there will be a couple of bread board ends taking up some of the overall length. What I didn't take into account was the tenons for the bread boards!

Fortunately I'll get away with it by having a whisker less overhang and slightly wider breadboards.

Definitely still a novice!

 

[AJB Temple]

Not novice work though. Excellent job.

 

[thetyreman]

this is going to be nice! great job so far nick =D>

 

[NickM]

Another update on this.

I dimensioned the boards for the main part of the top (combination of P/T, bandsaw and table saw) and jointed them by hand before gluing up and flattening.

I then crosscut it into 3 parts and jointed the outer parts to a single board which runs across the front. The centre part will make the lifting middle section of the desk. So far so good.

The next job was to make the breadboard ends for the centre section. To be honest, I'm not all that happy with them. Fortunately the top side is not too bad and I think I can tidy it up a bit more. The underside is a bit a shocker but won't really be seen all that much. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures (no close ups!). This is before the pegs went in. I made the pegs using the method Mike showed on his staircase build and it works really well. It's really satisfying as the dowel emerges from the outfield hole!

The next job was to attach the main part of the top with buttons.

I could then take measurements to fit the central part and then join it with a piano hinge which brings it up to date. The next task is to finalise the design for the mechanism to support to the top, and build it. I'm really tight on space so it's going to a challenge but it should be doable.

 

[MikeG.]

Excellent Nick. That looks great.

 

[thetyreman]

that's great, it would be equally useful for doing technical drawings as well as art.

how did you cut out the drawer front so neatly? I like the way the grain matches.

 

[NickM]

how did you cut out the drawer front so neatly? I like the way the grain matches.

Thanks.

I ripped the front apron into 3 sections. The middle section was crosscut to take out the drawer and then the apron was glued back together again. I did the cuts on a table saw and the wife kerf means the grain doesn’t match quite as well as it could, but it came out OK. Before gluing it back together, I did shoot the drawer ends and matching sides in the apron to make sure they were square.

 

[MusicMan]

Nice job!

 

[rafezetter]

Excuse my ignorance, but what it the advantage of a haunched tenon over a standard one for the aprons and sides?

Otherwise very nicely done.

 

[MikeG.]

The haunch stops the board cupping or twisting. It's generally used when otherwise the mortice would go too near to the end of a board or leg.

 

[Chris152]

It's looks a lovely piece of furniture Nick. I'd brought my old easel into the house recently but it takes up too much space, now looking to make a crude table-top version that allows the same function - I'd not thought of that til I saw your piece. Nice wip too.

 

[AJB Temple]

I think you are rather hard on yourself. That work looks very professional. I would be proud of it. Adrian