El Barto
👍
Seems a bit extreme! I can’t see where it’ll fail horribly? :?
Ash desk build
- Thread starter Bodgers
- Start date
Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:
Bodgers
Established Member
JSW":2tsuxqkm said:
Somebody asked about the finish, so I answered it.
Don't sweat about the structural Integrity yet, it is a design mock up afterall. I'll be tweaking as it is needed.
Bodgers
Established Member
Ok, I'm resurrecting this thread.
It is a long story, but I finally got around to building the desk. When I say 'the desk', it wasn't this design specifcally, I went back to the drawing board and made it even thinner and more mid-century like!
I know a few were saying it wouldn't work and it it was too thin, but the desk is now built and it is rigid and sturdy.
Anyways, the build took a while and I'm going to split this up into a few different posts as I don't have time to pull all the pictures and video out at once. Sadly there is less photos and video of the process than I remember. But, this might serve as a sort of typical tale of a rank amateur with 3 kids battling through to get the time to do a project.
Firstly the design. I went back to fusion and came up with this:
Final product is very close to this - the legs are slightly thicker, but not by too much.
There's a few influances behind the design, but essentially it is mid century modern. The main desktop is a box of sorts housing a lid (where the slot is) where jewlery and make up etc. can be stored. On the flip side of that is a mirror. The 'hood' section houses three small draws which will be made out of a darker wood (more on that later). The underside of the box will be plywood, but everything else will be solid European Ash. I was basing this around two figured pieces of ash I got for the top with some moderate sort of olive ash style sap wood bits.
Video of the design in Fusion:
Thsi design was done in October 2020 and shortly afterwards I started building the desk.
First job was breaking down the 'slabs' for the top. Hard to see here but there were a couple of large sort of bookmatched pieces. Had to break them down with a tracksaw. I have no pictures, but I had to hand flatten one side with a jointer plane and then put them through the thickness planer (I have no jointer machine).
Once all that processing was done, I cut up small pieces to form the sides of the desk and the various dividers for the jewelry box inside it. Lots of angles set the same, so I made a little table saw jig:
This is the main desk/box after some of this work was done. The bottom of the box is two pieces of 12mm high quality birch plwood joined along an edge cut at an angle. I made the bottom out of ply as it won't be subject to wood movement and you don't see it in use:
More to follow...
It is a long story, but I finally got around to building the desk. When I say 'the desk', it wasn't this design specifcally, I went back to the drawing board and made it even thinner and more mid-century like!
I know a few were saying it wouldn't work and it it was too thin, but the desk is now built and it is rigid and sturdy.
Anyways, the build took a while and I'm going to split this up into a few different posts as I don't have time to pull all the pictures and video out at once. Sadly there is less photos and video of the process than I remember. But, this might serve as a sort of typical tale of a rank amateur with 3 kids battling through to get the time to do a project.
Firstly the design. I went back to fusion and came up with this:
Final product is very close to this - the legs are slightly thicker, but not by too much.
There's a few influances behind the design, but essentially it is mid century modern. The main desktop is a box of sorts housing a lid (where the slot is) where jewlery and make up etc. can be stored. On the flip side of that is a mirror. The 'hood' section houses three small draws which will be made out of a darker wood (more on that later). The underside of the box will be plywood, but everything else will be solid European Ash. I was basing this around two figured pieces of ash I got for the top with some moderate sort of olive ash style sap wood bits.
Video of the design in Fusion:
Thsi design was done in October 2020 and shortly afterwards I started building the desk.
First job was breaking down the 'slabs' for the top. Hard to see here but there were a couple of large sort of bookmatched pieces. Had to break them down with a tracksaw. I have no pictures, but I had to hand flatten one side with a jointer plane and then put them through the thickness planer (I have no jointer machine).
Once all that processing was done, I cut up small pieces to form the sides of the desk and the various dividers for the jewelry box inside it. Lots of angles set the same, so I made a little table saw jig:
This is the main desk/box after some of this work was done. The bottom of the box is two pieces of 12mm high quality birch plwood joined along an edge cut at an angle. I made the bottom out of ply as it won't be subject to wood movement and you don't see it in use:
More to follow...
Bodgers
Established Member
So after making good progress in October, things stalled for a vareity of reasons, mainly that my boss retired, and I ended up covering his job. So, fast forward to December 2020 and I restarted work on the desk, beginning with getting the Ash that I'd milled up for the top, glued together. It was basically two pieces where I joined it at the sap wood. Probably a bad idea (as I later discovered) but it definitely looked good:
Used my Stanley SW low angle jack to smooth the top with some additional work with a no.80 scraper. This video shows the progress just before final prep with the scraper.
I eventually sanded this to 320 grit and put some water based sanding sealer on it. I added a under bevel cut to the front lip to hide some of the thinkness. This was done at the bandsaw and I used a hand plane to smooth. The rounded front corners I drew a radius with a template and used a Shinto rasp to shape.
I was really happy with the finish, but the next step was to cut this into three pieces to form the lid...
Next shot shows the sanding sealer applied, and the two cuts that I made with a track saw:
(The bench pictured can be seen in my other build thread here: Hayward Workbench Build - Finished!)
The other thing to add here is that I have an actual deadline. This had to be done by mid April 2021, and at this point I have less than 4 months left. Which sounds a lot, but that's 4 months of grabbing a few hours on the weekend and mid week nights where I have enough energy and inclination to work on it.
More to follow...
Used my Stanley SW low angle jack to smooth the top with some additional work with a no.80 scraper. This video shows the progress just before final prep with the scraper.
I eventually sanded this to 320 grit and put some water based sanding sealer on it. I added a under bevel cut to the front lip to hide some of the thinkness. This was done at the bandsaw and I used a hand plane to smooth. The rounded front corners I drew a radius with a template and used a Shinto rasp to shape.
I was really happy with the finish, but the next step was to cut this into three pieces to form the lid...
Next shot shows the sanding sealer applied, and the two cuts that I made with a track saw:
(The bench pictured can be seen in my other build thread here: Hayward Workbench Build - Finished!)
The other thing to add here is that I have an actual deadline. This had to be done by mid April 2021, and at this point I have less than 4 months left. Which sounds a lot, but that's 4 months of grabbing a few hours on the weekend and mid week nights where I have enough energy and inclination to work on it.
More to follow...
Hey.
I've been away from the forum for a while after a longer than expected break in my woodworking due to a house move during a national pandemic. Enjoying this work in progress.
What's cool is that I gained so much inspiration from your workbench WIP a few years ago and made my own workbench as a starter project and now I come back and am having a browse and I see you making furniture on that very workbench. Fingers crossed in the next few months I'll be up and running again and making stuff on my bench.
I look forward to seeing how this WIP turns out. Thanks Bodgers.
I've been away from the forum for a while after a longer than expected break in my woodworking due to a house move during a national pandemic. Enjoying this work in progress.
What's cool is that I gained so much inspiration from your workbench WIP a few years ago and made my own workbench as a starter project and now I come back and am having a browse and I see you making furniture on that very workbench. Fingers crossed in the next few months I'll be up and running again and making stuff on my bench.
I look forward to seeing how this WIP turns out. Thanks Bodgers.
Bodgers
Established Member
Ahh, that’s great to hear!
Yes life gets in the way a lot. I always like seeing projects from those with full time jobs and family, it makes it seem a bit more approachable - especially if it’s a warts and all account.
Bodgers
Established Member
So with the top cut into three bits I did a fair bit of work dry fitting the jewellery/storage comaparment divders.
The centre part with my daughter's name carved in it is a flip up lidded compartment. I was going to hand carve that, but I have a hobby CNC I rarely use, so I thought I'd put that to work. The font is one I took a while to find and had to pay for. The handle is in wenge (more on that later). The dividers to the left and right of this compartment are removable (hence the grooves that go all the way to the top.
There are slots to cut in the edges where the removable lid sits - the idea here is that it can be flipped and a mirror fitted to the other side - as shown here:
The following video shows the lid now cut into two sections and also the slots I'd cut at two separate angles so that the lid can sit in two places so the mirror has two different angle options (all the dry fit dividers are loose now here). Spot the mistake in the video - the grab handle groove I'd mis-cut! I'd cut that with a router and an mdd template but for whatever reason I'd misaligned the template. I later rectified it by mirror flipping the template and widening the grab slot to even it up:
At this point it's around new year 20/21, we've been in and out of lock and down, and my brother and I were brain storming ideas to keep our kids busy. I bought a Prusa Mini 3D printer and decided to do a build over Zoom of a 3D printed remote control Land Rover with me and him and his kids (I'd print parts for mine and his family). This was extremely time consuming (but fun) but meant I lost a lot of time on the desk build - which meant I was under serious pressure to get the desk done for mid-April!
https://3dsets.com/product/model-4-landy-4x4-hardtop/
I'll post next about building the 'hood' section which involved using my first Veritas tool...
The centre part with my daughter's name carved in it is a flip up lidded compartment. I was going to hand carve that, but I have a hobby CNC I rarely use, so I thought I'd put that to work. The font is one I took a while to find and had to pay for. The handle is in wenge (more on that later). The dividers to the left and right of this compartment are removable (hence the grooves that go all the way to the top.
There are slots to cut in the edges where the removable lid sits - the idea here is that it can be flipped and a mirror fitted to the other side - as shown here:
The following video shows the lid now cut into two sections and also the slots I'd cut at two separate angles so that the lid can sit in two places so the mirror has two different angle options (all the dry fit dividers are loose now here). Spot the mistake in the video - the grab handle groove I'd mis-cut! I'd cut that with a router and an mdd template but for whatever reason I'd misaligned the template. I later rectified it by mirror flipping the template and widening the grab slot to even it up:
At this point it's around new year 20/21, we've been in and out of lock and down, and my brother and I were brain storming ideas to keep our kids busy. I bought a Prusa Mini 3D printer and decided to do a build over Zoom of a 3D printed remote control Land Rover with me and him and his kids (I'd print parts for mine and his family). This was extremely time consuming (but fun) but meant I lost a lot of time on the desk build - which meant I was under serious pressure to get the desk done for mid-April!
https://3dsets.com/product/model-4-landy-4x4-hardtop/
I'll post next about building the 'hood' section which involved using my first Veritas tool...
Bodgers
Established Member
So after the 3D printing project settled a bit in late February 2021, I decided the next step was to build the 'hood' of the desk - this is the section that houses the drawers and the shelf.
I had some more of the air dried ash with some really nice figure that I wanted to get a waterfall type continuous grain around the hood.
To do this would need some really nice mitres with some strengthening splines.
Some relatives from the US brought me back a Veritas shooting plane well over a year before this and I'm embarrassed to say I had no time to set it up and build shooting board for it. I built this mitre shooting board for this based on the Robert Wearing book design.
I created some 'Oreo' style splines out of some ash and wenge and went as deep into the mitre as I dared (I know they are supposed to be deep to actually have any affect):
All splines glued in with epoxy (it was cold in the workshop at this point and PVA was just not setting up correctly):
I also put dye into the epoxy to cover any sins in my spline cuts
Shooting the mitre worked quite well, but not perfectly. This was the result after the initial glue up:
I didn't have a router bit big enough to round the corners as I wanted them so I got it started with a smaller bit then used the shinto rasp and lots of sanding to get to this point:
Waterfall grain (there is a bit of a glue line, but not bad)...
The grain was a pig to deal with. Needed lots of scraping with the No. 80 to deal with the grain direction and tear out. Very time consuming.
Next up - why I bought the wenge and the drawer build...
I had some more of the air dried ash with some really nice figure that I wanted to get a waterfall type continuous grain around the hood.
To do this would need some really nice mitres with some strengthening splines.
Some relatives from the US brought me back a Veritas shooting plane well over a year before this and I'm embarrassed to say I had no time to set it up and build shooting board for it. I built this mitre shooting board for this based on the Robert Wearing book design.
I created some 'Oreo' style splines out of some ash and wenge and went as deep into the mitre as I dared (I know they are supposed to be deep to actually have any affect):
All splines glued in with epoxy (it was cold in the workshop at this point and PVA was just not setting up correctly):
I also put dye into the epoxy to cover any sins in my spline cuts
Shooting the mitre worked quite well, but not perfectly. This was the result after the initial glue up:
I didn't have a router bit big enough to round the corners as I wanted them so I got it started with a smaller bit then used the shinto rasp and lots of sanding to get to this point:
Waterfall grain (there is a bit of a glue line, but not bad)...
The grain was a pig to deal with. Needed lots of scraping with the No. 80 to deal with the grain direction and tear out. Very time consuming.
Next up - why I bought the wenge and the drawer build...
Bodgers
Established Member
Next up were the three draws in the hood section of the desk.
These are three thin drawers designed for holding smaller items such as note books etc. The two main contrasting woods in this design are Ash and Wenge. The draw fronts using the most of the Wenge. I really wanted the quarter sawn straight grained Wenge, but I just couldn't get any. It is also super expensive as it is. I finally settled on one board from Duffield Timber down the road from me - at a price I can barely believe I paid (£75!) This was about 120mm wide, 2.4 meters long and 27mm thick.
This plain sawn stuff I ended up with, I'm still undecided about. There's too much contrast between the light and dark areas.
The other issue is that it is crazy splintery to work with and leaves splinters in your skin that really turn nasty if you aren't careful.
I hand planed one side flat and then ran the other side through my thickness planer (I have no jointer machine).
Anyways, another questionable choice was going with half-blind box joints (probably not even a thing). I was going for dovetails but chickened out. The contrast between the ash and wenge works, and the joints weren't too rough.
(yes the sockets are different widths - I thought it might look better with a small pin and a big one, I was wrong)
This was a test joint hence the short length front:
Dry fitting drawers with rabbet joints for the backs:
Things started moving rapidly after this as time was running out, so I didn't end up with many photos - so the next update will be the last.
These are three thin drawers designed for holding smaller items such as note books etc. The two main contrasting woods in this design are Ash and Wenge. The draw fronts using the most of the Wenge. I really wanted the quarter sawn straight grained Wenge, but I just couldn't get any. It is also super expensive as it is. I finally settled on one board from Duffield Timber down the road from me - at a price I can barely believe I paid (£75!) This was about 120mm wide, 2.4 meters long and 27mm thick.
This plain sawn stuff I ended up with, I'm still undecided about. There's too much contrast between the light and dark areas.
The other issue is that it is crazy splintery to work with and leaves splinters in your skin that really turn nasty if you aren't careful.
I hand planed one side flat and then ran the other side through my thickness planer (I have no jointer machine).
Anyways, another questionable choice was going with half-blind box joints (probably not even a thing). I was going for dovetails but chickened out. The contrast between the ash and wenge works, and the joints weren't too rough.
(yes the sockets are different widths - I thought it might look better with a small pin and a big one, I was wrong)
This was a test joint hence the short length front:
Dry fitting drawers with rabbet joints for the backs:
Things started moving rapidly after this as time was running out, so I didn't end up with many photos - so the next update will be the last.
Attachments
Bodgers
Established Member
Next up - the legs/frame.
I switched to using air dried ash here from Duffield Timber. This stock turned out to have some interesting olive ash type sections which made things a bit more interesting.
Lots of hand planing and then flattening with the thicknesser and the stock was prepped:
I started with the legs using the sled to cut the tapers:
I added the mid sections to the A-frames and then machine cut mortices:
A frame details:
The long stretcher between the two a-frames I wanted to keep as light as possible so I used this sort of 'butted' setup that gets thicker at the joins:
With all the leg pieces done (and time running out as I had less than a week left) I put the frame together with a dry fit and some clamps:
Things look a bit top-heavy here, but the angle is making it seem worse.
And here was the 'told you so moment'. Although things were rock solid front-to-back with the top on, left to right there was a bit to much 'give' for me. So with very little time left, panic set in.
In the end, I opted to go for some thin diagonal braces that were not in the original design. I tried cutting a stretcher piece and just clamping it on to simulate if it would make a difference. It did - it transformed it to rock solid.
At this point the next couple of evenings were a blur, I had to do the final finish fit the draws and make the pulls and add fabric to the bottom of the doors.
I also had to address something I'd been avoiding for a while - the top had started to bow front-to-back! I knew I would have to do something and thought about getting some steel strips. But in the end I went for this solution using strips of ash screwed to the bottom:
This effectively pulled the top back flat. The thickness of these bits didn't matter as they were hidden in the box elements of the desk.
With that sorted the next night was spent finishing up the draw fitting and last minute tweaks. I didn't get the mirror properly attached to the desk lid and failed to do the final attachments of the hood, but it was ready enough to bring into the living room for the final reveal for my daughter:
Final pictures in bedroom:
Overall, I am fairly happy with it - the frame is strong and stable despite it's lack of girth.
There are mistakes and things I'd do differently, but it was very much my first 'proper' piece of furniture.
I switched to using air dried ash here from Duffield Timber. This stock turned out to have some interesting olive ash type sections which made things a bit more interesting.
Lots of hand planing and then flattening with the thicknesser and the stock was prepped:
I started with the legs using the sled to cut the tapers:
I added the mid sections to the A-frames and then machine cut mortices:
A frame details:
The long stretcher between the two a-frames I wanted to keep as light as possible so I used this sort of 'butted' setup that gets thicker at the joins:
With all the leg pieces done (and time running out as I had less than a week left) I put the frame together with a dry fit and some clamps:
Things look a bit top-heavy here, but the angle is making it seem worse.
And here was the 'told you so moment'. Although things were rock solid front-to-back with the top on, left to right there was a bit to much 'give' for me. So with very little time left, panic set in.
In the end, I opted to go for some thin diagonal braces that were not in the original design. I tried cutting a stretcher piece and just clamping it on to simulate if it would make a difference. It did - it transformed it to rock solid.
At this point the next couple of evenings were a blur, I had to do the final finish fit the draws and make the pulls and add fabric to the bottom of the doors.
I also had to address something I'd been avoiding for a while - the top had started to bow front-to-back! I knew I would have to do something and thought about getting some steel strips. But in the end I went for this solution using strips of ash screwed to the bottom:
This effectively pulled the top back flat. The thickness of these bits didn't matter as they were hidden in the box elements of the desk.
With that sorted the next night was spent finishing up the draw fitting and last minute tweaks. I didn't get the mirror properly attached to the desk lid and failed to do the final attachments of the hood, but it was ready enough to bring into the living room for the final reveal for my daughter:
Final pictures in bedroom:
Overall, I am fairly happy with it - the frame is strong and stable despite it's lack of girth.
There are mistakes and things I'd do differently, but it was very much my first 'proper' piece of furniture.
Fidget
Trying
Very nice
