So there I was in the Fuquay Restore looking for some cabinets I could repurpose into a base for my CNC. Finding nothing (selection was barebones), I swung through the furniture section just in case.
Spotted a medium sized roll top desk among the mostly pressboard flat-pack furniture. Eldest son has been campaigning for a desk for his room, so I looked it over. Hmm, this thing is interesting:
* solid red oak throughout, except the drawer bottoms are 1/4" oak ply
* frame and panel construction throughout
* even the unseen 'secondary wood' surfaces are solid oak
* the drawers ride on dust frames.
..but there are some flaws..
* there are some 'oops' cuts in a couple of the raised panels. You can see where the cutter went slightly deeper than it should have.
* the glue-up of some of the drawer joints - half-blind dovetails in solid oak - is sloppy. You can see the tell-tale voids on the inside of a few drawers.
* there are ugly drywall screws attaching the drawer sides to drawer-backs - all in solid red oak, mind you.
Anyways, good enough for a student desk, so I pay the store and take the piece home.
Now the fun begins:
*After* getting it into the house, I realize it is one bloody inch wider than the door opening to the room it needs to go in. Taking the door off the hinges isn't going to do it. This is a remove-the-door-frame kind of problem.
While contemplating my options and mentally checking my inventory of Sawzall blades, my wife reminds me if it goes into his room, it needs to come out at some point. Do I want to remove a doorframe twice? No I do not. Time for Plan B.
Looking at the construction, the top is attached to the carcass with screws in plugged holes. That presents the option of removing the top and making the desk 2" narrower. I tell myself its an opportunity to fix a design flaw anyways: the top is a 31"wide glue up of red oak boards, screwed directly through the top into the carcass. If I pull the top, I can replace the screws with figure 8 clips or wooden buttons to allow movement.
My wife is very understanding of the need to perform furniture surgery in the middle of the living room.
So I bust out my cordless drill and impact driver and proceed to drill out the plugs and remove the 2.5" screws.
There were.. a lot of screws. Not all of them were obvious.
If you need this many 2.5" screws to attach a tabletop, we need to talk.
Here's the kicker: there were so many screws around the perimeter that the top was nice and flat. Bad design right? But when the roll top hutch is in place, every screw hole is hidden. And just for good measure, every screw hole was plugged. The maker even took the time to ensure the grain on the plugs was properly aligned.
I have not found a makers mark anywhere so far. The conclusion I've come to is that is probably a darn nice home made desk. I think a furniture factory wouldn't use solid oak throughout and they wouldn't have let the 'bad' raised panels go into the final piece, nor the sloppy work on the drawers.
Drywall screws and sloppy holes seem to accentuate the quartersawn grain in the drawer sides, wouldn't you agree?
Spotted a medium sized roll top desk among the mostly pressboard flat-pack furniture. Eldest son has been campaigning for a desk for his room, so I looked it over. Hmm, this thing is interesting:
* solid red oak throughout, except the drawer bottoms are 1/4" oak ply
* frame and panel construction throughout
* even the unseen 'secondary wood' surfaces are solid oak
* the drawers ride on dust frames.
..but there are some flaws..
* there are some 'oops' cuts in a couple of the raised panels. You can see where the cutter went slightly deeper than it should have.
* the glue-up of some of the drawer joints - half-blind dovetails in solid oak - is sloppy. You can see the tell-tale voids on the inside of a few drawers.
* there are ugly drywall screws attaching the drawer sides to drawer-backs - all in solid red oak, mind you.
Anyways, good enough for a student desk, so I pay the store and take the piece home.
Now the fun begins:
*After* getting it into the house, I realize it is one bloody inch wider than the door opening to the room it needs to go in. Taking the door off the hinges isn't going to do it. This is a remove-the-door-frame kind of problem.
While contemplating my options and mentally checking my inventory of Sawzall blades, my wife reminds me if it goes into his room, it needs to come out at some point. Do I want to remove a doorframe twice? No I do not. Time for Plan B.
Looking at the construction, the top is attached to the carcass with screws in plugged holes. That presents the option of removing the top and making the desk 2" narrower. I tell myself its an opportunity to fix a design flaw anyways: the top is a 31"wide glue up of red oak boards, screwed directly through the top into the carcass. If I pull the top, I can replace the screws with figure 8 clips or wooden buttons to allow movement.
My wife is very understanding of the need to perform furniture surgery in the middle of the living room.
So I bust out my cordless drill and impact driver and proceed to drill out the plugs and remove the 2.5" screws.
There were.. a lot of screws. Not all of them were obvious.
If you need this many 2.5" screws to attach a tabletop, we need to talk.
Here's the kicker: there were so many screws around the perimeter that the top was nice and flat. Bad design right? But when the roll top hutch is in place, every screw hole is hidden. And just for good measure, every screw hole was plugged. The maker even took the time to ensure the grain on the plugs was properly aligned.
I have not found a makers mark anywhere so far. The conclusion I've come to is that is probably a darn nice home made desk. I think a furniture factory wouldn't use solid oak throughout and they wouldn't have let the 'bad' raised panels go into the final piece, nor the sloppy work on the drawers.
Drywall screws and sloppy holes seem to accentuate the quartersawn grain in the drawer sides, wouldn't you agree?