Hi all again,
We left off talking about the desk-top. I need to mention that all the beautiful 4/4 walnut came from Kyle Edwards...delivering his usual fine quality. The pedestal wood actually planed out at a fat 13/16th...but I wanted the top to be at least an inch thick and it's hard to find defect free walnut 6' long these days in 5/4 thickness. FAS grade yields 88% good one surface in all domestic hardwoods but walnut. Most of the really good walnut gets shipped to the Far East where they view American walnut and cherry as "exotics" and pay a high premium for it..or it goes to the veneer mills. As a result FAS walnut now only yields 67% clear one side and sapwood is not considered a defect. Hearne lumber was willing to select boards for me, and shoot pictures to show the clear cuttings on each that would give me the top dimensions I needed (50 BF for $512...ouch!!)
This shot from Hearne shows some of the boards marked for the 66" length ..the width marked on some would be with the boards ripped to remove sapwood.
After jointing, planing and ripping the first top glue-up is here
I used Titebond III here, not epoxy. Someone asked why epoxy for the dovetailed boxes. West System with slow hardener has a pot life of about 25 minutes (more if cooled) and a working time of 90 minutes. There's just no way I could coat all the pin and tail surfaces with any wood glue (other than hide glue) and be able to get them all together before that glue set up. I think Titebond III is the best wood glue out there..but it grabs fast and sets very quickly.
Here's the first top glued up
Next step was the inlay. Matt Furjanic in Charlotte makes custom inlay banding second to none. I had some nice birseye maple that I had hoarded for years. I sent him a single 36"x 6" board and he made me enough beautiful banding with it and two stips of walnut and maple on the edges for two tops..plus he turned it around in about a weekl!! A real craftsman!!
The scary part is when you plop a router down on all this hard work and cut a groove 30 mils deep into that surface.
...but it turned out OK anyway.
Now it comes to attaching this thing to the rest of the desk. I used 1/4-20 threaded inserts from McFeely's. The one shown in the pic here was too course threaded and tore the heck out of the wood during insertion. That insert is meant for MDF or like stuff..they have a finer thread stainless insert (4X the price naturally) that goes in smooth as silk.
Dave decided that maybe someday the desks wouldn't be placed back to back. I had an inch overhang on the front and sides, but he wanted some overhang at the back if that happened. The solution was double screw holes spaced 1/2" apart so the top could be positioned with 1/2" overhang front and back. You need to drill these holes in exactly the right position relatively to each other or your really "screwed".
Since the desks could be stand-alones, the back needed to look decent, so I did frame and panel sections held in place with very strong small magnets. This avoided trying to screw things together while reaching through a 24" deep cabinet..and permitted easy drawer ajustment if needed later. There's a tiny slot at the top of each panel that allows a small allen wrench to slip through. You have to give the panel a pretty good yank to get it off..sounds goofy but it works.
So we're making progress. Here's one desk with it's first coat of oil. Those aren't the final knobs and I'll tell more about that and the pass-through in the last episode....
coming soon on this very same website:rolf:
Don
We left off talking about the desk-top. I need to mention that all the beautiful 4/4 walnut came from Kyle Edwards...delivering his usual fine quality. The pedestal wood actually planed out at a fat 13/16th...but I wanted the top to be at least an inch thick and it's hard to find defect free walnut 6' long these days in 5/4 thickness. FAS grade yields 88% good one surface in all domestic hardwoods but walnut. Most of the really good walnut gets shipped to the Far East where they view American walnut and cherry as "exotics" and pay a high premium for it..or it goes to the veneer mills. As a result FAS walnut now only yields 67% clear one side and sapwood is not considered a defect. Hearne lumber was willing to select boards for me, and shoot pictures to show the clear cuttings on each that would give me the top dimensions I needed (50 BF for $512...ouch!!)
This shot from Hearne shows some of the boards marked for the 66" length ..the width marked on some would be with the boards ripped to remove sapwood.
After jointing, planing and ripping the first top glue-up is here
I used Titebond III here, not epoxy. Someone asked why epoxy for the dovetailed boxes. West System with slow hardener has a pot life of about 25 minutes (more if cooled) and a working time of 90 minutes. There's just no way I could coat all the pin and tail surfaces with any wood glue (other than hide glue) and be able to get them all together before that glue set up. I think Titebond III is the best wood glue out there..but it grabs fast and sets very quickly.
Here's the first top glued up
Next step was the inlay. Matt Furjanic in Charlotte makes custom inlay banding second to none. I had some nice birseye maple that I had hoarded for years. I sent him a single 36"x 6" board and he made me enough beautiful banding with it and two stips of walnut and maple on the edges for two tops..plus he turned it around in about a weekl!! A real craftsman!!
The scary part is when you plop a router down on all this hard work and cut a groove 30 mils deep into that surface.
...but it turned out OK anyway.
Now it comes to attaching this thing to the rest of the desk. I used 1/4-20 threaded inserts from McFeely's. The one shown in the pic here was too course threaded and tore the heck out of the wood during insertion. That insert is meant for MDF or like stuff..they have a finer thread stainless insert (4X the price naturally) that goes in smooth as silk.
Dave decided that maybe someday the desks wouldn't be placed back to back. I had an inch overhang on the front and sides, but he wanted some overhang at the back if that happened. The solution was double screw holes spaced 1/2" apart so the top could be positioned with 1/2" overhang front and back. You need to drill these holes in exactly the right position relatively to each other or your really "screwed".
Since the desks could be stand-alones, the back needed to look decent, so I did frame and panel sections held in place with very strong small magnets. This avoided trying to screw things together while reaching through a 24" deep cabinet..and permitted easy drawer ajustment if needed later. There's a tiny slot at the top of each panel that allows a small allen wrench to slip through. You have to give the panel a pretty good yank to get it off..sounds goofy but it works.
So we're making progress. Here's one desk with it's first coat of oil. Those aren't the final knobs and I'll tell more about that and the pass-through in the last episode....
coming soon on this very same website:rolf:
Don
:swoon: Thanks so much for taking pictures and posting your progress. You are truly a master. :icon_thum
