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Desk for the grandson

7K views 66 replies 14 participants last post by  landman 
#1 ·
My grandson is at the age where he could use a desk. So I got a plan from Lee Valley . It is marked advanced so It'll test my skills. It will be made mostly of oak from church pews. Started plugging rabbets in pew ends. The legs will be cut out of that. Ripped up a seat for stiles.





 
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#2 ·
The pile of rough cuts is growing.The slices left from taking material from the thick end pieces will become the panels which are only 3/8 thick.
The plans call for poplar for the upper and lower internal panels but I happen to have some old maple flooring which will work just fine.
 

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#3 ·
Great to read your plan to build a wood item, IMO not only for your grandson, but (hopefully) for many future generations. Do make it large enough for those growing years and use in his life's adventures. Take your time, post your progress, mark & date the desk, and thanks for sharing. Be safe.
 
#5 ·
I was looking for a place to insert some "significant wood". I have decided on the door panels as they are in front. Here I have to digress a bit. In the early thirties my grandfather lost everything. He had a silver fox farm. When the depression hit, nobody bought fur coats. He had hoped to muddle through but the dustbowl out West had for effect that they ate all the horses after they ran out of cows. He had been feeding old broncos and old workhorses to his foxes. He ordered them by the boxcar load. So he came up here on a land grant and had to start from scratch. The photo shows his homestead in 1938. I managed to get a few of the hewn spruce timbers from one of those buildings. Most were built in 36 so 81 years ago. I counted 115 rings on one timber after it was hewn. So that wood is at least 196 years old. I will use that in the door panels. Spruce from one of the buildings of his great-great-grandfather.
 

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#10 · (Edited)
I have cope and stick router bits which cut the groove and the decorative edge at the same time. If you are cutting them separately you can cut your decorative edge by making a shallow cut with a round over bit. Cut it face down on a table router against a fence because your groove won't allow you to use a hand router with a bearing.
I don't see too many raised panels where the taper is set on the inside. If I wanted that look, I think I would just cut a flat panel.
 
#17 ·
Those look like rile and stile bits. (I can't see the picture very well). I'm pretty sure that you are aware of this but I will throw it out there anyway. In the plan section that you posted, they are showing mortise and tenon joinery for the panels. I can just see someone saying that they don't need the mortise and tenon joinery now and reducing their stock length by the length of the tenons. Just remember, that MOST rail and stile joinery bit sets have an offset of 3/8". That is pretty much standard. What that means is that when the joint is fully assembled, there is 3/8" of material that is not seen because it is inside it's mating piece. Because of that, the length of your stiles and mullions has to be 3/4" LONGER than the exposed dimension after the joint is put together. Again, I'm pretty sure that you were aware of this but I'd hate to see you cut all your rails and mullions to their final dimension, rout the coping cuts only to find out that you were 3/4" short on each piece. If it's old hat to you and I am just stating the obvious.....sorry about that. Loving the build by the way.
 
#21 ·
Started on the top and bottom case panels. They have dove tails that hook into the sides. Couldn't get the router's pushbar to work with or without the featherboard. I have a feeling the featherboard pushed the board into the hole in the fence. So I made a fence with no hole. Bingo! it worked. Assembled the frames using tongue and groove instead of tenons.
 

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#26 ·
Earlier, I had made the dado along the top and bottom rails of the side panels which accept the internal upper and lower panels. Since the distance to the top isn't indicated anywhere in the plans I made them at 3/4". Later when I made a few practice runs at the dovetail which lock the panels in place I realized that the pull out panel is higher and wouldn't fit under the desktop. Deepening the dado it slides on would only cause the bottom to drag and I didn't want to rout all those top and bottom rails all over again. So I made the executive decision to saw the pull out in half and run it through the planer.
 

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