Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Walnut Desk Search

In my newly cluttered order of operations drafting/mocking and rough component milling of the Walnut desk come first. Put the "slab" I've had saved for the top of this desk up on my horses that happen to only be an inch or two higher than the desk will be and started looking at defining the top shape which will define the shape of the whole desk.
Pictured above, looking for/drawing the left end of the desk top.

Copying lines I put on the rough piece of Walnut I put the full-scale top "outline" on paper and started to "draft" the whole thing through a top view.
When I originally had the desire to build this desk I was hoping for a relatively simple project, but it's looking more complicated now. The drawers need a whole "separate" drawer-pocket structure within the main structure of the desk due to the curves. Also I'm very strapped for material once again so it looks like I will be veneering all the aprons and therefore the drawer-pocket vertical pieces as well. Not sure how I will construct the two side stretchers yet.

Back to the wood. As I mentioned, this nice wide plank I got for the top has a big old check in it. Fortunately the check is relatively straight. I built in a taper to my drawing allowing to take this check out with minimal waste. I was going to taper it anyway ha.

Here's the same plank cleaned up after ripping the check out, and ripping the initial two parts again to accommodate my small machines. 8" re-saw, 8" jointer... sigh.

Went looking for components in the other Walnut lumber I've had set aside for this project. The four chunks on top are for legs. These are kind of grossly over-sized but I wasn't going to get any more usable material from cutting closer and I've been worried about the stability of these planks once opened up. I'll just slowly whittle away at them while working on other things until it's time to really focus on this piece.
So, you'll probably not hear about this one for a little while.
Tomorrow it's on to the Oak Wall piece!

3 comments:

Nick Brygidyr said...

i'd do lumbercore for the sides. it doesnt look TOO big.

Nicholas Nelson said...

Ha, well it would be about 3" thick. I just think that's a bit much, plus there would be the trouble of getting around the back legs too.

Why can't I be happy with straight and square stuff more often!? ha.

JD said...

I am struggling with the same dilemma- my head says keep it square, my heart says give it some curve. Fortunately for me, the recipient of my current project wants it square, so I can blame it on the client.

Beautiful job selecting the wood Nick and the curves I see int he drawing do add quite a bit to the piece.

Jason D