We're coming down the stretch on a pretty big (60 wide x 74 long) 'partners' desk. It's actually for a husband and wife home office ... The sketch above was my initial concept; the cad drawing below, sort of where we ended up. It had a curve on the end for a while, but that was dropped and I had to change the number of butterflies to get the 'grommet' butterfly in the right place, but other than that, it's pretty much as drawn. Click the photos to enlarge them ...
We were able to get some really wide mahogany planks from
Irion Lumber. In fact, we were able to make a two board top and two board solid end panel ... It came in just a tad shy of 60" wide.
The interior case of the drawer box is 3/4" baltic birch ply and it now has a center 1/2 partition for rigidity. The solid wood panels are attached but 'floating'. As they expand and contract with the seasons, the set back of the drawer faces will increase or decrease with their movement. Since we're sort of at a midpoint in Vermont's humidity cycle, they are currently set back about 3/16ths" from the vertical members of the face frame.
I've think if you enlarge this picture, you can see the screws attaching the side panels through slots that Trevor very cleverly made with our Festool Domino ... Good, creative tool adaptation...
We also had to stabilize the end panel with this 8" tall dovetailed box with a hole for the cord to go through. There will be a surge protector/plug strip in this box and the cord will pass through the drawer box and emerge to plug into the wall at the end of the desk.
We also added a piece of 1/4" x 2" steel to the top of the panel which stiffens it and gives a 'stiffener' and method of attachment for the wide top too. The horizontal face frames are glued to the box and will remain stationary with the drawer fronts ...
Ready for finishing. the bottom file drawers have 3/16ths x 1/2" brass bars for hanging Pendaflex files ..
End view
The parts are finished but we will probably not assemble it until it's time for delivery the week of the 15th when they hope to have the house completed .. We'll see ...
Well, the house is finally finished and the desk will be on its way to its new home tomorrow. We finished it up a few weeks ago but we were waiting for the carpenters to finish, the hardware to arrive and the ok for delivery. All set now and ready to go except for a small adjustment that I see I need to make to the bottom file drawer face ... It's amazing what you don't see until you look at the photographs closely. Anyway ... no problem we'll take care of it in the morning before the shipper arrives ... A nice use of the 30" wide mahogany boards, if I do say so myself ... Good job boys .... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
Close up of the very nice handmade hardware by Richard Spreda, The Stowe Smith/
Drawers like this on both sides, 3/16ths by 1/2" brass hanging file supports in the bottom drawers. There is also a removable butterfly grommet (not shown in the file) for cord passage to the surge protector in the center below the kneehole ... The cord from that travels between the drawers and plugs into the wall that the desk will be placed up against ... More drawings, comments and construction photos from the original post here ...
