Cherry desk for my daughter

[Hank Knight]

That's a great looking chest, Curly. Your daughter will cherish it for the rest of her life. I built my daughter a desk when she was in the 6th grade. She 37 now and she still loves it. You done good!

[Curlycherry]

Would you mind elaborating how you made the drawer and bridge panel removeable?  Also, how is the top attached once in place?

I'm curious on how to build one of these, can't quite work it out in my head.

Thank you, it looks incredible.

Making the center panel come out is pretty easy, sort of.  I made the two end boxes but did not glue them all up. then I took the leg from the left box where the panel will attach and the one from the right box where the panel would attach and I made the panel for between the two boxes.

To do this I used finished thickness 6/4 cherry for the horizontal and vertical pieces of the panel. I use Dominos to attach those thick pieces to the side box pieces. I set the Dominos towards the back of the 6/4 pieces so as to leave room for the dado for the panels and also for the threaded rod hole. The Dominos went from the cross pieces of the bridge panel and into the legs. In the top of the top horizontal piece and the bottom of the bottom horizontal piece I put a dado that was ~1 inch deep and about a half inch wide. This is to hold a threaded rod that would hold the left box and the right box together and sandwich the panel in the middle. I then glued in a piece of wood to make the place for the rod and to form a square tube through the whole piece.  I fitted the panel to one box, marked where the rods would need to feed into the leg of the box and then did the same with the other box. Then I drilled the holes in the legs of the side boxes and finally made a 3/8" stainless steel threaded rod to go from inside the one box, through the panel and into the other box. In the back of the inside of both boxes I had to dado out so I could get a washer and nut on each end of the rod. So the middle panel was finished including putting dados for the panels so they fit into the legs just like a normal frame and panel.

Once the bridge panel was made then I glued up and finished the boxes. Each box is one piece. The bridge panel goes between them.

The center drawer is part of a U shaped upside down U. I hold it in place with dominos set into the middle piece, but domino holes in the top of both boxes but I cut out the area above the domino. That way I can drop it in and it is perfectly set at the height I want. Then I used pocket screws to hold the center piece rock solid to the two boxes. So once the threaded rods are tight, and the middle drawer box is in place, the desk is rock solid assembled.

I have a ton of pictures of how I did all this but Photobucket where I normally host my photos is being a PITA. I need to find some other place to hose photos.

[John Mihich]

Nicely done.  Love the color.

[Sawdustd]

It looks great but just wait for it to age -- color wise.   It will be stunning.

[TomFromStLouis]

Nice job curly. I did not follow the details of attaching the segments, but it was clearly a good idea to make it easy to move.

I think we can call the typewriter shelf something else, like maybe a laptop shelf, but expandable top space seems like a good idea to me.

So you made some good choices and, hey, is that curly cherry I see?

[Curlycherry]

Nice job curly. I did not follow the details of attaching the segments, but it was clearly a good idea to make it easy to move.

I think we can call the typewriter shelf something else, like maybe a laptop shelf, but expandable top space seems like a good idea to me.

So you made some good choices and, hey, is that curly cherry I see?

Fundamentally I used threaded rods running through the central bridge panel to hold the two outside boxes as the bread of a sandwhich where the middle bridge piece is the meat. Pretty simple engineering and I'll admit you kind of have to see it to understand it. I've tried to describe it to several people in writing and they get a puzzled look on their face. Once they see the panel and the side mating surfaces on the boxes, it becomes an a-ah! experience.

I won't even begin to attempt to describe how I did the laptop pullout shelf. That is all set in HDPE on the bottom sides and top so it slides like butta, but is rock solid. Again a bit of engineering to make it happen. I've done that kind of pullout on both my daughter's desks. It works well with no sag and the humidity changes do not affect it.

Yes there is a bit of curly cherry across the top three drawer faces. The other drawer faces are made from one big wide cherry board. The legs from another board. And the panels are all cut from a single piece of cherry and most are bookmatched working around the desk.

[goaliedad]

A great piece that I am sure will be treasured