Building a Federal Desk

[Ron Hitchcock]

I've attached a picture of a desk that I hope to build. I've drawn the plans (old fashion way) and I've run into a problem. The sides and back will have a panel (curly maple) floating between the top and bottom rails, as well as the legs. Depending on the thickness of the panel and its position, there will most likely be a gap between the doublers and the panel. My question is should I eliminate this gap and therefore glueing the doublers to the panel or should I rely on mortise and tenons (m/t) from/in the lower dividers. I using a book "Practical Design Solutions and Strategies" from FWW as a guide. (p.72)

The legs will be 1 3/4" square which could allow m/t for the doublers.

This will be a fun, challenging project and I look forward to hearing your advice.

[Jamie Buxton]

These doubler things are the supports for the drawers, right? And they go past the panel pretty much in the middle, and the grain of the panel runs the same front-back direction as the doubler?

If so, it doesn't seem to me to make much difference whether you glue the panel to the doubler. You can glue it so that there's still breathing room for the panel. Or you can leave the two parts unfastened, with no loss in structural integrity.

The only benefit I can see to not connecting the parts is that the glue-up might be easier without connecting them.

[Ron Hitchcock]

The legs are the styles and the lower/upper doubler between the two drawers would be unsupported, so I guess that I need to make sure the panel is flush on the back. The grain will be going in the same direction. I was planning on using hard maple for the rails and curly maple for the panels with walnut inlay. The drawer fronts will be a walnut burl veneer with holly inlay. The secondary wood is soft maple. Something to do in those hot afternoons - my shop is in the basement. Thank you for sharing your opinion.

[Paul Murphy]

Ron, that looks like a rewarding project.


I'm not sure I understand what you mean by “doubler”, but I'm guessing you mean drawer guide.
FWW #23 pg53 is an article on post and panel construction where they use m&t to attach the drawer guides to the posts.


I'm also building a post and panel desk, and after 3 different designs on paper, I went back to the m&t drawer guide as the most logical construction and assembly. In your type of desk some folks will have a web frame under the pencil drawer with wedged tenons into the kneehole sides for a “truss” effect resisting sag at the front of the desk.