Details details details: A walk through the design of the writing desk

[Gene Davis]

Getting ready to build this, doing all the planning using Sketchup. Let's look at the structure and the joinery.

I turned off the layers that contain the top and the drawers so we can see the basics of the frame. Top stretchers are 3/4 x 5-1/4, faceframe parts all 1" in width.

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Using dominos for the joints, here are the essentials. I turned to view to x-ray.

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These are the frame basics. Drawers are simple arrangements, four dovetailed corners, and I don't want to use metal slides. I need to figure a way to do an arrangement of parts that do two things: provide slide housings and stops for the drawers, and reinforce the frame.

More to follow in additional posts.

[Gene Davis]

Here is the idea for the frame reinforcement. Two boards of pine or poplar, 3/4 x 4 in x-section, are cut to fit as shown at each end. The lower one is bored for tool access, the top one shows holes for screws that fix the top to the frame on ends. I don't show it, but only the center one is a round hole. The other four are slotted to permit seasonal movement of the solid top. This should provide a strong web to reinforce the leg connections to the apron arrangement.

[Gene Davis]

And here I show the domino joinery at the ends of each board. The long joints along the edges of the boards where boards meet aprons need nothing but glue, as they are long-to-long grain.

[Gene Davis]

Finally, or almost finally, there is the business of the drawerbox guides. The concept is shown here. Hard maple 1x1 pieces with rebates are glued and/or screwed to the end-frame webs and intermediate webs for housing the drawer sides. The intermediate webs are fixed in place with either dominos or pocket screws.

Drawers are made and fitted with all the usual care and caution for size, squareness, etc., and clearances for these guides, plus drawerbox side sizings, are all done to take seasonal wood movement into account. All slide contact surfaces, guides and drawer-sides, are waxed.

[Prashun Patel]

Really nice! I wish I had these plans when I made mine. You are a Sketchup Ninja, Gene.

[Jamie Buxton]

There is no back to the desk? That is, the only thing preventing left-right racking is one 5"-tall board?

[Gene Davis]

Right. No back. Not sure I see a problem, as the furniture catalogs are all full of things like this. I made a copy of a Stickley library table similar in details, but longer and wider.

Here is a catalog cut of the Ethan Allen desk we have, for which this will be a companion. Ours is not two-toned, but is all-cherry. I am attaching a catalog cut of the Stickley piece I copied. 66 wide as compared to 59.

[Prashun Patel]

I made a writing desk a week or so ago, and I felt better putting a lower stretcher between the legs. I suspect this to be less of an issue when there are lower side drawers, but a single bank of top skinnies leaves a lot of torque down south. At least, that's my instinct.