Good morning,
I am hoping for insight. I am designing a set of built in cabinets, the corner piece of which will be an "L" shaped desk. It is 24" deep, 40" on each side, and has a small angled portion for the user. It will be 1.5" thick. A computer will be mounted in the recessed corner.
The cabinets are painted, but I want to make the desktop stained wood. Wanting to learn some skills better, I was thinking I would do it with solid boards glued together, but these are the options I have come up with.
1) Solid wood boards, 6" wide- I can glue two together, and run that through planer. Then join the pieces into a larger pieces with more gluing. The angled portion and end grain could be banded with a strip of solid wood.
2) Solid wood boards, 3" wide- this would let me do 4 at a time, and maybe alternating grains could minimize warping? The angle portion and end grain could be banded with a strip of solid wood.
3) Buy a pre-made butcher block, which would save me the fabrication of this. I could put together in 3 pieces, using joint fasteners and glue underneath. These come 1.5" thick already. End grains would need banding I think?
4) Use hardwood plywood with solid wood edge banding or regular banding (not as sturdy maybe). For this one I would use a subbase of MDF I think to add heft, and then edging. This one is easier and least likely to be issues with warping, etc. The plywood joints could be harder to make nice.
I would love to hear your thoughts on these options and learn from prior mistakes!
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