Finally done! (well, almost) Custom Desk and hutch

rnt80

rnt80

Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
953
I finally delivered the top portion of this today.  Needless to say it was pretty scary lifting it on top of the desk.  The entire unit is approx. 8' wide by 9' tall.  I've got some touch up stuff to do on it and the lights have to be hooked up but I'm glad to have it all in there.
 
Ghostfist - I'll take that as a compliment.  Thanks.
The finish on the piece was incredibly time consuming.  The finish schedule went as follows.
1.  Stain
2.  Seal with dewaxed shellac
3.  Tape off areas before spraying gold on beaded areas
4.  Spray gold on beaded areas
5.  Seal gold paint with lacquer
6.  Cover gold areas with masking fluid
7.  Add clumps of wax in various places for chipped paint effect
8.  Spot spray gloss lacquer (necessary for crackle look)
9.  Spray black crackle lacquer
10. Remove dried masking fluid from gold areas, remove wax
11. Slightly distress piece with keys, etc.
12. Wipe on/off black glaze
13. Seal with two coats dewaxed shellac
14. Spray two coats of Target's conversion varnish

If all of that sounds exhausting it was.
 
What did you build it out of?  Do you do a lot of distressed work? Where did you get the design from?
 
gates559 said:
What did you build it out of?  Do you do a lot of distressed work? Where did you get the design from?
Click to expand...

It was done in alder.  The client intially wanted the piece stained, I switched to this finish after I had about half of the piece done with the stain.  I guess I do my fair share of distressed work.  It really depends on what the client wants.  The design came from inside my head.  For this particular piece I went through 4-5 revisions before the client settled on what you see here.
 
You did a fantastic job, I have been doing nothing but distressed work for the last two years, I used to love it but I am starting to get sick of it now but it pays the bills!
The only thing I would have done differently is put smaller crown on or a base molding on instead of the feet, that way it wouldn't look top heavy.
Looks good anyways!
 
Russell:
Looks great! Thanks for posting the finishing schedule, it's a really interesting look.
Congratulations.
Tim
 
Whoa!!!  [eek] Beautiful work!!!

On that last pic, what method did you use to make the bead on the curved face frame of the hutch?
 
That's an incredible piece- even without the distressed finish- though the finish really makes it shine!
 
russell great job   [thumbs up] [thumbs up]  you get 4 thumbs up from me,  2 for the project and 2 for including bead board !   those are fun projects and that finish schedule was time consuming.... but awesome
 
Brice Burrell said:
Great job Russell! [thumbs up]  Was this the piece with the crown mishap?
Click to expand...

Sure was, good memory Brice.  I ended up having to use the crown that my moulding place ordered (they screwed it up two times and I couldn't wait for them to reorder it).  I nailed the piece to a straight piece of ply wood to make the miters on the end.  It was really close to matching up with the straight stock profile.  The final work was done with rasps, files, and sand paper.  It turned out okay.
 
bobmeister said:
Whoa!!!   [eek] Beautiful work!!!

On that last pic, what method did you use to make the bead on the curved face frame of the hutch?
Click to expand...

Thanks.  The beading on all the curved portions was done by hand with a scraper.  It requires quite a bit of patience but I think the outcome is worth it.  Outside of using a cnc I know of no other way to do that.
 
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