I made this desk for my wife's early-December birthday.
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The wood is part of a maple slab I bought in the summer. It is from Horigan Urban Forest Products, a family business that specializes in hardwood lumber from trees that fell or were cut in the greater Chicago area. They have lots of cool local wood like the piece I used here. It started out 8/4 rough, but had a lot of checking and some warping.
I cross-cut the slab and trimmed chainsaw-marked sections of the edge using my TS/55 and MFT/3. To flatten the face, I initially started using a #4 smoother plane. This was really slow and I had intermittent time windows when I could work, so I switched to a Festool-based router sled. The slab sat on a non-slip rubber pad on the MFT/3. A couple of plywood off-cuts were clamped to the long side of the MFT/3 and levelled. The width was spanned by a pair of oak off-cuts, and an OF/1400 rode on these on a Guide Stop. I used the biggest bit I had, a 1/2" straight bit, so I got a lot of practice planing both sides.
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I selected the best side for the top, and because of the checking decided to have independent legs rather than a frame. I chose 4/4 ash for the legs, with two pieces laminated to get the final width. Originally I wanted to have more-naturalistic legs. However, my client (er, wife) was impatient for results, so I settled for a round-over and the small curved branch at the top. Each leg is attached with three Domino tenons - two in the main part and one in the branch to provide some racking support.
I "had" to get a first Festool sander for this big slab, so, armed with a new RO 90, I tackled the finish sanding. Then I applied a wipe-on sealer coat of de-waxed shellac mixed with a Transtint maple dye. The first time through (roll your eyes now if you like) I noticed a patch where the color wasn't uniform, so I tried to fix it by adding more glaze while the first bit was still wet. However, this just stripped the too-thin layer and left it around the edge of the patch as a much-darker crater-rim. So I let it dry fully, then enjoyed using the RO 90 to sand it all off so I could start over again. Lesson learned.
The second time through I thinned the glaze with de-natured alcohol and resisted the urge to strive for perfection. The results were much better. We had a fluke warm spell that day, so in the afternoon when the glaze had dried I hauled the desk outside and sprayed a coat of gloss polyurethane from a spray can. I plan on a couple more layers, but they will have to wait until spring since I'd otherwise be spraying in my living room.
I ended up using all my prior Festools for this project - TS/55, Domino Joiner, OF-1400, MFT/3, and Midi - and wound up getting two new ones - the RO 90 and a PS 300 which made a cameo appearance cutting some of the small curves. My wife got a new desk for her birthday. So it was definitely a win-win situation.
[attachthumb=1]
The wood is part of a maple slab I bought in the summer. It is from Horigan Urban Forest Products, a family business that specializes in hardwood lumber from trees that fell or were cut in the greater Chicago area. They have lots of cool local wood like the piece I used here. It started out 8/4 rough, but had a lot of checking and some warping.
I cross-cut the slab and trimmed chainsaw-marked sections of the edge using my TS/55 and MFT/3. To flatten the face, I initially started using a #4 smoother plane. This was really slow and I had intermittent time windows when I could work, so I switched to a Festool-based router sled. The slab sat on a non-slip rubber pad on the MFT/3. A couple of plywood off-cuts were clamped to the long side of the MFT/3 and levelled. The width was spanned by a pair of oak off-cuts, and an OF/1400 rode on these on a Guide Stop. I used the biggest bit I had, a 1/2" straight bit, so I got a lot of practice planing both sides.
[attachthumb=2]
I selected the best side for the top, and because of the checking decided to have independent legs rather than a frame. I chose 4/4 ash for the legs, with two pieces laminated to get the final width. Originally I wanted to have more-naturalistic legs. However, my client (er, wife) was impatient for results, so I settled for a round-over and the small curved branch at the top. Each leg is attached with three Domino tenons - two in the main part and one in the branch to provide some racking support.
I "had" to get a first Festool sander for this big slab, so, armed with a new RO 90, I tackled the finish sanding. Then I applied a wipe-on sealer coat of de-waxed shellac mixed with a Transtint maple dye. The first time through (roll your eyes now if you like) I noticed a patch where the color wasn't uniform, so I tried to fix it by adding more glaze while the first bit was still wet. However, this just stripped the too-thin layer and left it around the edge of the patch as a much-darker crater-rim. So I let it dry fully, then enjoyed using the RO 90 to sand it all off so I could start over again. Lesson learned.
The second time through I thinned the glaze with de-natured alcohol and resisted the urge to strive for perfection. The results were much better. We had a fluke warm spell that day, so in the afternoon when the glaze had dried I hauled the desk outside and sprayed a coat of gloss polyurethane from a spray can. I plan on a couple more layers, but they will have to wait until spring since I'd otherwise be spraying in my living room.
I ended up using all my prior Festools for this project - TS/55, Domino Joiner, OF-1400, MFT/3, and Midi - and wound up getting two new ones - the RO 90 and a PS 300 which made a cameo appearance cutting some of the small curves. My wife got a new desk for her birthday. So it was definitely a win-win situation.
