The Woodshop Shed

Mahogany Office Desk

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


Being on COVID furlough gave me time to replace my old MDF laminate computer desk with a slight variation on the Home Office Desk featured in Woodsmith #144. I made the desk a full six foot length to allow for space in the knee-gap for a trash can and shredder.The four cabinets are made of 3/4” mahogany plywood with tongue and groove joinery. I used 3/4” quarter-sawn mahogany to make the six trim frames used between the cabinets, the two base units, and the desk top trim. I chose not to build the optional pencil drawer…The desk top is 3/4” mahogany ply with 1/2” MDF backing. I glued-up 1/2” thick ash for the drawers to be installed on 21” over-extension slides. Handles have a Celtic- braid design, used in lieu of recommended cup handles (the wife's contribution to the project!). All stained with neutral Minwax stain and 3-4 coats of gloss polyurethane.60 hours of work, two 4×8 panels of mahogany plywood, one 4×8 panel of 1/2” MDF, 26 bfdt of 3/4” QS mahogany, 21 bdft of ash for the drawers, 24 brass inserts for the hex bolts that connect cabinets and desktop together, and four pairs of drawer slides.Lessons learned:The cabinets would be just as strong using biscuit joinery rather than the precision (and time) needed to make precise tongue and groove joinery listed in the instructions; a slight deduction for the tongue width on the cabinet dimensions would have made construction far easier and time-saving. As such, I used biscuit joinery for the drawers…Installed drawer slides for the first time; thankfully YouTube has plenty of recommendations on how to do this…made some initial errors, but all drawers are smoothly operatingFinally, I used a free cut-list software (cutlistoptimizer.com) to efficiently cut the 4×8 sheets for minimum waste; I have enough leftover to make a top for an adjoining printer stand.Stay safe..masks are not a bad idea either when working with mahogany and MDF…very dusty!

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