Wall Supports
The next thing I did was make the wall supports. The basic
process was simple, but tedious. I cut an oak 1x4 at 20" leaving
a 3.5" x 3.5" remnant. The remnant was drilled to accept two 3/8"
dowels and is used as a wall cleat to attach the support at the
bottom. The 20" long section has rounded at the end, sanded to
remove machine marks, and drilled to accept similiar 3/8" dowels.
An oak 2x2 was cut to length and mitered, and drilled to match
the aforementioned dowels. The bottom half of the resulting
assembly (the wall cleat and angled support) were glued
and allowed to dry. All this was done with a hand drill, a hand
router, a dowel jig and a square. Oddly enough, the result was
pretty close to true and square. Here is a finished shot of
two supports after installation.
Note the wall cleats and the horizontal supports were made
from the same 8'x1x4", cut into 4 pieces, each 20.5" and 3.5"
long.
Leveling and Load testing
The wall cleats were glued to the angled vertical supports in
the basement, but the final gluing of the angle supports to
the horizontal support was done after the supports were installed.
They were then leveled and the wall cleat screwed into place.
I then did a few lateral raises on each pair of supports to ensure
they could take a load of a (not very) light gal.
The desktop
The desktop was too large to cut on a table saw, and a radial
arm saw able to cut precisely across a 45 degree miter 36" deep
was unavailable. So I made a jig from a red oak 1x12" attached to
a 2x2". The desk was carefully measured and the jig was clamped
in place and cut with a hand-held circular saw. The result
was two tops, each with a 45 degree miter matching the other.
Once cut, a trammel was used to make a 12" radius on one
side of both tops. The radius was cut with a handheld jigsaw, and
then routed with a 3/8" roundover bit. The resulting desk
was placed on top of the support for final scribing and fitting.
The completed desk, before finishing, unmounted.
Fitting the desk.
After the desk was in place, I needed to use a straight bit to
shave off a little to get them to flush to the (not very square)
wall.
Finishing, or Adventures in Tung Oil Finishing.
I finished the desk with a coat of tung oil and allowed
it to dry overnight. I'll add more coats periodically.
Almost Finished!
Other than drilling a few vias for wiring and similiar things
the desk is done. I've mounted the power strips to the angled
supports so no power cords are on the floor. The DSL router
is attached below the desk, and the computer will be replaced
with a rack mount model mounted under the desk RSN (real soon now.)
Next steps:
I intend to make a wall bracket to hold the monitors off the
desk and buy a cordless keyboard and mouse.
Here the monitors are in place, but not mounted to the wall.
Other Images:
- A view from under the desk.
- An unleveled support, viewed from under the desk.
- One desk side on, the other not.
- The desk resting on the supports, unmounted.
- Yet another view.
- Yet another view.