# Trestle Table Desks



## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

*Milling the leg parts and mortising*

General outline: Two identical desks, 30×72, 6/4 cherry with a juniper accent somewhere.

Progress shown here: The milled parts for the leg units. The verticals will be mortised into the feet and the opposite piece to the feet-what is that, the head? The shoulder? I think I like "shoulder" better.

The juniper panels will be inset between the two verticals (femurs?). I've not yet decided how tall the panel will be, but the width is 5". The feet are 24", the shoulders are 26".

All the structural parts are currently 4" wide.

I had an issue with chip buildup with the mortiser; I could not see the line to make the adjacent cut. I found an old desk lamp base and gooseneck (here we are back at anatomical parts again) which I screwed to the workbench and then I attached the air nozzle to the gooseneck with wire ties. The only improvement would have been a foot pedal or a bleeder valve to keep a light flow on all the time. I opted to get the work done, manually s



























quirting after the first of each pair of mortises.


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## Beginningwoodworker (May 5, 2008)

LeeBarker said:


> *Milling the leg parts and mortising*
> 
> General outline: Two identical desks, 30×72, 6/4 cherry with a juniper accent somewhere.
> 
> ...


Those mortises looks good.


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Milling the leg parts and mortising*
> 
> General outline: Two identical desks, 30×72, 6/4 cherry with a juniper accent somewhere.
> 
> ...


I am with autumn that is a very good idea


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

*Additional Mortising, air control, mortiser lube, A-Town apron*

The second run of mortises is in the legs. The tenoned rails will surround the juniper panels.

Rather than squirt the air after each two holes, I looped a hose clamp around the air gun and trigger and used a nut driver to control it. (Nut driver is resting on the screw for the photo only.) It didn't take much air to keep the work area clean. It was easier to get a bore - slide - bore - stack flow going when there was no interruption to work the air.

The mortiser seemed like it was requiring too much effort. Yesterday and today both I lubed it with Lynch Aerosol PLP and that improved it some. Then I realized the friction could be on the shaft that holds the pinion gear (and the up down lever). Aha! A little PLP on both ends of that and the pulling effort was reduced by half.

Here also are images of my A-Town Apron from Pete Wadey. Note the pile of chips on the floor, and be assured that none--none-made it into the pockets. Great design, Pete.



























Next, clean out the mortises and finish cutting the tenons. Then there will be some artistic design-detail type decisions to be made. They're not critical-all this stuff resides under the table top-but I want it to look, when it is seen, intentional and right.

Please hand me the broom first…


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Additional Mortising, air control, mortiser lube, A-Town apron*
> 
> The second run of mortises is in the legs. The tenoned rails will surround the juniper panels.
> 
> ...


Yes very nice apron but you gotta love that feeling of dust on you.


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

*Fixing a flub and stacking parts*

The dado for the juniper panels (see the image of the parts) is quite wide. I used a 1" straight router bit in the saw table. I was inattentive on one and let it get by about 3/4". Though the error would likely never be seen, I decided to plug it. In the image you'll see the plug glued in and the scrap from which it was taken. The second one shows the result of putting a little glue in the voids and sanding with a RO machine and 150x.

All the parts are now machined for the joinery. Next step is fitting the tenons and mortises and labeling them. Then I'll cut the shapes on the feet and shoulders and we're ready for some assembly! Next Week!

This afternoon I journeyed to Hardwood Industries and got the one more piece of 6/4 cherry I need for the second top. I decided to make the stretchers out of juniper, just for sport, and I had that in stock.


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## A10GAC (Dec 21, 2009)

LeeBarker said:


> *Fixing a flub and stacking parts*
> 
> The dado for the juniper panels (see the image of the parts) is quite wide. I used a 1" straight router bit in the saw table. I was inattentive on one and let it get by about 3/4". Though the error would likely never be seen, I decided to plug it. In the image you'll see the plug glued in and the scrap from which it was taken. The second one shows the result of putting a little glue in the voids and sanding with a RO machine and 150x.
> 
> ...


Nice match on the plug!


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## lilredweldingrod (Nov 23, 2009)

LeeBarker said:


> *Fixing a flub and stacking parts*
> 
> The dado for the juniper panels (see the image of the parts) is quite wide. I used a 1" straight router bit in the saw table. I was inattentive on one and let it get by about 3/4". Though the error would likely never be seen, I decided to plug it. In the image you'll see the plug glued in and the scrap from which it was taken. The second one shows the result of putting a little glue in the voids and sanding with a RO machine and 150x.
> 
> ...


Lee, it really helps my ego to see the pros make mistakes too. lol Nice recovery. I'm just learning the M&T joinery. I am going to need a good set of chisels though. But that is just a bit later. Rand+


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## sras (Oct 31, 2009)

LeeBarker said:


> *Fixing a flub and stacking parts*
> 
> The dado for the juniper panels (see the image of the parts) is quite wide. I used a 1" straight router bit in the saw table. I was inattentive on one and let it get by about 3/4". Though the error would likely never be seen, I decided to plug it. In the image you'll see the plug glued in and the scrap from which it was taken. The second one shows the result of putting a little glue in the voids and sanding with a RO machine and 150x.
> 
> ...


Nice repair job! That one is going to be almost invisible.


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Fixing a flub and stacking parts*
> 
> The dado for the juniper panels (see the image of the parts) is quite wide. I used a 1" straight router bit in the saw table. I was inattentive on one and let it get by about 3/4". Though the error would likely never be seen, I decided to plug it. In the image you'll see the plug glued in and the scrap from which it was taken. The second one shows the result of putting a little glue in the voids and sanding with a RO machine and 150x.
> 
> ...


Yes it is coming along and it is deffinatley looking good.


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

*Shaping the feet and anticipating an uneven floor*














































These desks will sit on a tile floor-notoriously uneven-so I needed to allow a little extra thickness at the end in case I need to install teenuts with adjustable nylon glides. I'll keep that option open, perhaps prepping the bottom for the teenuts but not installing them unless necessary. To accommodate that, I needed to thicken the tips of the feet-an added half inch of cherry.

I picked my radius-inch and an eighth-and the length of the taper, marked all eight, and freehanded them on the bandsaw and dressed them to the line on the edge sander.

That puts us at image #1. Next was the taper down to the toe. I laid that out on one, then created the fixture you see attached to a piece of Melamine. This allowed me to index each piece against the half inch "sole" of cherry I'd glued on each foot.

The bandsaw made quick work of the task and left some intriguing scrap-the kind of thing it's hard to toss…at first.

Sanding is next, both the feet and shoulders which also have a taper (but not the rounded toe).


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Shaping the feet and anticipating an uneven floor*
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God point with the anticipation of the uneven floor I have never given somthing like that any thought.


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

*Trestles glued up and ready to sand. Now: what's that stretcher going to look like?*



















These went together beautifully, thanks to careful custom fitting and labeling tongues and grooves. As noted before, the structure is cherry and the panels are juniper.

I haven't yet envisaged the stretcher, so that's the Monday project. It may be cherry, it may be juniper. Both are in stock.

There was another insight that struck me today while I was thinking about the logistics of finishing these two pieces and how much real estate that would require and how much that would put the kibosh on other work.

I'll finish the bases first, before I even glue up the tops! I can finish these in my bass/inventory/former spray room and shut the door and do other work in the shop while they dry!

When the tops are done, they can either be finished in tandem in the main shop (kiboshing other work simultaneously) or be finished one at a time in the BIFS room.

Enough hard thinking for this week. I'll wail through some 150 grit paper and call it a day.


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## ATown (Aug 15, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Trestles glued up and ready to sand. Now: what's that stretcher going to look like?*
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Coming together quite nicely.


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## BritBoxmaker (Feb 1, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Trestles glued up and ready to sand. Now: what's that stretcher going to look like?*
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Looking good, Lee.


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## sras (Oct 31, 2009)

LeeBarker said:


> *Trestles glued up and ready to sand. Now: what's that stretcher going to look like?*
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Looking good! Nice idea to put finish on the subassembly level - easier shapes to deal with and smaller too.


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Trestles glued up and ready to sand. Now: what's that stretcher going to look like?*
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Absolutley looking fine, Cant wait till they are stained.


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

*Creating stretcher, finishing substructure, gluing up tops*





































The stretcher on a table like this is virtually lost to vision. The solution for me was a box beam which is juniper on the sides, to match the panels in the legs, and alder top and bottom. Attachment will be via countersunk bolts through the top of the shoulder into the top of the beam. The removable beauty panel, shown in the image of the single finished leg, will cover the end of the beam. It, too, will be lost to view for the most part, but I like the subtle inclusion of the juniper which matches the wall finish in the office where these will live.

The substructure is finished with three coats of waterborne poly.

The tops are now glued up and ready for squaring the ends, final sanding and finish (material yet to be determined).

I spent considerable time-maybe an hour-working out the best combination of blending the heartwood and sapwood. I try to put a sapwood edge adjacent to another sapwood edge, to get the "flowing river" effect out of the lighter colors. I also like dark (heartwood) edges on the top to clearly define where it starts and stops.

I think these will really pop when I get some finish on them. That is for next week. Perhaps it will start today.


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## ATown (Aug 15, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Creating stretcher, finishing substructure, gluing up tops*
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Lee, what is your proces for making the table tops?

Do you plane each board and biscut join together or do you have a planer to run the top through?

Looking great!


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Creating stretcher, finishing substructure, gluing up tops*
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Hi Pete-

I have a 15" planer. I plane the boards to hit and miss, then lay them out and select the order they'll go in. Then I glue them up in pairs or threes, under 15" wide, and plane them one pass each side and then run them through my 16" wide belt sander to 150.

I do not use biscuits on any of the glueups. On those 75" long boards I used 5 pipe clamps and walk the joint from the center to the ends. I can get them pretty close.

I finish the glue lines with a scraper, then ROS to 150 on the bottom and 220 on the top.

Thanks for the question. I'm real pleased with the project. It now gets interrupted with some stuff to do for a restaurant which wants it yesterday, but I'll be back to the tops in a day or so.


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Creating stretcher, finishing substructure, gluing up tops*
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I like the table tops but just out of curiosity were you going for the sap wood in the top?


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

*Tops final sanded and finished with a nifty lousy susan idea*





































Using a Clampin' Guide and a Skilsaw with a planer blade in it, I squared the ends of the tops and scribed the corner radius-some kind of convenient can-and cut that with a new blade in the Bosch jigsaw. After ROSing the edges to 150 I rounded over top and bottom 5/16 radius. Often I'll use a smaller radius on the bottom, but this thickness looks so strong that, if anything, I wanted to lighten it up a little with the radius. Then I used an OS to 220 on the top, edges and radius.

My finish of choice for the tops was waterborne poly. I selected Minwax's Helmsman UV, mainly because I had the better part of a gallon in stock. Typically, in my understanding, UV products tend to be a little softer to accept the wood movement expected in outdoor applications. That makes this not the best choice for a desktop, but since it is really a computer surface (not a writing surface) I went with the MW product.

My application system was foam roller and foam brush, a two-fisted technique I learned from a boat builder who used it with epoxy coatings.

Note on foam roller covers: there are two kinds: those made with a longitudinal seam and those which are spiral-wound. I find the ones at the retail places tend to the the former, which leave a clear line in the finish when that seam hits your surface. The latter kind I find at my paint store. Slightly more cost, a few cents, and worth it.

Now to the otherwise obscure images above. These tops are big enough that I hadn't room for them on sawhorses. I did have room for them on my 4×8 work table, but that left me leaning over to deal with part of the surface, and unable to see under the edges which were over the worktable.

The solution: A couple of lousy, er, lazy susan bearings, probably from captain chairs, given me by a fellow woodworker. I mounted them on the plywood extenders shown, then screwed them to the underside of the tops. Then I screwed the extenders down onto the work table. Bingo. I could roll material on the near half of the table, coat the edges and tip off the underside of drips, and rotate the table and repeat for the other half.

Final prep after 220x was to spritz the surfaces with water, let it dry, and then sand it back with 220 again. Smart, huh? Well, I rolled on the first coat of finish and the grain came up like spring weeds in an untended garden.

I sanded it back with 220 again on an OS. That seems really aggressive-I would not do it on lacquer-but it left it very smooth and took considerable material off judging from the white swarf.

The roller system worked well. There were never any obvious joints in the finish; I was able to keep a wet edge this way and control the drips on the underside. It was a nifty setup. The only downside was, there was nothing else that could go on in the shop. So I completed the finish over the weekend, coming and going in an epic of petroleum inefficiency which ultimately led to a completely acceptable result on the tops.

The last image shows the horizontal halogen light which really helped me take care of evenness issues as I was working.

6 coats altogether before I was satisfied. It is not as flat as a solvent-based finish would give you. The benefit was, no odor for my neighbors to endure (as in lacquer) and no long open time for dust to collect on the surface (as with solvent polyurethane). I am comfortable with the tradeoffs.

Next: final assembly of the components.


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## jockmike2 (Oct 10, 2006)

LeeBarker said:


> *Tops final sanded and finished with a nifty lousy susan idea*
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BEAUTIFUL, GREAT LOOKING WORK.


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Tops final sanded and finished with a nifty lousy susan idea*
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Great looking table tops I like the sap wood in them.


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Tops final sanded and finished with a nifty lousy susan idea*
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So I take back what I said earlier


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## jtmek (Aug 20, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Tops final sanded and finished with a nifty lousy susan idea*
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Lee, this looks really nice. I am definately going to get a lot of this juniper.

Thanks, JTMEK


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

*Delivered, assembled and now in use!*




























In the shop I installed the box beams in the leg units. One of the screws into the desktop was accessed from the end of the open section for the box beam, so I left off the cherry plug panel I had milled and finished earlier.

Delivery was accomplished with a top face down on a clean blanket in the pickup bed, the unattached leg assembly on that and strapped down. Good enough for the half mile (!) drayage to the client's office. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Assembly: ten screws per desk, always double checking the screw length, then two finish screws (#1 Robertson heads) to hold on each plug panel. I had previously scribed a center line on the underside of the top, so alignment was a simple end-to-end measurement.

Client is pleased, the workmanship was good, the material honored and efficiently used. Bill presented. I usually get the check in the mail in three days. Life is good.

The learnin': The waterborne material grays the cherry more than I would like. Next time I would use ProFin or a similar wipe on finish for the tops. Also, the WB finish just doesn't get as flat as I'd like. It was acceptable to me given the function of the pieces, but I'll be happier when we get the next generation WB finishes.

I liked the proportions of the legs to the top, both end view and side view. This is different from what you'd do for a dining table when you want seating at the end.

The corner radii could have been a smidge smaller. They're just a bit too showy for my taste.

The marriage of the cherry and juniper is a success.

I did not need the leveling feet on the tile floor but I am glad I prepped the piece for that possibility.

Now on to the next project! This blog series is a wrap!


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## Camper (Jul 31, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Delivered, assembled and now in use!*
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Hello Lee, been following the blog and just wanted to thank you for sharing and for sprinkling in a lot of useful info for us beginners. Needless to say I think it turned out beautiful!!


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## therookie (Aug 29, 2010)

LeeBarker said:


> *Delivered, assembled and now in use!*
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I love the tables they turned out great.


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