Knots readers, I have a serious problem other than not having enough time to do what I love most. I am in the process of designing a desk that I want to build. This will be my first large furniture project and my most involved project to date. I know what I want it to look like, and believe I have a pretty good idea of how to build it with the exception of one major item. For anyone interested in seeing a couple of grainy pictures of what I hope my desk will look like they can go to stickley.com and view the desks (89-2272 and 89-2276). Basically, the desk is a mission style with frame and panel construction on the sides and back with 4 legs. The desk will have a shallow center drawer in the middle and two drawers on each side of that. My specific question is regarding the vertical pieces in the middle of the desk (that is the ones that you always bang your knees on). I am not sure how these verticals are supported. Do they hang from the top of the desk somehow? Do they fit into a dado cut into the back frame and panel assembly? My main concern is the overall structural integrity of the desk. I am sure that I could come up with some way to join these vertical pieces but I want the whole thing to be sturdy so that the center of the desk does not start to sag over time because my construction was ill conceived. If anyone with experience building a desk like this could offer me some advice it would be greatly appreciated.
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Replies
McMays,
I do not have an answer to your question....but I'm responding in the hopes that this thread will be seen by someone who does. I went over to the Stickley.com web site and clicking on the Mission catalogue found the desk in question(89-2272) on pg. 84 of the PDF file.
I'm curious about the answer also. Last year I started to design something similar and gave up...I put extra sets to legs to the floor..
Basically the theory behind avoiding failure is that the framing members of the drawer opening form a torsion box with the top and/or a top drawer frame and the bottom drawer frame. This is very strong arrangement. Also the back skirt is a structural component of the desk providing much resistance to sagging.
Here's what I mean:
----------------------------------------- <-- top drawer frame
| | <-- connecting blocks (the drawer cabinet sides)
----------------------------------------- <-- bottom drawer frame
All this adds up to a torsion box.. Try connecting two 1/8" thin strips of wood together with blocks spaced about 1 foot a part. You will find that it is very light and strong.
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