I have to put a floating top on a desk that will tilt. The desk is walnut and the top will be 1″ thick. I don’t care about the end grain showing I am only worried about the top warping over time. It will be 30″ wide by 50″ long glued up out of 5″ strips. I could put breadboard ends on it if it will help, but I don’t really want to. The underside of the top will have a bevel that will be about 30 deg on three sides and the back will be flat. It will also have a 3/4″ strip screwed to the backside 1/4 of the length of the table in from each end with slotted holes for movement. This is what will make it be a floating top and the hinges will be put into them. It will only be put onto the main desk by four barrel hinges that will allow it to tilt to about 30 deg. .It will be in an air conditioned apartment or house for most of its life. Will this warp or twist over time?
thanks for your help.
tony ray
They say I’m lazy but it takes all my time.
Replies
The best way to keep an unrestrained panel flat is to use quarter sawn wood for making it, using only stock where the grain is very close to vertical, which typically means using narrower boards. I would never design or build a piece of furniture with the presumption that air conditioning will make up for not allowing for wood movement.
I'm not following the hinge installation, are you building something like a drafting table?
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
Artist desk for multiple uses. The wood is flat sawn Walnut and I don't have a choice to change it. I have made accodations for wood movement in the rest of the desk but the top will only be setting on two flat pieces of wood 1" wide and 26" long. these will be screwed to the top across the width and there will be barrel hinges on the front side of the desk in the top and the main body of the desk for the tilt.
whoops. posted the wrong file.
tony ray
I'll get this right sooner or later.
tony ray
If you can't use quarter sawn then rip the flat sawn into narrower pieces, about 1 1/2" wide each. Then glue them up randomly, some rings up, some down, and put any quarter sawn pieces to the front hinged edge.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
Will this help with the piece not warping without the breadboard ends? Also when you say randomly do you mean not putting the pieces back together in the board they were cut from?
tony ray
Yes, cutting the stock into narrower strips and gluing them up randomly, not in the same order that they were cut from the wider boards, will go a long way toward guaranteeing that the top will stay flat. Narrow flat sawn strips will still warp a little bit, but some boards will curl up a bit and some down a bit if you alternate the ring orientation. When that happens the top might have a slight ripple in it but will stay flat overall. Bread board ends are hard to fit properly and won't keep the middle of such a wide top as flat as you are hoping for.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
I use to work for the Brunning company.. Drafting tables and all sorts of things. Chicago based company.. Or was that where I just worked here in Mt. Prospect Illinois,, Sort of near Chicago..
The Brunning family were WONDERFUL people to work for! I got my first job from them after gettingt out of the USA Army.. Jobs were VERY hard to come by then..
No finer bosses to work for! AND you HAD to earn your keep! I knew that!
I could think of no other to work for... The fplks were just Family!
then do you know how to keep the table flat over time?
And I asked God what was in store for us.. And SHE just smiled at me... I for one thing God is a woman.
No man can put up us!
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