Plans ideas

The Partners Desk

Were coming down the stretch on a pretty big (60 wide x 74 long) partners desk. Its actually for a husband and wife home office ... The sketch above was my initial concept; the cad drawing below, sort of where we ended up. It had a curve on the end for a while, but that was dropped and I had to change the number of butterflies to get the grommet butterfly in the right place, but other than that, its pretty much as drawn. Click the photos to enlarge them ...
We were able to get some really wide mahogany planks from Irion Lumber. In fact, we were able to make a two board top and two board solid end panel ... It came in just a tad shy of 60" wide.
The interior case of the drawer box is 3/4" baltic birch ply and it now has a center 1/2 partition for rigidity. The solid wood panels are attached but floating. As they expand and contract with the seasons, the set back of the drawer faces will increase or decrease with their movement. Since were sort of at a midpoint in Vermonts humidity cycle, they are currently set back about 3/16ths" from the vertical members of the face frame.
Ive think if you enlarge this picture, you can see the screws attaching the side panels through slots that Trevor very cleverly made with our Festool Domino ... Good, creative tool adaptation...
We also had to stabilize the end panel with this 8" tall dovetailed box with a hole for the cord to go through. There will be a surge protector/plug strip in this box and the cord will pass through the drawer box and emerge to plug into the wall at the end of the desk.
We also added a piece of 1/4" x 2" steel to the top of the panel which stiffens it and gives a stiffener and method of attachment for the wide top too. The horizontal face frames are glued to the box and will remain stationary with the drawer fronts ...
Ready for finishing. the bottom file drawers have 3/16ths x 1/2" brass bars for hanging Pendaflex files ..
End view
The parts are finished but we will probably not assemble it until its time for delivery the week of the 15th when they hope to have the house completed .. Well see ...