I did not forget about the desk for a month… There have been many weekends away and busy at home but it has been progressing a few hours at a time here and there! As a matter of fact it has finally come home from Club Workshop! But first let’s get up to speed since the last update.
The last installment had it standing up all on it’s own four legs but as I progressed I realized that wasn’t making me happy. Back in part 3 I welded up a frame for the back of the desk out of 1 1/2″ angle – it looked fine when I modeled it in Google Sketchup.
When it came time to actually attach the back to the desktop, a) I decided I didn’t like the proportions of that 1 1/2″ angle next to everything else which was 3″, and b) the mounting wasn’t streamlined or sturdy enough for my liking. So I had an idea and went and got another 10′ of 3″ angle.
I decided that the back legs should just continue all the way up, past the desktop and hold up the back of the desk itself. Only problem was I wanted the legs to remain flush with the rest of the frame as it was before. In hindsight this would have been an excellent idea to come up with before the desktop was done!
What I had to end up doing was cut out each of the back corners. This meant using a air die grinder – an air powered tool which spins an cutting disc at high speed to cut through steel. It’s the same principle as cutting steel in a stationary chop saw but it’s a much smaller disc and you hold the tool in your hand.
Air tools are loud and cutting steel is even louder, and the process is quite slow on 3/16″ steel because there’s a good amount to cut through. So it was me sitting there with the cutoff saw with headphones under my ear protection for almost 45 minutes for each leg. Not really very fun.
But it worked and after what felt like ages of cutting there was now an ugly cutout on both sides of the desktop (which I spent hours getting together to be just right!). When all was said and done the new legs fit as I wanted. Another oops and another lesson learned but similar to my last “learning experience” it turned out for the better.
Next I painted all the wood by the keyboard trays black since the unfinished wood was too bright. I did some more work on the back of the desk dealing with the monitor mounts, lighting, cable management, etc…
I’ve also spent many hours online and in the car tracking down various materials/accessories to complete the project.
Actually the desk is in its final home in the loft right now to test out the various heights and make sure it was level - all seems good! This weekend I’m planning to take the legs off again and go weld on some feet now that I know the legs are the right length. Then we can put it back together and finish the back with the monitor mounts and it will almost be complete!
Stay tuned…
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