I was asked to build a desk with certain dimension, that fit certain things. So, I did and here is the finished result. Read through the post to see how it came together

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Plan and Material

With most projects, it starts with a plan and figuring out materials needed.

The materials used were primarily oak veneered plywood and oak hardwood. I used a 20″ drawer slide for the printer tray and a specific slide for the keyboard tray.

Carcass Construction

I started by ripping all the large panels to the same width and then the small stretchers to size. Then, I crosscut them to length with my miter saw and track saw. I attached hardwood edging to the bottom of the “legs” and to the visible sections of stretchers. I created a dado in the two right side legs to hold the shelf in place. Then it was a simple matter of drilling a bunch of pocket screws to hold everything together.

Face Frame

The next step was to create the face frame for the desk. It consists of oak hardwood cut to 1 1/2″ wide then cut to length. After getting it sized appropriately and laid out, I added some glue and pocket screws to hold it all together. I used some spacers to keep the two vertical pieces parallel on the (fixed shelf) side. I added some biscuit slots to help with alignment and clamped it up. As a note, I had some pocket holes in the upper stretchers to hold the face frame on. The rest of the face frame was clamped.

Print Tray

The printer tray was the most interesting piece of this desk. I wanted to mount some drawer slides, but make them hidden when the tray was closed. So I came up with some of these spacers that allowed the slide to be flush with the face frame, but also be overlapped by the rabbet and hidden from view.

The printer tray itself was a 3/4 piece of plywood with hardwood sides added to it. The hardwood was taller, to mount the slide, and had a rabbet to house the plywood. The back was just a simple hardwood strip. The front was added later, via pocket glue and pocket screws. I need to fit it between the existing face frame.

Top, Keyboard Tray, Cord Management

The pictures above show the top already installed. It was a piece of 3/4 plywood wrapped in 1″ hardwood edge. The thicker edge was to allow a healthy radius being added. Clamping up the top was pretty interesting since I don’t have clamps long enough. The top is just screwed into place through the upper stretchers.

I did the same process for the keyboard tray (3/4 ply with hardwood edge). Then I set out to make something to hide the cords. Most of the gadget would be sitting on the fixed shelf, so I made a false back panel that would mount a power strip and allow the cords to hide behind. I don’t have any good pictures of this except for the one below. It looks like an L with some support gussets. There is a hole cut in the very bottom with a shallow relief all the way across to allow cords to pass through.

Sanding and Finishing

After adding round overs and filling any gaps, I sanded, wet, sanded again up to 220. Then I mixed up some Transtint and water and began the finishing process. Two coats of dye make the wood a very dull, dark-gray brown. Then, two coats of dark walnut Danish oil brings it back to life. After allowing the Danish oil to cure for about 4 days (with wiping off oil in between). I applied two coats of GF Polyurethane.

I forgot to add the grommets before finish, so I added one to the top surface and one to the fixed shelf. Allowing cords to get down to the outlet.

Overall, a fun project and it turned out really nice.