Built in desk construction material

[Richard Holub]

I am not a furniture builder but I am planning on buiding a 117" long by 32" wide built-in desk with side cabinets/drawers. The left, back and right sides will be against the wall. I have lots of red oak available for the construction. My question deals with what type of material to use for the framing. Is it "normal" :confused: to use solid red oak to construct the frame and then dado-in 1/4" plywood for the sides and back? Or... should I go with 3/4" maple plywood for the main frame and finish off the face front and top with the red oak? Letme see:rolleyes: 2 sheets of 3/4" maple plywood at ~$50.00/sheet = $100.00.......OR 500 bf of free red oak at $0.00.

[Jamie Buxton]

Sometimes the construction method depends a little on how you're going to move the furniture from your shop into its eventual home. If I understand you correctly, you're going to have drawer pedestals resting on the floor, and I guess also supporting the desk top. I'd build those drawer pedestals as stand-alone subassemblies. Given your materials, they'd be frame-and-panel, with the red oak for the frames, and whatever plywood for the panels. I say "whatever" because it will be under the desk top, and maybe you don't need fancy plywood. If I could get the desk top into the room in one piece, I'd build it as one big seamless piece. It would rest on cleats screwed to the walls, and on top of the desk pedestals. It would be solid red oak, and would weigh quite a bit.

[Richard Holub]

Jamie, I was planning on building the drawer pedestals (30" x 32") in my shop with no tops. I would then bring them into the office location and I was then going to build the desk frame between the two pedestals on scene. Then my preffered choice would be to glue , sand, seal, etc. the red oak top (117" long) on location. Then I was thinking on resting the top (VERY HEAVY) onto the three separate built-ins. My other thought was to build three separate tops on location for each of the three pieces.

I thought about mounting the one solid piece to the walls/resting on the three frames but I thought that expansion and contraction of the wood might affect the "walls". I decided to go with the attachment to the frames only.:cool:

[Jamie Buxton]

Gluing up the top, and then sanding and finishing it inside the home might be troublesome. You don't say how thick you plan to make the top, but my calculator says that if it is 3/4" thick red oak, it would weigh about 65 pounds. I'd want two people to carry something that long, to avoid dinging the house. With two people carrying it, 65 pounds is easy. That is, maybe you should build the top in your shop.

[Richard Holub]

Jamie, the office where I plan to build this desk is on the second floor of my Cape home. It is an unfinished second floor so I am not worried about dust. If I had to glue this large desk top piece in my garage I would have to deal with cold temps (Masachusetts) which is usually around 40 deg. F. I could do it in my cellar (65 deg. F) but I rather do it upstairs where there the temperature is 70 deg. F, there is more room and ambient light. I would also be able to work on this long gluing piece right on the floor upstairs...if I decide to go with the 117" glueup job. I have plenty of clamps but I am still debating if I want to go with the 3 shorter pieces or one long one.