Desk, Christmas gift

[Ron Brese]

The attached picture shows a roll top desk that is being presented to someone for Christmas. I was commissioned to reproduce this desk using pictures and the burned remains of a desk that had been severely damaged in a house fire. The recipient is the person whose suffered the tragedy of the house fire. The house has been restored and now this desk will replace the one lost in the fire.

The wood is cherry and the finish is a antique cherry waterbased dye applied over a thinned tung oil stain controller, I then applied Sherwin Williams Mahogany wiping stain. I sealed it with two coats of a dark garnet shellac and top coated with Target Coatings USL. I rubbed out by wet sanding with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper and then finished with 0000 steel wool.

I applied the finish to the tambour slats before gluing them to the canvas backing. I did not post pics of the interior because the cubbie assembly is still in the finishing room. I have to say that this piece has more parts per foot than any piece I've made to date (and that's a lot of pieces).

Please excuse the picture, given the hours I have put into this piece this week I just really did not have to in me to set up an appropriate background.

Ron

[Craig Thompson]

Ron,

What a Christmas gift, beautifull work

[Bill Huber]

Now that is one outstanding looking desk.

It is a sham that someones house burnt but I am sure this desk is a better one then was in the fire..

I don't think I could use it, just set a look at it all the time, great job and I am sure the customer will be very pleased.

[Don C Peterson]

That's a great looking desk.

[Dan Forman]

Wow, that's magnificent. Someone is going to be really surprised.

Dan

[Earl Reid]

You can be proud of your desk, Awsome.
Earl

[gary Zimmel]

Ron

Now thats a desk....

Great workmanship, someone is going to be very happy.

[Thomas Knighton]

As nice as that desk is, I'm sure not going to sweat anything in the background :)

Tom

[Jon Lanier]

WOW! AWSOME!

[Bruce Haugen]

Ron,
That desk is stunning, no matter what the background. Great job! It would be tough for me to have to deliver it.

Bruce

[Mike Cutler]

Beautiful work Ron. Very well done.

I'm sure that the original desk meant a great deal to the person who lost it in a fire. The new one will mean even more.

The honesty and sincerity of your initial sentence, more than compensates for any lack of photographic artistry(Which I don't see).

Well done Ron.

[Ron Hedrick]

One word, "Wow". That is beautiful. Okay a few more words.

[Jim Dunn]

Beautiful desk Ron. I have to ask, was this a power or neander job? Also I like the photo background what with the wood floor and all it looks right at home.

[Greg Cole]

Ron,
Nice desk and hopefully a happy ending to a sad story.

Greg

[Corey Wilcox]

Beautiful work Ron. Honestly, very impressive.

[Ron Brese]

Thanks for the kind words guys. Jim the desk was not a totally Neander undertaking, however I probably produced enough hand plane shavings during this desk project to fill up a 55 gallon drum 5 times. All the flat surfaces were refined with the use of a Lie-Nielsen #4 and the last passes to achieve the final surfaces were done with an infill plane with a 50 degreed bed angle and a .004 mouth. I straighten all the critical mating edges with a #7 Stanley jointer and then cleaned them up with one of my small infill smoothers.

The real time consuming part of this project was the reverse engineering and the multitude of templates that had to be made to create the shape of the ends of the upper case and the tambour track. Given the complex nature of the top case, one has to be careful to design things so that they can be assembled once all the parts are made and finished.

My mantra during this project was "Shavings here, shavings there, handplane shavings everywhere."

Truthfully the amount of sanding that planes saved me on this project was astounding. I only had to sand the areas refined with planes with one grit in order to have them ready for finishing. The crazy thing is, in order to get the color that I was able to achieve on this piece I actually had to take the smoothed planed surfaces and rough them back up with 150 grit sandpaper.

Ron

[John Grossi]

Ron, May be the nicest desk I have ever seen. Please post the inside when you are done. Also, a quick word about Sherwin Williams. I have nothing to do with the co. except as a customer. I just finished a project where they worked with my wife getting the exact color of stain. It took me 5 weeks to complete my project, and about that much time and at least 10 trips to Sherwin Williams to get the stain color just right. They kept adding dye (no charge) to the original quart of stain until my wife was happy. John

[Kent Cartwright]

You did an awesome job on that desk Ron!! You can chalk this up as a "Job Well Done"!

[Don Bullock]

Ron, that desk is fantastic!! I'd love the see the finished interior when it's installed. It sounds like the desk will be a cherished piece in someone's restored home.

[Russ Massery]

Awe inspiring work, very nice.

[Raymond Fries]

This is an absolutely stunning gift and I think it will bring tears of joy...
Someone was so kind to replace a favorite piece of furniture for someone.