Keyboard tray for nice hardwood table?

[Scott Winners]

I have been looking for a few days. All the dedicated hardware I can find for keyboard trays or keyboard drawers is clearly junk.

I had one good keyboard tray in my life. While I was in college I built a corner desk for my computer with construction lumber and 3/4" sheet. I specifically designed to have a fixed keyboard tray at a fixed height and then built another plywood box to elevate the monitor to a comfortable height above the table top. It worked good with posters thumb tacked to the wall and golf clubs leaning up against the refrigerator.

Is there a good solution? I have been looking at 100# drawer slides at Lee Valley lately... I could see maybe gluing up a panel and then attaching drawer slide hardware to the bread board ends.

This is a couple projects into the future for me but I would like to build sort of a hall table kind of thing in Craftsman style with QSWO for my home office before I build anything hardwood for the living room. For the hall table like thing I want to park my docking station and a monitor on it with comfortable space for my laptop to land and enough room to the left of the monitor for paper work easel. Top about 20 inches deep by 48" wide roughly. When I am done with it I would like to slide the keyboard tray in and have an OK looking table to put in a hallway.

I think I have figured out one way to have he front apron "appear" to be continuous grain with the drawer closed, but I want to select drawer hardware (or construction) that will last longer than me.

What has or has not worked for you? I am convinced I am wasting my time shopping at Staples-Max. Thanks.

[Jamie Buxton]

keyboard trays... you'll get a lot of opinions here...
I don't like them. For one, they're rickety. Every one I've ever seen bounces around when you type on it. But worse, if you pull out a tray with a keyboard on it, you're already a foot away from the table top. That means I'm a foot away from all the stuff which I want on the desk while I'm working -- sketchbook, magazine pics, mouse, coffee cup, and such. Yes, you can line the front edge of the desk with that stuff, but really the result of the tray is that you throw away a good deal of the desk surface.
My preferred solution is to make the custom desk top the correct height so that the keyboard can sit on it at a good ergonomic height for you. No tray. If you want to be able to hide the keyboard when it is not in use, build the monitor stand so that you can slide the keyboard under it.

[Tom Dixon]

The best keyboard tray I ever had looked something like this adjustable keyboard tray. The style is kind of utilitarian ugly though. You would want to make your own matching wood tray and possibly include some sort of panel to hide it when you put it away under the desk.

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