The Story of My Desk | Hacker News Reader

The Story of My Desk

jlongster.com

216 pointsjlongster105 comments

It's always great to see people jump into doing something new with their hands.

That said, I predict cracks and early failure for the top. The author created something called "breadboard ends" (the left and the right side of the top writing surface have boards that run 90 degrees to the main boards of the top). Breadboard ends are a great technique - they keep the natural tendency of the left-to-right boards to cup (curl up in the short dimension) in check.

That said, there is one issue with breadboard ends: the long boards will shrink and grow in width with humidity changes over the seasons by 1/4" or more. Lumber only changes in width, not in length. So the breadboard ends will not accomodate the seasonal change...and something will give. Likely cracks will open up.

There are techniques to avoid this. Perhaps the author used some of them (only gluing the breadboard ends in the center, etc.), but if so I missed it.

Moral of the story:

* learning new things is great

* diving in is awesome

* sometimes trades do have semi-secret techniques evolved from dealing with the same damned issues over and over and over again.

Yeah, I didn't think about that. There was so much research to do and eventually I just built the thing knowing I probably made mistakes.

Thanks for the feedback; I didn't know it was called breadboard ends, and now I can research how to properly do that. If this ends up cracking in a few years, I'll just build another one!

The Woodwright's Shop is one of my favorite shows for learning techniques like this. He uses all hand tools, so you get a better understanding of the theory without getting too wrapped up in what tool to use. This project has a lot of breadboard ends: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365004559/

New Yankee Workshop is also a great show for learning woodworking with power tools.

I absolutely adore this show.

My grandfather was a master shipwright then carpenter and while I inherited none of his skills there is something uniquely relaxing about watching a craftsman work.

One of the most interesting aspects of these types of DIY projects to me is making (and learning from) the same mistakes that others have made. Sure, it'd be nice to get it all right the first time, but nothing really drives home the point like learning firsthand why something is done a particular way.

It's like your observation about the aprons: you start out by wondering why you can't just slap four legs on a tabletop, and you proceed to find out exactly why. If someone had told you to put aprons on there in the first place, you probably wouldn't have nearly as good a feel for their impact on the sturdiness of the table. The way you learned it is more effective. More time consuming, of course, but the experience is the whole point.

Congrats on diving in and doing it. You made it, it's done, it works. That has to be satisfying to use every day. If it cracks, it cracks. You can always repair it, distress it further, or just live with it. It will still hold the computer up!

This is how I end up doing a lot of programming. I'll start learning a new library, concept, or approach and I'll be reading and reading, then eventually I say "man, I could read all day, but I just want to bounce my brain off some code"

Course; probably a little more expensive to do that with woodworking :)

"Sometimes trades do have semi-secret techniques evolved from dealing with the same damned issues over and over and over again."

Where "the trades" means any and all activities, not just blue collar occupations. I'd estimate that atleast one quarter of the stories on HN are about "semi-secret tech secrets," eg "How I do X with vim/rails/AWS/ubuntu." That being said dealing with the expansion and contraction of wood is hardly a semi-secret of joinery. Expansion and contraction of wood is a fundamental concept in joinery and cabinetmaking. Any decent introduction to joinery/cabinetmaking book will discuss this basic property of wood as early as possible.

A good mental model for water and wood is inserting and removing a bunch of marbles into the business end of a broom. The broom will not get longer as marbles are inserted, but it will get wider/fatter as the marbles take up space in between the straws of the broom.

It is also worth pointing out that when you arrange the boards the end-grain should create a "wavy pattern" in order to mitigate cupping; one board will cup up and the next will cup down. My ascii art is failing me but here is a best effort:

  Good: |\\\///| |///\\\| |\\\///|

  Bad:  |\\\///| |\\\///| |\\\///|

Good: unu

Good: nun

Bad: uuu

Bad: nnn

(For those who struggled with what the above was showing.)

Alternatively, buy quarter-sawn wood !

Good: III

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Ce...

sometimes trades do have semi-secret techniques evolved from dealing with the same damned issues over and over and over again.

This is the thing that keeps me from building my own tables, chairs, whatever. I know with many categories of things, even if building my own is 20% cheaper, I will still require 3 revisions to get it right.

I can understand that, though the excitement and feeling of accomplishment more than makes up for cost and angst of possibly having done it wrong.

not to mention the experience! It really helps you learn a lot, and it can come in handy in the future...

I will still require 3 revisions to get it right.

Good summation of my efforts remodeling my house.

We are so used to tailoring one-off solutions in software that we can't imagine just taking some boring old woodworking plan and using it as is to quickly gain experience and produce a solid first result without R&D headaches. But in woodworking you really can just take someone else's design and build it. Most likely the designer already made all the mistakes before, so the thing will just work. You'll learn the techniques, and by asking why often enough you will trace back to the problems solved by various design elements. You will have a better idea of what to innovate yourself next time. Besides all the learning, you'll have a functional thing that you can keep, sell, or give away. (Says the guy who had to design his own banjo, still isn't done, and could have built two or three in the same time by copying instead of analyzing every feature from the ground up.)

Where can I get plans?

Try Popular Woodworking. They have some of the most accessible projects. For a really interesting/exciting small publishing company take a look at Lost Art Press. LAP is sort of the Pragmatic Programmers of the joinery world.

Accessible, indeed. PW makes things look so easy. I have a few projects on the TODO list thanks to them. Fine Woodworking has nice stuff, too, like this workbench: http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/18985/still-dont-have-a-....

If you're feeling adventurous, carry a tape measure and check out the size and shape of furniture around you.

If you really start getting in to designing furniture "The Measure of Man and Woman" (http://www.amazon.com/Measure-Man-Woman-Factors-Design/dp/04...) is full of useful measurements and ranges that tables and chairs should satisfy for average, 1 percentile, and 99 percentile humans.

Wood is actually pretty forgiving. You can prototype the size of something in cheap pine, and remember, it's always easier to cut off another inch from those table legs then it is to add one!

Woodworking magazines, woodworker supply shops, fine woodworking forums. Start digging around for what you're interested in and you'll find them.

It also depends on your tolerance for not 100% correct. I've got a ton of stuff i put together that's functionally perfect but doesnt look like it belongs in a showroom anywhere (unless its abstract art!)

I've been thinking about making a kind of greene and greene inspired side table for my front entry... of course arts and crafts styles in general have a lot of the breadboard ends. Do you have more information on techniques to avoid cracks?

I enjoy arts and crafts style furniture, I only consider true breadboard ends if they are mortise and tenon jointed on. When doing this you can design for the movement of the wood.

Also quartersawn white oak is most used, a wood that does not have as much expansion going on.

This is how I did it for my A&C style coffee table: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ejschmitt/9053576208/in/set-721...

Final shot of the coffee table: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ejschmitt/9115541399/in/set-721...

Quartersawn oak is one of the most used woods in A&C furniture. Quartersawing any wood is the best way to produce dimensionally stable stuff (I love that stuff is actually joinery jargon albeit somewhat archaic).

Please forgive my trouble googling this, but what is "A&C style"?

Arts & Crafts style. Made popular in the US by Gustav Stickley's furniture design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_Crafts_movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Stickley

Beautiful work, thanks for sharing.

Greene and Greene?

My favorite style, bar none!

You'll find these two books quite useful.

http://www.amazon.com/Darrell-Peart/e/B001JS36Q2/ref=ntt_ath...

> Do you have more information on techniques to avoid cracks?

1) alternate the growth rings of the flat table pieces: one cupping up, next down, next up, etc.

2) keep breadboard ends in line with the plane of the tabletop by using splines

3) pin or glue the breadboard ends only in the center.

4) start reading Fine Woodworking magazine.

Darrell has classes: http://furnituremaker.com/Greene_and_Greene_class.htm

Oh man, I can't believe the school (I grew up in Port Townsend) both offered a Joint Stool From A Tree course earlier this year and didn't get enough signups for it: http://www.ptwoodschool.com/joint_stool_from_a_tree.html

I would absolutely love to do that. The book is a great read -- the basic premise is that you can build furniture from green wood in such a way that the drying of the wood will lock your joints and strengthen the stool: http://www.lostartpress.com/Make_a_Joint_Stool_from_a_Tree_p...

The strength of green wood furniture also comes from the fact that the wood grain is left intact because it is split along the grain. Peter Follansbee is awesome, he was on the two most recent Woodwright episodes.

Look into the wood whisperer. He has done a lot of Greene & Greene projects in fantastic detail:

http://thewoodwhispererguild.com/members/

The Wood Whisperer was one of the major reasons I got into wood working, and his end-grain boards were the first project I ever made. Makes me miss spending time on those projects :(

Woodworking is a fantastic outlet for creativity, and seriously underrated/underappreciated. Great way to take a break from coding. Extremely rewarding, and not very difficult to learn the basics, either.

Since we're sharing, here's a couple things I've made around the house:

https://scontent-b-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/302582_2063...

https://scontent-a-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/309672_1015...

Nice looking pieces! Totally agree about creative outlet. I think it would be cool to have a place where all of us engineers could talk about woodworking, interested in joining an freenode IRC channel about it? #woodworking

Totally agree. Check out my pieces too! http://jsndev.net/portfolio/table/ http://jsndev.net/portfolio/coffee_table/

Looks good! Are those designs, by chance, from ana-white.com? My brother's made some similar pieces. Really nice.

I built my own desk last year because of the expense of a new desk and the fact that all the desks I looked at weren't quite the right size for what I wanted.

I've been using it every day for over a year and the desk has withstood a barrage of abuse much better then previous desks I've owned. If you have the space to build one, I highly recommend building one to match your exact specifications.

Here a blog post about how I built it: http://nolanbrown.com/howto/2012/12/19/desk-build/

I built my own desk last year because of the expense of a new desk and the fact that all the desks I looked at weren't quite the right size for what I wanted.

I'm now using a sit-stand desk: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk-writin... , which was pretty expensive, but I would find it hard to go back to sitting exclusively, or forward to standing all the time.

Good call on the NUMERAR countertop!

I ended up pairing a NUMERAR countertop (73" x 25") with an adjustable height base (like this http://www.thehumansolution.com/uplift-900-electric-sit-stan...) and am very happy with the combination.

I've seen other people use that counter top as a desk. I actually intend to do the same. I like what you did for legs there. Props.

Wow, beautiful desk! I really like how the stained butcher block turned out.

I tried to build a desk with a butcher block top and metal base but my metal construction sucked and it was wobbly. I'll keep your post in mind if I build another desk.

Very enjoyable blog post, thanks for sharing.

This is cool if your goal is to learn how to do this stuff yourself but I don't think saving money is among the reasons to go this route.

You can get a really nice solid wood desk in the $300 - $400 range on Etsy. Ad a piece of Paduit Wiring duct to the bottom for an inexpensive cable hide.

You can also build your own desk a lot cheaper if you buy a pre made unfinished pine panel ($25-$50) for the top and use threaded steel pipe for the legs. The great thing about threaded steel pipe is that you can tighten or loosen the pipes slightly to eliminate any wobble. And all you need to build it is a drill and a brush to finish it.

It's more about customization and getting just what you want.

You can also have furniture built by a cabinetmaker or furnituremaker, though prices will vary. And the DIY cost (if you have access to tools) will almost certainly be less, though depending on your woodworking skills and the complexity of the design you use, results may or may not meet your expectations.

And the price of a _well-made_ desk is typically fairly high -- $800 - $1200 before you go too crazy with designs, and you can easily spend more.

I'm kind of partial to this one myself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5OxVgH-T1I

As long as we're sharing pictures of our homemade desks, here's mine:

http://i.imgur.com/vFAThh.jpg

Oak, oak, oak, and more oak. I love oak.

And here's a full build album, including pictures of my wife's desk on the other side of the room:

http://imgur.com/a/HTxXk

Everything was done by hand except for the cabinet boxes above the corner desk and the cabinet doors, which I had made by a local cabinetry shop, since I don't have the proper tools and router bits.

This was one of my first major woodworking projects, and I can confirm what jlongster is now learning: you don't know how much you don't know about something until you try and do it yourself.

That's absolutely amazing.

No, not the desk, which looks good, but the fact that a small child apparently inhabits that house, but it's spotless.

Haha, it probably hasn't been that clean since the picture was taken three years ago.

I generally prefer the curlier kinds of maple, or walnut/cherry, but I have to commend you for an excellent execution of a project!

Here's Bezos at one of his famous door-desks (joined with flat corner braces) in 1999:

http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2013-10-09/feat_Bezo42__08__630.jp...

Those braces aren't flat they wrap around the angle.

This is so awesome and inspiring - I had somewhat of an epiphany a few weeks ago (essentially I felt like I wasn't handy AT ALL) and decided to take a basic woodworking class at TechShop SF this past weekend (http://www.techshop.ws/take_classes.html?storeId=4&categoryI...)

I was a bit overwhelmed when we dived right in as I had absolutely ZERO experience before, but it was easier than I thought, especially when I got over the fear of losing limbs and whatnot.

I ended up building a basic shelf but am really proud of it - this inspires me to go back in and try to actually plan something to build - I know there's a bunch of resources out there but anyone you guys would specifically recommend?

I build solid wood furniture at Tech Shop SF occasionally. It can be tough in a shared space, and their wood shop is really lacking in some ways, but I think that it is worth it.

Check out thewoodwhisperer.com. This guy's videos are invaluable and great for beginners.

Also, don't buy cheap tools. Just about everyone has to learn this the hard way (myself included), but there is a reason this advice is parroted so often.

There is something about the wood whisperer videos that has a tendency to annoy/irritate me, but they are definitely informative. For another option try askwoodman:

https://www.youtube.com/user/askwoodman

I recently built my own desk too. I live in an old victorian with a curved window. The only way to fit a desk there was to create my own.

I went with a walnut top, and then got some legs from Ikea so I could adjust the height to where I'd like. I think next time, I'd make my own legs for even great stability.

Besides doing the finish, the process is super easy. Just lots of sanding. I posted some photos to Instagram, which then synced to Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisstreeter/sets/721576366662... One note is that these photos are pre-27" monitor, so the desk looks a bit more complete now.

This turned out really good. I had a similar journey a few years back where I took a class and built a custom headboard. It was a lot of fun. The two "hacks" that I got out of the experience were to (1) use biscuit joints (in replace of dowels). And, (2) to buy a Kreg jig. These two things made putting together just about anything a lot easier.

I also recommend the Kreg jig. I just built two desks for my office with doors for the tops and the legs and rails joined with a Kreg jig. They went together very quickly and the Kreg joints are very solid.

Very cool.

For me, a used IKEA Jerker for $50 of CL with task light has been perfect. People worship[0] this desk. Now I see why. Lots more photos[1] available, including standing desks, treadmill desks, etc.

It's got adjustable height from slouching to standing (painful to adjust, but possible in 1.5" increments). The shelf I have up top has room for 1 full sized PC, 1 printer, and 2 NAS servers. I use another shelf on the bottom to rest my feet (also adjustable height). Adding an IKEA SIGNUM cable trough behind the tabletop makes it clean as possible.

[0] http://adam.pra.to/content/jerker/ [1] https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=&tbm=isch&q=i...

IKEA Galant for me. Super configurable, high quality finish, and relatively inexpensive.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/wor...

I picked up an Ikea Gerton tabletop that's going to be made into a desk this weekend hopefully. It's got kind of a butcher block look, and I'm really looking forward to it.

My favorite setup (for the ones that move regularly) is a pair of trestles and a wood table from the nearest Brico Depot. Not as sturdy as the OP, but enough for at least a year.

The total cost should go around 30USD + one hour to sand both the table and the trestles for a safe and good looking end result.

I love dirt-cheap solutions too! I got interested in woodworking so it just became a hobby as well.

As a fellow woodworking enthusiast, don't fool yourself into thinking it's a cheap hobby! It's all fun and games until you realize you want a jointer ... and then a bigger jointer.

I made a two person desk with my co-founder by buying a 8ft long counter top at ikea and 5 metal legs. Looks pretty slick and has held up for a year now.

Ikea countertops (i believe we have numerar) : http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/kit...

Legs (we chose the Vika Byske which were on sale half off): http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=leg

We sanded the surface and used mineral oil to finish it.

We'd recommend it to anyone looking for a good yet cheap desk!

there's no replacement for a joiner and planer

Yes there is. They are affectionately known as the #4 and #7 (or #8) and Stanley made a fortune selling them since the late 1800s.

Both are hand planes, with #7 being a "jointing" plane.

Smartass remark aside, I've successfully jointed with a table saw and a router, and planed with a drum sander.

It was not a smart ass remark. There are a lot of people that enjoy using hand tools. Its not just a nostalgia thing. The reduction in dust and danger is a giant draw for many people. The one power tool I really want is a band saw.

How difficult was using the drun sander?

I was actually referring to the first part of my comment as a smart-ass remark. There is definitely something to be said about the process of using hand tools. I own a #4 and a #5, along with a rabbeting plane, but I never managed to put in enough effort to learn how to properly use either one. I could get a half-decent result, but never a result that would rival my planer.

Using a drum sander to plane was easy - no different than a planer, though far slower (and safer if you ever decide to feed end-grain through it .. tip: do not attempt to feed end grain through a planer, as it may lead to disastrous results).

A band saw would be a nice addition depending on the type of work you're interested in. It's probably one of the harder power tools to replace with a hand-tool equivalent, though I've seen some very nice results with hand saws. None by myself of course :p

To keep my post short, I actually skipped over the long period of time where I tried using hand planes. Problem is I couldn't invest in getting several of them, so I don't have a proper joiner one. Even then, using the planes on a hard wood like oak was really hard.

I love hand planing, but it'll be a while before I'm good at it, it's still an investment money-wise, and it's much harder than running the boards across a joiner.

This is called "Out of the box" job. We always cry and blame that we are not in this company, not in this field, not in that area if i be there i make some changes.But the truth is we only know how to talk. You prove yourself with your work. Nothing is small and nothing is Big. Matter is how we done our job, passion and work with awesomeness. I am 100% sure if we give this work to any other he will definitely say "i can't do such type silly and small work for this i ll hire workers and carpenters " the main reason is, that person feeling guilt and think it's a small job. we can't change others mind but must have to learn from that type of work. Thanks sir to give me a positive hope. Respect from heart

Nice build quality

I went through a similar process of looking for a sit-stand desk, scoffing at the price and deciding to build my own. Though my end result is a bit different: http://i.imgur.com/M2ZlkaM.jpg

If you don't mind could you tell us a little bit about your setup, hardware and software?

Heh, here's a quick overview: Macbook Pro 15", Dell monitor (not sure what model, got it through work), old Microsoft mouse, Apple keyboard for hardware. Software: Mostly just Firefox and Emacs.

So what do you use to dual screen with your Macbook Pro?

I just use the native support in OS X. What do you mean? I plug it in and it works!

Can the armrests of your chair slide under the desk easily while keeping the top surface of the arms rests almost parallel with the desk surface? The cross section bar right below the actual desk surface could prevent this.

I actually don't have armrests. I don't know why, I just never used them so I took them off. You could have armrests if they are 3" lower than the desk top, but that doesn't seem very comfortable either.

You'll have this problem with any solid desk with aprons or a drawer. If you like it that way, you'll need something like a metal base so that you don't need aprons.

I've found that when I have a chair with armrests I am able to slide it closer under the desk and sit straighter than if I was just sitting on a chair with no arm rests.

The table top should have been done with plywood.

There is this persistent myth that plywood == cheap which is absolutely wrong.

You can get very nice expensive plywood that will be stronger, prettier, cheaper, and longer lasting than a solid piece of wood.

It could have been done with plywood, but then he would have had to learn veneer edge banding to hide the end grain. Both approaches work fine.

I have several 8 foot folding tables that I tetris together. I never saw the value in spending an excessive amount of time or money on something fancy.

Building your own furniture is the best! The only thing that you can't do (easily) are chairs and couches.

Also, is that polyurethane varnish for the second coat?

Nope, it's all Waterlox. 4 coats of it. I want to use poly for the next project just for experience. Waterlox does have a nice finish, but it takes forever to dry and takes several coats.

And expensive?! I've heard good things, but man.

What are our options when it comes to desktop ergonomics. I'm familiar with where my elbows should line up with the desktop, and where my eyes should line up with the monitor, and I'm familiar with the discussions about sitting and standing, but what about monitor angle?

I've wondered about embedding the monitor in the desktop, angling the monitor back around 30 degrees like drafting table.

What about dimensions? This table seems very tall.

Good point. I updated the post with this:

It's 5' long, 25" deep, and 32" tall. It came out a little taller than expected because I put feet screws in the bottom of the legs so that I could make the table even. Those screws added almost an inch. I just have to raise my chair a little bit though.

I'm 6"2 or something, and calculated that my ideal table would be around 26-27"! Mine is 29" now and integrated into the wall... and I suffer with the pronation. (Of course the chair is always maxed out)

I really like Jacob Bijani's (ex-Tumblr) new desk. Looks simple but it's very spacious.

http://jacobbijani.com/post/63757715317/me-and-tidas-desk-bu...

I didn't build my own desk, but I did modify it with a home made cable management system for less than U.S. $12: http://boston.conman.org/2011/07/11.1

I think maybe part of the long difficulty in getting satisfaction was thinking desk when you wanted table. It could be that modern work habits have all but obsoleted the desk, but our consciousness hasn't quite caught up.

Am I the only one who still watches This Old House and New Yankee Workshop?

So next time buy a used dinning room table and refinish it????

Too much work. Cinder blocks and a wood door.

Well, it sure worked for Amazon [1][2].

[1] http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/01/early-amazon-door-desks....

[2] http://glog.glennf.com/blog/2011/10/16/the_true_story_of_the...

2 draw file cabinets and a wood door.

Wood door mounted to studs in the wall.

I guess I live in some alternative dimension. I have kitchen table twice the size (and probably more solid) for $60.

Could you elaborate? Materials, sources, designs, etc? I'm interested in making a desk on the cheap.

Trick is to bypass 'making' stage, I just bought it second hand. I DIYD only things which are impossible to find (ultralight telescope, hexa-copters), tables are on every corner.

I have learned that this is the best way. And getting the furniture cheap makes me less afraid to modify it to my needs. If I destroy $10 table in the process I just get another one.

Very nice and great job. Im always thinking that desk for computer must be wide and glassy wood.

Thanks for posting.

You had me at the ledge. I hate my cable chaos under my desk. I will copy this idea. Thanks!

Quite a good deskription of how he made it

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