It’s not going to be anything too fancy. I’m using 2x12’s and it will be 6 feet long and 30" wide. I have an industrial desk in the office now and I plan on re-using the metal legs and put the new top on it.
The wood I am using has quite a few knots that I knocked out. I’m going to use some tinted resin to fill the knots before I sand everything smooth.
I’m also thinking about using the laser to burn some type of design into the corner of the desk before putting the finish on it. I need to start looking at some black and white art to see what I can find.
Right now I just have the 3 boards gluing up. I’ll get pictures as I progress.
I decided to try stabilizing and filling the knots with resin. The resin came in. I played around with different colored tints and ended up mixing a mauvey-burgundy-ish color. It looks great in the cup. I poured it in the knots and discovered that the knots are so dark you can’t see the tint in the resin.
I also discovered that dried out knots take a lot of resin to fully saturate. I’m using a small propane torch to pop the bubbles that come to the surface.
I also found out that two of the knots go all the way through the board… found that out the hard way when I kept pouring resin in and there was still a void in the top. Looked under the board to find resin dripping on the bench top under it. I put some masking tape on it and that seems to hold it.
I’ve been testing on the bottom of the desk. When this is dry, I’ll final sand the bottom and put a coat of poly on it. Then I’ll flip it over and start on the top.
There’s one knot on along the edge of the board. I’m trying masking tape to make a dam so I can fill the knot. If it comes out good, I’ll make this the front of the desk (even though it’s on the bottom). If it comes out bad, it’ll be the back of the desk.
This desk is being built in haste. I need something pretty much ‘now’ and don’t want to spend a lot of time on something. This will hold me over until I have a lot more honey-do’s out of the way and can spend some time making a nicer one.
My desk is an ikea kitchen countertop. It started out something like 96" long, and I just cut off 30" or so at the end, then used that under one side as the leg. Like a waterfall. I then support the other side with shelf brackets against the wall. I really like a thin desktop between my legs and my keyboard. The only trouble with the ikea countertops is they either aren’t finished or aren’t well finished. I remember spending a bunch of time finishing it.
I also like the idea of aluminum extrusion for legs. Just because I could easily print something to attach somewhere. Like cable management or hangers for my headphones.
My desk is a standard solid door cut at 45 degrees from each corner mounted on top of two short bookcases in the corner. I did splurge and bought a pull out adjustable keyboard shelf. It works well with my three monitor (24 portrait - 40 4K landscape - 24 Portrait ) set up
I’m going to get a second stand just like this for the second monitor. That way I can have the personal laptop on one end, the two 27" monitors in the middle, and the work laptop on the stand on the other side.
The personal laptop supports USB-C with a docking station that I have. The work laptop does not, but it has dual display ports. Both monitors support both HDMI and DisplayPort. The plan is to plug them into the docking station via HDMI and then to the work laptop via display port. I can easily switch between laptops by changing the display input and pushing a button on the mouse to select the second bluetooth. The only thing I have to do then is figure out the keyboard. I’m thinking about getting a small bluetooth keyboard and bind it to whichever laptop I don’t have the big microsoft keyboard attached to.
Got the desk bottom sanded down and a coat of poly on it. There were a couple of knots that didn’t fill all the way.
If this was the top, I’d mix another coat of resin and fill them in. Since it’s the bottom, I just left the small voids. Spent half an hour final sanding the bottom and putting the 1st coat of poly on it.
Tonight I’ll sand the bottom and put a second coat of poly. That’s all the bottom will be getting. I’ll let the poly sit a few days to fully cure before flipping it and starting on the top.
As a gamer (and someone who has fought, and lost, with Wine), I accept Windows, although a sweet Gnome or KDE desktop would make it at least 20% cooler…
Meh. I stopped caring what OS I use a long time ago. As long as it is doing the job I ask of it, I’ll use anything. Daughter’s laptop is running linux, Wife’s laptop is Mac. My work laptop is Mac. All the VMs on my home-lab are Linux.
I built a stand up desk using a motor from a lift recliner.
The motor drives a chain connected to lead screws hidden in the legs and had built in limit switches.
I think you have a good experience in building desks. I started building a standing desk for my home office while I was on quarantine because of COVID-19, but I stopped doing this because of a lack of experience. I want to do smth like smart desk I saw at gostanding
