We then went to the lumber yard and picked out this beautiful piece of mahogany for the top:
- which I cut and put together to make up the desk top.
We also bought some 8/4 lumber for the legs and stretcher. All in all, we spent only $140 on lumber and we had ourselves a stock of solid mahogany. There were a couple major challenges with this project. My main concern was figuring out how to build a desk top out of solid wood, while allowing for seasonal movement. The writing desk on Horchow likely uses a composite top because it is more stable and won't swell and shrink with changes in temperature and humidity. Therefore, it could be glued and screwed to the legs. On a solid wood top, the design must allow the wood to move without restriction from glue and screws, which could ultimately cause the top to crack. This is most often overcome using slotted screws. Slotted screws allow the builder to secure a top to a base in the y-direction, while allowing the screws to slide in the x-direction as the top swells and shrinks. The vast majority of movement occurs across the grain - meaning perpendicular to the direction of the fibers running through the wood. This concept meant that I was not overly concerned with securing the front and back aprons, which run in the same direction as the wood fibers. I had to pay special attention to the side aprons, as those would be the ones, if secured improperly, which would restrict the desk top from expanding across the grain.
To try to eliminate this restriction, I made sure not to use glue on the sides. Instead, I used blocks with slotted screws in them. I also made sure that the grain flowed in the same direction on the sides as it did on the top so that the sides would expand and contrast with the top. I used butt joints and sanded the seams as best I could. In hindsight, I could have mitered the edges to get rid of the seam, but this is difficult to do with a radial saw.
The next challenge was to make 2 pairs of identical crossing legs. I made a template out of 1/4" plywood to determine the angles and the length of the wood that would give me the right final height that I wanted. I then cut the 8/4 mahogany to make the legs.
I glued these up and then made a stretcher to give the desk rigidity. I was concerned with the stretcher obstructing the knees, but after some tests with clamping the stretcher in various places, I concluded that it could be joined in the middle of both X's without causing discomfort.
We chose a mahogany gel stain to bring out the natural movement of the wood. I then used a semi-gloss varnish to really make the grain stand out.
I really enjoyed working with mahogany for the first time. It was definitely easier to work with than the hard maple I used on my sister's bookcases and it takes a stain beautifully. Garrett sent me some photos of the desk in his apartment:
