a modular desk from steel and cypress wood

Story behind the table: Since this is my first note, I would like to briefly explain who I am
Announced \"manufacturer.
\"I grew up on any project my grandfather or father dreamed.
A \"Grammy\" grandfather is a retired orthodontic doctor who is meticulous.
His tools are old but perfect.
It may take a day to work on a project with him, but when you\'re done, you\'re done forever ---
Or at least before he decides it\'s time to do a little preventive maintenance.
Another, \"dude\", is always busy with projects.
He has many old tools.
I spent a lot of summer building a birdhouse with him or fixing a sprinkler system that seemed to always leak water.
We take the necessary time to complete a project, usually several projects in one day.
My father is very efficient in his work;
He always has the right tools and plans before the project starts.
He is not afraid to Google the right way to fix anything around the house.
His habits are very similar to mine.
Although his studio is more limited, partly because I have lost or destroyed all his tools over the years, he is clever in the solution and always likes to discuss his ideas with me
After digressing my support team, it\'s not surprising that when I decided to learn how to weld the spring of my first year of college, they had joined.
When I am eager to try the equivalent method for a few hours --
For what the videos on YouTube can do for me, Dude is seeking tips and an old welder from the seniors consortium or his friends and neighbors.
My father was rather worried about the engineering classes I had delayed.
The project actually started with what I thought was riding a bike on campus.
I might beat my chest and win some games I \'ve never trained in, you know what\'s going on with this.
However, a little bit of a feasibility calculation proves that it is not very economical and not so safe to build a bicycle for the first welder.
Also, my little brother refused to be a test rider.
In the end, I decided that a table would be more useful than a bike in my future apartment without furniture: practicality is sometimes a dream killer.
I should make a preliminary disclaimer where I don\'t talk much about dimensions in this structure.
I\'m sorry, but my design has gone through so many minor changes and almost all measurements have changed.
I didn\'t keep up with them at all.
Maybe I am better at writing detailed sizes in future teaching;
But now, the best thing I can do is describe my process and reasoning accurately.
The design has to be conceptually simple because I want to finish it in the summer and honestly I really don\'t know what I\'m doing.
I know I want a table that can be pushed to the table or used separately when several people come over to study.
There are not many other standards.
When I was studying with my friends, the idea was raised until I was sure they were tired of hearing it.
For more than two months I \'ve heard the latest news about the smallest aspects of design and I\'m sure my girlfriend will kill me.
Ask her to list the advantages and disadvantages of Formica countertops, cabinet grade plywood, laminated pallet wood and seam wood;
She will tell you more random facts than you want to know (
I\'m sure she doesn\'t like to know them either).
I started making the base model on SolidWorks so I could update the design more easily.
Ah, technology.
I start at the main desk and build from there.
Based on the table top and table I found around the dorm, I decided that the table top should be 30 inch off the ground. Oh yeah.
I am the strange child, measuring the table discrete where I study.
In the name of research.
Then I decided that the desktop should be 40 \"larger than what I visually tested on the SolidWorks Model.
I know I want the table to be assembled into a square so the table top has to be 20 \"wide \".
I threw a few drawers and a few pieces of steel around and I was done.
I did some calculations on the stress generated by the torque and I ended up never using it and called it a reasonable design.
Next is the side table.
The design is relatively simple.
The top size must be 20 \"x 20 \".
I pulled the table in my dormitory.
Extending from the front desk to the outdoor desktop twice as large as the writing area, I made sure to add one to my model.
Who doesn\'t want more desk space?
When I try to figure out how to connect the sliding desktop to metal, the answer is me.
I think a drawer is OK in this case.
The carriage is undoubtedly the last resort.
The top must also be 20 \"x 20\" and everything fits well from there.
Three designs are needed-
Layered trolley with equal distance between the top of the middle shelf and the top of the bottom shelf.
I want a filing cabinet but I don\'t know how and when to think about my options which kills the idea.
So when I was able to afford SolidWorks, it took me some time until the design changes started to get slower.
I put together a few drawings and material lists for the desk assembly and I was full of fantasies about my new project. STEEL:. 75\"x. 75\"x.
125 \"x20\' horn iron (3)
1 \"x1\" x16 gax20\' square tube (2)1. 5\"x1.
5 \"x 14 GA x20\' square tube (2). 75\"x.
The 125 \"x20\" flat steel supplier I used only sold steel in the 20\' section, so I took the time to make a cut list to make sure I used steel as effectively as possible
Having said that, I still spent $160 on all the steel, including the cost of the supplier cutting the steel into a part that fits my car.
I am excited about my purchase;
I don\'t have my wallet.
WOOD: in short, I used two 7 \"x13\' x.
75 \"planks, 7\" x6 \'x.
75 \"planks, 6\" x4 \'x.
Cypress boards for tables.
The drawer uses \"x10\' x5/8\" of about 8 cedar paneling \".
This guy\'s coming to the rescue. His friend Mr.
Dave, he found the old Cypress substrate at his mother. in-law\'s house.
He \"traded\" some of Dude\'s cedar fence scrap and he even called it \"trading \".
All in all, he gave me two 7 \"x13\' x.
75 \"planks and 7\" x6 \'x.
75 \"boards.
He also found some cedar paneling that we had re-dug and planned the drawers.
He helped a lot. The 6\"x4\'x.
75 \"the planks of cypress trees actually came from a random workshop and I stopped on my way home from work one afternoon.
Everyone was very nice and even helped me dig the wood.
Safety: The first thing I want to say is that I am by no means an expert in safety equipment.
However, I wear whatever safety I find and try to comply with the warnings of the tool itself.
So protect yourself with the knowledge of your mind and personal protective equipment.
Take a break and read the safety literature that comes with the tool.
It\'s not a cool thing to lose your fingers or eyes.
Metal Processing: Chicago Electric 90 AMP Core welder with 0.
035 \"flux-core welding wire wireRyobi collection.
5 \"angle grinding Chicago electric welding helmetleath welding gloves cutting wheel flap plate (sandpaper disk)
Bit with a large number of bits: fixture. Lots of Clamps.
Table sawmill round sawrouterbital Sander with some different sandpaper grits: tape measure for marking tools of various shapes and sizes (
Bloodstone, pencil)Wood Glue (
Bring Good Things. Titebond III)
Screwdriver, if you can find a 90 degree angle bent, this will help later)
I have a lot more trouble in this area than I need.
At first, I used a cut saw that my girlfriend\'s uncle asked me to use, but I quickly burned the blade, didn\'t have time to run, and took another one.
The replacement blade is still behind my car (Sorry, Mr. Johnny! ).
Then I tried the saw.
I will probably finish the project in a few summers at this speed.
So I finally gave in: I bought 4.
The Moon \"is better than the angle grinder.
This is one of the more sensible purchases I made throughout the process.
I bought a few more cut wheels and grinding wheels and set off for work.
I grabbed my cut list and started cutting.
Around this I took the welding class and realized that my cut tolerance had to include the distance of the weld gap.
With this in mind, I grind the end a little less;
They are not necessarily the perfect gloves I am used to making with carpentry.
However, the better the wound, the less headache things will be in the future, so don\'t be too careless about the measurement.
I measured it twice and cut it once, the whole shebang.
For angle iron and square tubes, I find that if I mark all sides of the steel with a carpenter\'s square, every time I cut one side, I turn the metal and cut within a reasonable welding tolerance.
At this point, it may be a good idea to continue polishing the mill before the metal is fully assembled. I did not.
I also spent a lot of time trying to fit the corner machine in a square hole to clean up the rust, which made it effortless for me to avoid rust.
However, I do grind about 4 inch of the surface of the steel plate to each side so that the weld is stronger.
\"A whole new world. . .
\"Welding is like working on wood, you might screw it up over and still get a good result.
I may have broken the tack in order to redo it dozens of times.
I also had to cut the welded joint completely several times.
The beauty is that I can patch the cut-off disk and the area where the welder is roaming along.
Of course, my engineering student complains about weakening the metal under the pressure of heating and re-heating, but I can ignore him.
So while I was resting, I was sitting in the backyard, putting things in a square shape and labeling them.
Check the square and label it.
I drove away the neighbor\'s dog so that I wouldn\'t blind her and checked it again.
After several iterations, I finally did my best to lay a bead.
They are not beautiful, but they are functional.
I first weld the angle iron at the top together, then weld the legs to the top, and then weld the remaining parts to the assembly.
The angle iron at the top must be square and the leg connection to the top is square.
The corner iron on the shelf is the last minute solution for the drawer.
This angle iron is installed so that the bottom of the drawer can slide to the top of the angle iron.
Therefore, the top of the horn is flush with the steel parallel to the top (
This will be in the bottom frame drawer).
By the way, I do have to set my welder to the highest current setting.
The beads look good in a lower setting, but when I put it under my weight, the angle iron on the trolley falls off.
Of course, this happens when I stand on top to show off the weld strength.
Then I played a fun game to keep track of where I used the lower settings on the table components so I could re-grind and re-grind
Welding if necessary.
One of the places is the top of the main desk.
When I was about to apply blackening, I found it after trying to lift the table up.
If I learn a piece of welding knowledge that I can pass on, it is to use the fixture.
The magnet I bought is not big enough to keep the metal square.
I usually only clip a piece of metal down and constantly check the square, but I still end up with some bits that are a bit off. That\'s life (
No clips).
Top: Mr. Dude\'s friend.
Doug and his combination began to work.
This is an awesome machine that makes the trolley it sits on look like it breaks before the tool itself.
At this point, there are a few elderly people in the garage making sure that the project I did is correct.
While working under their watchful eyes can sometimes be nerve-wracking, it turns out to be very beneficial in the end.
Everyone put forward valuable ideas for queuing cutting and clamping Wood.
Also, it\'s nice to go out and hang out and chat tools every once in a while.
The substrate was cut into size before further treatment.
After carefully balancing the area where the wood is too rotten and the area endowed with the wood properties, three 40 \"fragments and 12 20\" fragments were cut.
Another tip here is not to cut the wood into the right size.
I know, I really know, I\'m just blinded by excitement.
In any case, I had to adjust the cuts on most of the pieces once they were stuck together, so there was no damage or foul.
Our goal is to cut the first quarter off the substrate and then connect the edges.
It mainly takes time;
No one is really ready to spend time on this project.
But hey, we stuck it outside and all the boards stuck together (
Most of the time)without gaps.
Another story is the clip.
I accidentally fired a shot right.
The top of the main table is not a single buckle, but three times under the pressure of the clip, and then I clamp two boards perpendicular to the grain.
After I removed the clip, the end was not fully aligned and there were several gaps.
I have logged it out as a character.
The remaining two tops and two shelves were successfully glued together.
Drawer: I\'m worried about the drawer.
Despite my best efforts, some areas on the table are not as square as possible.
So I measured the distance between the front and back corners of the drawer slot and the smaller distance was a quarter smaller.
The drawer is made of cedar paneling torn to the correct width (
Provided space height minus 1 inch)
Then plan to expose the grain and limit the polishing time.
Because anything that limits polishing is great.
Dude and I broke his new router table, which has a quarterly inch position that can break through 3 out of 8 from the bottom of the drawer and go through the four sides of each drawer.
The quarterly inch plywood is then cut by size and slid into the side line for testing.
Next, add glue to the joints, fix the drawers together with a nail gun, and shoot brads in.
Perhaps, this is not the most elegant solution for drawers, but due to time constraints, it is impossible to match at this point.
Once everything is dry, I test the mounting drawer and use the Dremel tool with grinding bits to remove any welds that hinder the sliding action.
Then I cut the remaining Cypress and put it in front of each drawer.
After applying glue and clamping between the front and the drawer body, the drawer is finished.
Metal: Oh yeah, I forgot something ---
The jury is still not present or still in a state of bliss and ignorance.
Casters wheel.
The wonderful thing that can stop this question is, \"Isn\'t that table a bit low ? \"?
\"The root of my network research.
I was watching casters all night this summer.
My standard is 3 inch wheels with brakes and screw bars.
The threaded handle is just because I know I found a flat caster that fits my size 1.
\"The Square pipe legs will give you too much headache.
For whatever reason, I can\'t find the wheel I like.
After the last HailMary-
Type look on homedepot.
Com, I found black rubber and nickel plated casters for only $4.
They will work very well.
After they came in, I ran to the hardware store and picked up the nut corresponding to the screw bar.
I burned a drill bit or two holes through the plate that would be welded on the open surface of the leg, and then I welded the galvanized (yikes)
Nuts on the plate
For those of you who might try this project or adjust it in some way, there are two huge issues with this statement.
First, welding galvanized metal is a big crime.
It releases toxic, yellow green gas that you don\'t want to breathe in.
I mixed two different kinds of steel.
From the material point of view, galvanized steel and soft steel can be corroded when mixed.
Once the final welding is done, I put the grinding plate on my angle mill to try to remove the more annoying and ugly welds.
I then load on the flap disk and use sandpaper to polish the grinding surface of all the steel that the angle grinder can reach.
Everything that the angle grinder can\'t reach, like the angle iron at the top of the table, is sprayed with rust-proof agents.
I bought JAX blackening because I don\'t want my metal to look shiny compared to wood with so many \"features.
\"I decided to try it out on a piece of scrap to see what it would do and then be more satisfied with the results.
Also, it is easy: wipe and rinse off.
Then I wiped all the steel off with JAX blackening and wiped it off in about ten minutes.
When I put the metal in the driveway, the sun in the state of Luis Anna stepped in and dried up.
After a brief panic about the orange rust covering my previous shiny metal, I installed a wire brush on the angle grinder and the metal looked great.
And then the really interesting part.
I started to turn on the wheels of the casters and one broke on the casters.
It broke on the pole of the table.
I had to order a new Caster, cut off the nut, take a break before I break something else, push the area down and re-
Weld a new nut.
Then I did the finishing work on that area again. It was great.
The rest of the casters were restarted without problems.
Once the table was cleaned with a wire brush, I wiped it clean with acetone and sprayed it clean with rusty crystal clear painted enamel.
Save yourself time, satin is what Satan means.
I mean, scrub.
I sprayed the whole car with satin (
At this point, I have obviously given up a careful test of the blackening agent)
Because I don\'t want a shiny glow on the metal.
After waiting in vain for a few days for the paint to dry, I brushed it again with the wire on the trolley and sprayed it with good, crystal clear stuff.
Ironically, this light did not bother me.
Wood: Cypress is soft.
It may not be the best wood to make a table, but as my loyal Louis Anna State boy, I work on Cypress once I decide to use solid wood tops.
My solution for softness is polyurethane.
Coat on Poly coat.
First of all, I measure the interior of the table horn to make sure the wood fits.
To a large extent, it does not.
I have a straight piece of scrap wood on the table top so that my saw cut will be straight.
Then I polished the top with a track Sander.
My main goal is to eliminate the sharp edges and areas where glue penetrates from the seams.
The polyurethane on the glue looks very different from the polyurethane on the wood.
I also leave as many \"characters\" as possible in the woods \"---
Part of it is to cover up my other mistakes.
All the tops and drawers are then coated with polyurethane.
There is a quick Poly coating on the bottom of the table top and about five or six coatings on the top and side. I lost track.
However, no text is displayed on the surface when testing.
I waited for about a day and the surface between each coat was lightly polished.
There are about four layers of polyurethane on the side of the drawer and three layers of polyurethane on the front.
I drew both sides impatiently before I posted the front.
It\'s time to add the dramatic blend of metal and wood.
I burned two more drill bits to drill holes for 5/8 brass screws that go through the steel.
I set aside about three or four holes for each side to suppress any warping or movement due to external forces that may occur.
Then I drilled a shallow guide hole on the cypress.
Now is not a good time to make an extra hole in the wood.
These screws are actually the screws used to install the curtains, for those lying around like Dude.
Screwing is one of the more difficult parts of this project.
Everything seems to get in the way of the drill or any driver I use.
The bottom of the drawer frame really limits any action I want to do to the top.
Luckily, Dude found a screwdriver with its head perpendicular to the rest of the tool, so I was able to screw the screw manually in more difficult places.
My mom found drawer handles in a New Orleans furniture store.
They are very suitable for the job.
They are all cast iron, each of which is different from other styles.
Dude went through his bolt series and found the matching Bolt for each knob.
I drilled the holes from both sides and 1 equal distance.
From 325 \"at the top of the drawer, used for bolts and countersunk inner holes.
Finally, I had to break the angle mill again to trim the bolts so they fit the length. That\'s it.
The table and summer are over.
Of course, I\'ll be happy to put the bolts when the drawer stops, and maybe put another layer of polyurethane coating on everything, but that\'s OK.
The table is not flawless.
There are actually many.
Yes, I complain, get frustrated, deal with some rude retailers, but I also like small wins and learn a new building technique (
Although I haven\'t mastered it yet)
Spent a lot of time with my family.
And, I did all this because of some random desktop projects.
I can\'t really top this summer.