Drafting Desk (NFS) 1


Drafting Desk

I love this desk. It was never a planned kind of thing to build this desk the idea just popped into my head one day and I ran with it. It started with an estate sale I went to at a farm just about 20 minutes or so from my house. I was there hoping to find barn wood, or tractor parts which there was no barn wood for sale, no tractor parts for sale, but there was a big pile of doors for sale.


As I rummaged through the doors there were some peculiar ones that I noticed. Looked like they had a chalk holder shelf on them along with a very interesting metal linkage connecting the door handle to a pin located at the top of the door. Naturally I had to ask somebody what was up with these doors. The guy told me the old couple that owned the farm got these from an old school. I wish they knew more, but either way I couldn’t get it off my mind as I wandered around the place.


I ended up buying just 1 that day along with a bunch of other stuff. The idea came to mind to turn it into a 4 person table, it just needed some legs. So I got this big heavy door home and that day started working on sanding it and turning it into a table, however the more I worked on it, the more my vision turned from a table into just a desk.


I liked this door so much, the next day I went back and bought 4 more of them. I plan to turn them into coffee tables or regular tables and sell them.

 

Just got done putting the Tongue Oil Finish on the door

Just got done putting the Tongue Oil Finish on the door

 

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An uncle of mine was selling his farm and found an old corn shucker in the barn. He knew I liked to restore old things so he asked me if I wanted it. Turns out the process of moving was the death of it, the wood just crumbled. I ended up getting a pallet of metal parts with a few stray pieces of wood attached. There was no way I was ever going to figure out how to reproduce the parts to get this back functioning again. It sat around for a few years till the day the idea of building this desk came to mind. Almost immediately after I had the vision of using its gears on the left leg of this desk. I had to cut it away from other parts, but these gears move. One day I might get a motor to drive the pulley belt on it. The legs are on caster wheels to make moving this desk around easy. Those gears must weigh 70-80lbs.


Inside look, you can see the 2 round shafts where I cut.

Inside look, you can see the 2 round shafts where I cut.

In the next picture you can see how I used an old carpenter’s foldable measuring ruler on the lip of the door. I had to get the unit apart and then glued each strip on. I really like that look.


You can also see the right legs which each of them is unique. The front leg uses my patented (ha ha) #PalletQuilting technique on 3 sides, but the front is comprised of 3 old rulers. The back leg is more pallet wood along with a few pieces that were harvested from the corn shucker which used to hold the gears. Instead of throwing out the wood I trimmed it down into slices I could use. The inside piece with the black stamped writing on it is from an old army supply box that was left over from a lamp project I made for a customer that I called the “Tank Ammo Military Lamp” Between the two legs for extra support I ran some cross bracing made out of more yardsticks I had. I really like the way it all turned out.

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Finished product with machine shop lamp mounted. I now use this desk to sketch out and design new products.

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