ultimatedesk Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 Hurry up already, I want to fast forward to the end! Hehe, interestingly enough - this is the FAST part, doing all the cutting and assembly. Wait until we get to the staining part where I put on one coat of stain / poly per day for a week and then let it dry for another week ;) LOL me too. My desk is pretty much at a standstill so i am twice as eager to see how this turns out. Aww come on now - how come your desk is at a standstill? Yeah - the "USA OCD" thread is like watching a television series with a season long arc... Every single post is a cliff hanger! I beginning to wonder if you picked the title on purpose? USA OCD? haha Hehehe, I just realized that I did go "A LITTLE EXTREME" on the title lol. Like - Every morning you should have ULTRA SUPER AWESOME WHOLE WHEAT BRAN FLAKES! YEAAA! IN YOUR FACE, USA USA USA! Ok, so maybe I should work on my writing. Think of it like a woodworking soap opera lol That is actually quite good USA OCD. Most westerners are quite ocd. I want something and i want it now. I'm going to start posting one picture per thread, but not a whole picture, just a corner of a picture to drive y'all nuts ;) Hey! Don't poke fun at Americans that have the "give me it now" mentality! It's not our fault that we.... OOH! COOKIE! GIMME GIMME GIMME lmao Lol. I'm glad im not american. being ex-pat is cool. I'm Canadian. Does that make me North American? Hey now, whether you like America or not, don't start things on this forum, please. Agreed! Let's keep it on topic people. We were talking about OCD! Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates recently, I've been quite busy. I'll put up some new shots of my progress sometime this weekend, but here's some food for thought in the meantime. This is the upstairs of the place I moved into a few months ago, and where the desk will eventually go. It'll fit nicely in the space, about 6 or 7 inches wider than the current desk you see there, and it will occupy most of the length of the hallway. My current desk is a real pain in the butt. I purchased it used last year, and needed the smallest desk possible since I was living in a little bachelor on my own, in fact, my computer desk was beside the kitchen table and it was the only way I could get any work done! My knees always get jammed underneath the keyboard tray, so this new desk will resolve that issue as well! There she is. Yes, it's a Guild Wars mousepad that I got for free with the game so many years ago. Yes, that's a BMW M5, the sweetest kind there is / ever was. Yes, it's a crappy desk. And here's my current system, an old Pentium 4 3.2Ghz. The Coolermaster CM690 was upgraded to only a year ago or so (Thanks sis). You can see I had to cut away a portion of the desk in the back to make the tower fit. Hilarious, I know. Take care, I'll get you guys a nice big update posted on the weekend Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedCrazy Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 Keep it coming. And as for the american ocd thing i was teasing. I love America(the place not the government) and i doubt i will ever leave. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 Keep it coming. And as for the american ocd thing i was teasing. I love America(the place not the government) and i doubt i will ever leave. Ha, it's all fun and games Had another really busy weekend and unfortunately, wasn't able to post the update on the weekend like I originally wanted to... BUT! Made a new friend - meet Mr.Air Nailer. Nice and fast, no need to clamp everything down, and I can get a lot more trim done a lot quicker. I really did a better job of being picky with the trim, and selected cuts that matched the colour a lot better: Compared to the first drawer face that I tried: That had to change, so I took my most subtle and elegant tools: And, replaced the two mis-coloured pieces with nicer ones. Anyways - this is what my trim production line looked like for the day: First, I would mark off the lengths on an appropriately coloured piece of trim just using a pencil and holding the trim against the piece: Take it over to the miter saw and trim it to within a sixteenth of an inch or so on both ends: See that cedar log in the bottom right? Remember it being longer? Mike was in the shop today turning them into table legs, which partially explains the big mess! I then took the piece that is being trimmed, as well as the trim, to the little sander. I would sand to a good 90 degree angle, and get the length just right. Glue down, and nail down! Occasionally, I'll crack the trim with the nailer... which means it has to be removed, and re-done with a new piece of trim: After some sanding: I finished all 3 drawer faces and then got started on the actual drawers. They look pretty decent. Not perfect, but they look nice. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 I used a fairly similar process as the drawer faces, I started out by cutting myself some fresh trim strips from this piece of maple: Hit the miter saw and sander, and lay down some glue: Then with the nailer. Whoops, one more split. Here's a before and after shot from the sanding. You'll notice the maple strips got burnt pretty badly when I put them through the table saw (The blade is getting a bit old). After a bit of sanding, they look as fresh as ever: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 After trimming all of the drawers and faces, I had to get some wood filler to fill in all of the screw and nail holes, as well as the small voids between the plywood and solid wood. All in all, this process went OK - not as nice as I would have liked. For the mostpart, I used Elmers Natural Colour Wood Filler. While it did the job, the colour matching wasn't exactly... inconspicious, to say the least. I also tried mixing some sawdust from the random-orbit sander with some wood glue, with not so great results. You can clearly see, in the end result, that the sawdust/glue filler looks more like glue. It has an almost transparent look to it. I guess I should have used more sawdust? Anyways, I finished up the rest of the voids and holes with the regular Elmers stuff: And then sanded it it all up: Anyone have any tips on how I can further hide the holes? I will have to go over them again with some more wood filler just to smooth them out completely, but even so, I have a feeling that the stain will accentuate all of my filling, which is not the desired effect, to say the least!! I have ALMOST determined the stain / technique I will be using. I'm getting some very nice, richly coloured red mahogany / cherry right now on my test boards. With that in mind, has anyone used darker wood filler than the natural wood, when staining dark with good effect? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savan Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 to cover over the screw holes, you can drill out some plugs with a plug cutter. You just put a little glue on the plug and pop it in the hole. You can stain over that. It wont be perfect, but it will be better than just filler. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted January 28, 2011 Posted January 28, 2011 to cover over the screw holes, you can drill out some plugs with a plug cutter. You just put a little glue on the plug and pop it in the hole. You can stain over that. It wont be perfect, but it will be better than just filler. Mmm.... now THAT would have been a much better idea than filling the holes with that goop of stuff they call wood filler. I'm supposing that it's a little late for that however, since "drilling out" the current wood filler would make quite the mess, and also risk damaging bits and screws. I'll have to look into a good plug cutter for my next major wood working project, however. Thanks. I'll have a real update in a day or two - things have been really busy at work lately and I just haven't had the energy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 Received a nice package in the mail a couple weeks ago that I've been meaning to show off... What could it be? Woohoo!!! That's: 4 x 2 GB of 1600Mhz CL7 Ballistix RAM from Crucial and 2 x 2 GB of 1333Mhz ECC, Registered RDIMM RAM from Crucial! So it looks like for the main system I will have some options. Currently I'm thinking either a socket 1156 Core i5/i7 or a newer Sandy Bridge socket 1155. The only issue that may occur with the Sandy Bridge is that those Crucial Ballistix are rated for 1.65 Volts, which I understand is a bit over the recommended voltage for RAM for the 1155 boards. There is a possibility of looking at an AMD AM3 system as well with a Phenom x4 or x6 - I have not made up my mind entirely yet. For the server system, I am almost definetely going with a Xeon processor - which motherboard is still in the air. Aren't they so nice? Can't wait to open them up and test them out! It'll have to wait for now, however. So here's a distraction - my cat! She's going to have some kittens soon! Big thanks go out to Crucial, who are officially the first sponsor for The Ultimate Computer Desk Stay tuned, lots of updates in the pipeline! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoLoDreaM Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 Awesome work. looking forward to seeing the finished product Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedCrazy Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 Sweet. Crucial sponsored you??? Or just that you are using their products? Btw, just me but it seems kinda silly to buy ram before you know what the rest of the comp is going to be, some boards have incompatibles and as you said with sandy bridge like different voltages. Just a tip for next time, spec the whole rig out first. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjloki Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 Received a nice package in the mail a couple weeks ago that I've been meaning to show off... Big thanks go out to Crucial, who are officially the first sponsor for The Ultimate Computer Desk Stay tuned, lots of updates in the pipeline! full on props to crucial for stepping up !!! since they were kind enough to help out and support an occ brother, i will honestly give serious and due consideration to using crucial memory for the next rig i build Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Awesome work. looking forward to seeing the finished product Thanks HoLoDreaM! Sweet. Crucial sponsored you??? Or just that you are using their products? Btw, just me but it seems kinda silly to buy ram before you know what the rest of the comp is going to be, some boards have incompatibles and as you said with sandy bridge like different voltages. Just a tip for next time, spec the whole rig out first. Hehe, I know what you're saying there SpeedCrazy, and I generally DO spec out the whole thing beforehand, however, the opportunity with Crucial was there, and I picked out some really great RAM, so that's that! I'll have to build around it, and I don't think it'll be too much of a problem, as it's some good stuff! And yes, this is a sponsorship, I've been talking with them for a little while now To be honest, since the start of the project, I had no idea what I would put in it - I've just been focused on building the desk. Who knows, maybe I'll throw my current P4 system as the power rig, and an old Celeron 800 as the server rig ;) Which... is why I've looked for some sponsors, seems kind of a shame not to put some modern gear in there! full on props to crucial for stepping up !!! since they were kind enough to help out and support an occ brother, i will honestly give serious and due consideration to using crucial memory for the next rig i build Thanks cjloki - they've been really great to communicate with and they love these kind of projects, so I'm glad to hear that I can't wait to use them and show everyone what they can do!! Last time I left off, with regards to the table surface, I had just finished gluing and screwing it together. I put it on the backburner for about a week to dry while I worked on the drawers, and now I'm going to take it down in preparation for putting the outer trim on it. Here it is: All 4 sides were a bit off, with regards to the flushness. This was expected, as the initial sizing cuts were pretty rough, and it's better to have extra material than not enough. Took out a straight-cut flush bit for the router, and some 60-grit sandpaper for the random orbital sander, and got to work. I did two passes with the router, because since the bit is not 1 1/2" tall, I couldn't trim the whole side of the table with just one pass. And, after a bit of work, the final result: The next step is to take a long strip of maple and turn it into trim for the table surface. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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