Scratch Build: The Ultimate Computer Desk

[Fayd]

Fayd - Yes, the cable management portion of the project will probably take longer than the building portion!! As for the butt joints, I didn't realize I would have access to a biscuit jointer before I made the plans.

my point was that if you have butt joints in your project design, you could change them over to biscuit joints without any redesign or recutting. i don't know if this is still a problem for you, or if you switched your design to all stronger joints. (EG, tongue in groove, rabbeted, etc.)

 

[ultimatedesk]

my point was that if you have butt joints in your project design, you could change them over to biscuit joints without any redesign or recutting. i don't know if this is still a problem for you, or if you switched your design to all stronger joints. (EG, tongue in groove, rabbeted, etc.)

Ahh, I see. Yes, next time I will likely use some more inventive joints, all the way around. As far as changing the design, I've done all of the cutting, and mostly ready to assemble. It is still possible to use biscuit joints in a few sections - we'll have to see...


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:

 

[ultimatedesk]

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?

 

[Weenoman]

Are you flattening the heads of the nails? That can help to not split the trim when you nail them in.

 

[Paperlantern]

Blain, I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but there is an extremely low chance that I will actually be running 13 hard-drives in the desk. I simply put in as many as I could to see what it's maximum theoretical capacity is. I will likely not use RAID, and the server system will probably have 2-3 2TB drives, as well as a 500GB system drive.

A Server without RAID? Are you mad? lol

No seriously, you have the capacity, use RAID for god's sake! Its a server!

 

[Zargon]

if hes going to the LP's(especially the CavGP's) RAID is bad idea

 

[Paperlantern]

if hes going to the LP's(especially the CavGP's) RAID is bad idea

Why?

 

[Numenorean]

Well I wouldn't have used crappy press board like that for a desk, but anyway.

And you should be doing more than just gluing edges for joints.

 

[Zargon]

Why?

they have issues running in RAID.

Well I wouldn't have used crappy press board like that for a desk, but anyway.

And you should be doing more than just gluing edges for joints.

did you even read the thread?

 

[Numenorean]

did you even read the thread?

Why? I just read the OP's first post and looked at his pictures. I don't care what the rest of you said.

 

[Zargon]

you must not mind looking ignorant either

 

[mnewsham]

you must not mind looking ignorant either

I thought that as well.

 

[Numenorean]

you must not mind looking ignorant either

I'm not ignorant.

I just don't care what anyone else has said in this thread. My comment was directed at the OP, not anyone else.

 

[mnewsham]

I'm not ignorant.

I just don't care what anyone else has said in this thread. My comment was directed at the OP, not anyone else.

Did you read OP's other posts?

 

[Zargon]

Did you read OP's other posts?

he's obviously way too smart for that

 

[eflat123]

Did you read OP's other posts?

He did look at the pictures.

 

[Numenorean]

He did look at the pictures.

I did. And I see crappy butt joints. Oh and he did decide to put screws in....plywood.

If you want to be doing this all again in a couple years, keep it up.

 

[Paperlantern]

they have issues running in RAID.

I had deduced that from the original post saying RAID is a bad idea, I was trying to figure out why. I have three 1TB green powers in a RAID 5 in my home server. They are doing just fine, so i figured for another home server application they would be fine for him as well.

I want to know what issues they have, please elaborate. PM me if necessary, i just want to learn.

 

[mfenn]

I had deduced that from the original post saying RAID is a bad idea, I was trying to figure out why. I have three 1TB green powers in a RAID 5 in my home server. They are doing just fine, so i figured for another home server application they would be fine for him as well.

I want to know what issues they have, please elaborate. PM me if necessary, i just want to learn.

He's probably referring to their lack of TLER, and thus their tendency to drop out of RAID arrays. My personal experience is that Linux software RAID is tolerant enough, but some hardware RAID cards can be really picky.

 

[Zargon]

He's probably referring to their lack of TLER, and thus their tendency to drop out of RAID arrays. My personal experience is that Linux software RAID is tolerant enough, but some hardware RAID cards can be really picky.

that would be what I was talking about.

they cause issues in some......

I dont think WHS has issues, but I've never looked that far into it to be honest since I wasnt thinking about doing it

 

[Paperlantern]

Ah, okay. Well, the three I have are on a Hardware RAID card, and have been in the array for about 6 months with no issues thus far. I was unaware of any issues with the green drives and RAID, but the drives were free, had I been paying for the hardware, I probably would have went with another kind, but you can't beat free. Thanks for the information guys.

 

[ultimatedesk]

First off, thanks for all the comments everyone, I really appreciate all the encouragement, advice, and.. scolding lol.

1. RAID
While the idea of RAID is excellent, especially for data redundancy in a server application, it will ultimately depend on how much final storage capacity I'll have available when I fire it up.

If I could buy any hard drives I wanted, then yes, I would have a RAID setup, ideally, a RAID5 with 2TB drives, however, chances are I'll only have a couple drives on hand - 1 for OS, and maybe 1 or 2 for storage, and if I go RAID1, then I lose half of the capacity, so we'll have to see when it's go time.

2. Flattening Nail Heads
Thanks for the tip - I had not thought of that - it is an interesting idea. The nails came in a strip, for the nail gun, so I'm not sure how I would have actually flattened them, however.

3. Numenorean
Although it would have been nice to build the desk out of solid wood, it just wasn't in the budget. The sheets of 3/4" ply, 2-sided veneered with maple were only 50 dollars each, which is quite a deal for nice plywood.

I don't see what the problem is with plywood anyways. It's one of the most structurally sound materials available to us for construction these days - it's significantly different than "press board" - this isn't MDF or sawdust and glue, my friend.

Yes, it would have been nice to use some more advanced joinery techniques as well, however, I did not actually have access to the wood shop when I was designing it, so I didn't think I would have access to things like a biscuit joiner, jointers, planars, drill presses, etc... Don't worry - my next project will try to use some dovetails, biscuits, mortises and dowels - not just for you though, ok?

As far as I'm concerned, gluing and screwing multiple butt joints on multiple axis - ESPECIALLY a box, like a drawer, is NOT going to "only last a few years" lmao, that's ridiculous.

Anyways, since you seem to have such a strong opinion about the construction - did you have any recommendations or tips? I've already cut all the stock to size, so I can't change much there, but I still haven't assembled the main cabinets yet.

I'll have a real update in a day or two - work has been keeping me really busy and I haven't had the energy to crop my photos and post them up

 

[ultimatedesk]

Glad everyone had a nice weekend to cool down lol

I 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!

 

[Zargon]

wow like a real sponsor? thats awesome!

 

[mfenn]

And so the whoring begins!

j/k