Mahogany Writing Table: Beginning

This is a gloat, I scored some nice old mahogany from a guy clearing out his dad's garage shop. Looking at the stuff he tinkered with, I'm flabbergasted at what he might have used this nice stuff for. Mostly though, I want to hope that he was saving it for me. There was a 12 foot board of heavy 4/4 about 8 1/2 inches wide. This will become the apron parts, drawer fronts and some levels and other glitzy little things/tools. There was a 7 1/2 foot board of 4/4, 10 1/2 inches wide destined to become a two board top...I didn't realize until I cut the boards for the top, but this is quarter sawn. Excellent.

Here is a shot of the wide QS offcut, I've planed it a bit to see how it looks. I'm a happy camper. There is about 4 foot of the 8 1/2" wide behind it along with some other scraps.


Here is a scrap piece trued up with the jack and jointer (I broke down and brought my #7 down to my apartment, I just couldn't keep working without it) very smooth, very shimmery. This particular scrap will become a brass bound level.

Here is the 1/4 scale mockup of the desk... I'm borrowing heavily from Mario Rodriguez's Providence Writing Desk, I'm not sure if I want to do the same edge or moulding details he has, and I'm going with inside taper legs over his sabers. For reference the top will measure 20x33. I will also be using this as part of my model making class. We do a project on scaling dimensions from a photo, and building a scale model. This will be my teaching model. I have drawings and calculations to show along with the model. I like building a new piece for every class as it keeps me from getting bored with the same piece semester after semester.

The underside, showing the rudimentary web frame and drawer, it's only really important for my purposes to have one drawer actually function, I build both webs before I decided to do one drawer so, oh well.

Yes the drawer opens, you have to push it from inside, making small pulls that look worth anything are difficult to do, so I draw details like that on with pencil or fine pen depending. I have samples of a lot of things built in chip board, full drawer boxes and drawers, sliding panels, raised panels made from corrugated cardboard etc. They all go into a box as display samples for this one project.