The Walnut Monster (Tesla's Desk)
The Walnut Monster Desk
48 sqft of walnut desktop, 45 drawers (all finger jointed construction), and brass hardware. Amazing what you can build from reclaimed wood. Scroll down past the pictures for the story of the Walnut monster.
I really wanted this desk to be my take on Steam Punk. Which I think of as Victorian Sci-Fi. I wanted a computer desk that wouldn't look out of place it a Victorian factory manager's office. This was also the piece where I started thinking of furniture as Art. While it's functional, it still has the story of sculpture behind it.
I was looking to create a massive desk, as I need the space and also enough drawers that I had a fighting chance of having a place to put everything besides on my desktop. That's where the sketch started. Everything else evolved as I found elements at Resource (reclaimed materials savage yard). The only new wood pieces I ended up having to buy was the desktop. Impossible to find two reclaimed 4X8 sheets of Walnut.
What you don't see:
What you don't see:
The structure of the desk was also a challenge since I wanted big pull out drawers under the desktop and I also wanted an L shaped desk with a keyboard drawer in the center of the L. The solution was the 2X3" Curly Oak backbone that runs below the top rows of drawers and connects to a mirrored piece below the desktop. The result is an elegantly thin desktop that is also rock solid. Behind the computer is a compartment for a subwoofer, external hard drives, and other computer gear. The space below the upper drawers is also open and runs the full length of both sides of the L shape to run computer cables.
Building it:
Building it:
This took a little over 2 months to move from a drawing to a finished piece. During that period there were over 7,000 cuts on the table saw and I generated 32 gallons of sawdust from cutting and sanding. Final finishing was done with 1000 grit sandpaper and the final finish is wax. For a really antique feel, you've got to go with an antique process.
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