The desk saga continues

The desk renovation took a turn for the worse.

This is the story of doing what should have been a simple project.......

Plan A.   My husband (who will be known as JET from hereon in) had this desk from years ago.  It originally had a glass top which sat in the metal frame but along the way the glass got smashed.  The frame sat out in the workshop for years.  He decided to renovate it and use it again. He made a top for it a couple of years ago but had never bought it in from the workshop as we hadn't made room for it in his office.  Last year was very humid and this top had warped a little bit.

Plan B.  After we had sorted out his office we had room for it. He thought he would just add the new top on top of the warped one then edge it but the edging was a problem because the sides of the frame were deeper than the front. The new top was cut so it was the exact size of the external frame. He tried several different types of wood edging but nothing worked quite right. (there's a lot more to this but won't bore you with the details).

So onto

Plan C.  Remove the warped top, cut down the new top and seat it into the frame and attach. That way it wouldn't need edging as it sat in the frame. That was a good plan except when he ran it through the table saw he hadn't locked down the guide and it moved when cutting and now there was a gap!  Also, we had bought the table over to the sunroom to work on as it was warmer for the varnish to dry but it was difficult to work on when he had to turn it upside down on the floor to attach the top to the brackets.  We did attach it but the gap looked horrible.

Plan D.  Start all over again.  We took the table back to the workshop. (It has warmed up a bit).  We had to clear off some stored lumber off of the saw horses and clean off the piece of OSB we use as a work surface so we could put the desk on it when he needs to attach the new top.

We cut a new top from a new piece of OSB board that we already had.  This time we were quite meticulous in measuring and cutting.  We measured about ten times and marked where to cut and measured again.  This time he cut it with his circular saw.  Gingerly, we tried it in the frame.  It fitted almost perfectly so we were very happy.

Next step was to sand it as it had the stamping on the smooth side.

Then stain it...

the new top compared to the scrapped one

As you can see it isn't as dark yet as the first one so another coat of stain today.

So that's where we are on this desk renovation.

During this process we have made several trips to town to buy edging, brackets, screws etc for this project. We already had the OSB but we had to buy it at one time. Truth be told we could probably have picked up a used desk cheaper but it has become a challenge and we are suckers for a challenge.

Will update as we progress.