Spring 2010 - Spring 2011 - A Cherry Desk

This desk took over a year to build.  I started in the Spring of 2010,  took the summer off and completed it the following Spring.

It's more overtly oriental than any of my previous pieces.  The design is completely original, and I'm not totally sure I know where it came from - creativity can be such a deeply mysterious, almost mystic process - I just knew I wanted something completely unique.  I think it might have stemmed from an idea I had after seeing the detail of the recessed door pull in a friend's custom bed side table coupled with my experience building the coffee table after the design of my sister's VERY overtly oriental table (see below).

My "design process" usually involves nothing more complicated than rough pencil sketches on scrap paper.  Surprisingly, it works.  This time though, I tried something different - a free software program by Google called "Sketchup".  It allows for modeling in 3-D, the ability to rotate the model to show any face, and can be dimensioned to any degree of precision desired.  I think that for the smaller projects the pencil sketches is still the way to go, but for the more involved projects, or anything where a 3-D model would be helpful to visualize the design, or perhaps as an aid in working with a prospective client on a comission, Sketchup can be a useful, powerful, and pretty entertaining tool with which to work out a design.

The desk is made of cherry with accents of maple and walnut.  The drawer cases as well as the drawers themselves are joined with dovetails, made using my neighbor's Leigh D4 Dovetail Jig.  This was my first experience with a dovetail jig, and to be honest it was a bit trying.  I suppose alot of it is that anything new takes time to master, but man, I struggled.  However I did persevere, and I would rate this as my finest piece yet.