Building a new Work Desk - ideas

[MoparGreg]

Hi everyone,

Finally I have decided to get a desk dedicated to building slotcars & for working on the track. Up to this day I have been dragging my stuff out onto the dining table & packing it away & has been a real bore. So finally a dedicated desk. Anyways the interior of my house is all period 1950's mid century modern. Ive looked at retro desks as well as new desks & have decided to custom make my own. The desk will be 10 foot long & probably 2 foot deep. I want to build something that will tie in with the 1950s look of the rest of my furniture.

I have a few plans but 1 plan im keen on I need some input. The tabletop will be wooden, Ply or MDF. Im thinking of lining the entire tabletop with old car advertisements, mopar only of course. Mopars from the 50s & maybe up to the early 70's. ISo I was thinking of either getting a sheet of glass to sit over the top of the advertisements. Or maybe some kind of clear polyurethane or something to seal the paper advertisements.

I want a durable surface so I would like some ideas or thoughts based on my idea. Is glass an ok surface to work on? If not to use glass, maybe some type of poly or something? WHat product, how smooth will it be? How durable.

The other thing I worry about is the adverts fading over time? How to prevent this.

Any help would be great before I jump in the deep end. If you havent noticed I like to make things hard for my self. But making it myself I will get something the right size & unique. In the end I hope the desk will get me building again. No desk is a big reason I havent built much lately as Im to lazy after the kids go to bed to get everything out

[ListerStormGT]

A friend of mine I work with just made a outside bar for his backyard. Being the beach type of guy he covered the top with all kinds of tropical and beach type pictures and then covered it in 6 coats of polyurethane. Looked very nice and smooth when finished. Not sure how well it would hold up as a work surface, but maybe if thick enough you could wet-sand a scratched area and re-coat with the urethane when needed? Maybe Rob could chime in on this since I know he makes furniture and he may know better than I.

[Czar]

A couple of thoughts. I would be reluctant to use glass for the top. If you drop - make that, when you drop a pair of pliers, or a small hammer you could easily break or chip the glass. For how to treat the top surface I would make three recommendations. First, make sure your underlying photos, articles, etc. are not too busy looking or cluttered. That can make it very hard to find small items as they tend to get "camouflaged" with all the text and images below. A busy background will also increase and hasten eye fatigue. Maybe even consider an "undecorated" area where you actually do most of your detail work. For the surface I would look at the resin used by folks who are into decoupage. It can be applied quite thickly and is impervious to water; Many bars and restaurants use this method. But, I am sure it is soft enough that it will scratch and gouge if you cut on it without using a protective surface for cutting. I have made several darkroom sinks from plywood. I have always sealed them from water with a spar marine varnish. But again, you will need to protect the surface when cutting. Hope this helps.

[Derby City Speedway]

Greg,
I like a simple table for my work area, when I first started modeling (not slots) long ago. I found that to many storage bins, holding areas I call them, added to much distraction to keep me focused on a single project.
So I have a plain 4 foot, old lunchroom type table with fold out legs. A peg board that hangs on the wall in front with parts and tools. I have a 2 foot wide plastic shelf unit to my right that houses my power supply, and the not so frequently used tools. 2 dremels that hang from the rafter to my right also.

[Florida_Slotter]

MoparGreg,

A large work surface is a wonderful thing. However "Murphy" says that a larger work surface takes a lot of work to keep clean.

I have a piece of granite that one of my friends gave to me. It's about 12 x 24 inches and that is where I do 99% of my work. My granite is mounted on a typical 30 x 60 inch office desk, so I have a lot of built in storage area. The top of the desk is covered in floor tile so I can change it WHEN it becomes damaged due to putting the mini anvil up on it and flailing away with a hammer on a reticent slot car part!

While a large work surface is nice to have, the amount of clutter is directly proportional to the size of the work area.

[Czar]

Another thought, as Mark mentioned the peg board to hold tools.You can make a nifty tool bar by using a drill to make the appropriate sized hole for some of the old button magnets you have laying around, if you are not a mag racer. It is easy to organize your tools and it looks really cool to see the tools "suspended" with no visible means of support.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

These are all good solid ideas. Just a few things to add.

Stay away from glass altogether. A desktop glass is very expensive tempered and finished edge glass, or its garbage waiting to make a disaster, like the ones most furniture stores sell. You could go with acrylic, even polycarbonate, but then you have a heat problem, and it scratches, too, in addition to costing a lot.

Eye fatigue is a huge factor in enjoyment of this hobby. The older we get (starting in your 30s), the more light our eyes need for adequate sight, especially with little bits and pieces, like Slot.it set screws, for example. A background that isn't plain and light colored defeats good lighting. My wife's quilting room has sprouted so many lights over the years, I have been taking several out at a time and replacing them with one much larger lamp. When she's in full production, it looks like a surgery in there.

My preferred work surface is 3/4 inch yellow pine plywood, which I sand clean from time to time. But my worktable is in a woodshop, so sanding dust all over really doesn't matter. Here's a little craziness for you, just for fun. There are a lot of people interested in the kitchiness of the 50s. They restore lots of pieces to brand new condition, which makes them better than anything available for sale today because the materials were far superior to the dreck they make furniture from today. People pay me thousands for furniture made the old ways because they want quality, and they have a lot of money. I only do a few pieces a year these days, but when I was healthy and young, I stayed very busy. I say all that to say this... Those folks who are restoring the 1950s stuff are getting materials from somewhere, and its current production, so somebody out there is making it. Why not cover the table top with some of that crazy, bright colored Formica from the 50s? The simplified construction is easy to do, and the techniques for laying sheet laminates is so easy you won't believe you haven't been doing it for years. Just a double layer of 3/4 plywood that has been sanded and sealed on top, then cover it with the laminate. The side pieces trim up even with the top of the ply, then the top laminate goes on top. Trim to finish the job. Nothing to it, and you have a piece of furniture that matches your house. You could even arrange to make it like a sideboard in the dining room that is a match to your table.

I have a couple of large dinette sets from the 50s in my barn that came from my in-laws place when we cleared it to sell the house, and I understand they are worth a fortune, so I bet there's websites that sell that Formica (Wilsonart is better) laminate in loads of 1950s designs.

One more thing... Laminates are allergic to concentrated heat like solder that drips from the work sometimes, and heat guns. You will need a portable surface for hot stuff. A home baking equipment place or even a simple cooking store like Williams-Sonoma will have many kinds of cooling stones and pizza stones that will work great for this. Cooling stones are used to provide even cooling for poured things, like fudge, pulled candies, etc. Pizza stones are flat smooth ceramic surfaces that in addition to being impervious to hot soldering, are also a handy heat sink for getting the work cooled off quicker for handling as well as isolating heat in one spot keeping the rest of the piece from getting loose and out of alignment. The pizza stone is porous, so it will stain, a cooling stone is slick (usually marble), and probably won't stain, but it weighs a ton. Another source is trophy parts. Large trophies are made from plinths of white marble with metal columns. I imagine cheap plastic has replaced marble in some of them, but there are bound to be old trophy shops around who have chunks of broken or mismatched marble slabs.

For a cutting surface, just pick up a cutting mat from a sewing place. Simple solution, and it can be stashed out of the way when you don't need it.

[RazorJon]

I have a 1950 GI issue desk, it has a steel top covered in a thin wood, my magnets get some pull

I have beat, banged, chopped, sawed, drilled and bent stuff on this baby and its tough as a battleship

[Ember]

If you keep your advertising images in certain non-working areas you should be right.

And if you go ahead with the idea the stuff to use is Modpodge. It is made just for the task you are talking about, decoupage. It's thick and white but dries to a clear gloss or satin finish. Build up a few layers for resilience.

I'd put a fine bead edge around the top and pour a two part, self leveling epoxy surface over the top of that. It'd give you depth and extra protection and the kind of gloss those man made surfaces were all about in the day. Plus it's uber hard.

[MoparGreg]

Thanks for the feedback. Not exactly the feedback I was expecting but great feedback. I never really thought about having a "loud" bench top & it may not be so great for a modelling. To clear a few things up.

* The reason for its length of 10 foot is Ill probably be sharing it with my wife who scrapbooks. She can easily fill up the entire dining table when she gets going. Space fills quickly when you get a 12"x12" album & photos. I may pare the length back to 8foot as that is the length of a MDf or Ply sheet. In saying that my local wood merchant says a 10foot sheet is no drama.

* I can't hang anything on the walls in front of the desk as there is a window there. The window is not in direct sunlight light though as there is a pergola over the back part of the house.

* Laminate, Yeah love the idea but that is very expensive for the laminate I would use. All the good laminate is in the US only. The place that reproduces it is Heffrons. I priced it up as I wanted to redo the bench tops in my kitchens with an Atomic boomerang pattern but it was about $400-500 per sheet by the time it got here. Then I need to get it installed on the wood. Looking into it for the future though.

Maybe Im crazy but I don't think a "Busy" or "loud" work surface will bother me. I guess I won't know until I finish it as to how it will affect my modelling. I have a blue cutting Mat that I use, so that will cover my work surface when Im building. My whole house is rather bright, actually very eye opening to many. Most people's reaction is wow at first. Everything is Bright, nothing is dull! Ill take a few pics in a month or 2 as the house is a shambles again atm with some construction happening. New flooring, doors being ripped out, painting, building a pergola.

Anyway thanks for the help, Im going to think about it for a while as I have a few other things to sort out before I get to the new desk.