Scaffold Board Desk

I needed to build myself a desk, as what i had is old and falling apart.

You can scale this up or down as much as you want, and it's really easy to put together.

You Need.

3 Scaffold Boards @3.9 metres long, or smaller if your making a smaller desk.

Tools:

Wood Glue

Planing tool

Circular Saw or Hand Saw

Drill with wood bit

Dowels

Large Clamps

I chose 3 of the best looking boards out of the reclaimed boards i had picked up.

I took the edge banding off with a claw hammer.

I then decided to plane the edges down, so they fit together as close as possible.

The boards were ready to put together.

The basic premise here is lots of glue.

I put the boards on a couple of workbenches to get them lined up.

The next step is not required but sometimes useful.

I put 5 dowels in all the way down to make sure the boards line up.

Put glue all the way down the edges of the boards.

Use the clamps to pull the boards together and leave the glue to cure.

One thing i noticed through the process, was the boards started cupping a little when i tightened the clamps.

For this situation i decide to use some scrap lengths of wood which spanned the three boards, and screwed them in, what will be the underneath of the desk, until the boards sat straight. I then tightened the clamps as much as possible, to make sure they were tight, all the way down.

After the glue had cured overnight and the clamps came off, the boards looked good.

I made sure i gave a little wiggle room on the length, so i could accurately cut the whole lot to length.

After doing this, i took the power plane to the top to get rid of most of the unevenness.

I then sanded at 80 grit and worked up to 240 grit.

Things looked nice at this point. So i used Briwax, Antique Mahogany to give it a bit of colour and a nice finish. At this point, if there are still issues with the planing and sanding, they will show up here, and you can easily go back to the sander to even things out more.

In the interests of keeping costs down and upcycling unused items, i used an old metal dog pen to do this.

I used a vice and workbench to bend the angles i wanted, and then a large hammer to bend over the little loops, which i would be using to secure the cage to the underneath of the desk.

To cut the cages to size i used an angle grinder and a size 8 cutting wheel.

This was fun.

As the desk was as wide as the room, it took a little angling to get it in, first one way to get it past the bookshelves, and then angle it the other way, to slot it past the windowsill.

It ended up about 3mm from either end.

For my purposes i use an antique map drawer to set the height and balance the desk on, and either end, some cheap ikea desk stands either side. You can use anything as desk stands really.

I used the bent over loops to secure the cages to the bottom of the desk with short screws.

These held the PC, power supplies and wiring out of the way of my feet and the floor.

I installed the computer to the desk and added everything back on.

I hope this was an interesting instructable. Watching the video will help with some of the explanations, and the timelapses are pretty cool as well.

Any questions, or feedback, please drop me a comment.