Simple desk from weathered 2x12's & old steel

[texan16]

Dang near got it licked now. That is gonna be a cool table man.

[dustoffer]

Once you are finished, how about an estimate of the hours involved in the build?

Just interested--

[EliteDriver]

Very nice job!!

[Tsnow]

Cool table, any updates?

[Carpe_diem]

It's coming along nicely, good job!

[Brad96]

Hours

Once you are finished, how about an estimate of the hours involved in the build?

Just interested--

Hmmm, good idea, but I haven't kept track of my hours at all. I can say that it's taken a LOT longer than I had expected. Every detail takes longer than normal, when working with old, warped wood, and old, rusty metal.

[Brad96]

Structurally Complete

Thanks! I really appreciate all the compliments and encouraging comments.

I did get the leg braces welded on, so the table is now structurally complete. Time to take it back apart to start removing rust and painting steel.

Check out this bullet hole that I found when I was measuring a piece of square tube for the back leg brace. I didn't notice it when I was harvesting metal from the dock hand rails, but saw it when I was getting ready to cut the tube to fit the table. I could have cut it out, welded it up, or used a different piece of tubing. But, this table is all about the interesting character of older materials, so I left it in. I just turned the sharp bits toward the back, so that I won't scratch myself if I put my bare feet up on that back brace.

[Brad96]

Painting

This next step is a little sad. I painted over the beautiful brown-and-white patina of the old steel angle, and the rusty square tube. I could never have duplicated that look on the new steel, and thought it would look weird to have the old and new metal mismatched.

So, I took the worst of the rust off with a small wire wheel on my drill, and wiped everything with mineral spirits. Then, applied a solid coating of Rust-oleum rusty metal primer, followed by a light coat of satin black. The light coat left a little bit of variation in the surface finish. I didn't think that a solid coat of gloss black would go well with the old wood, but also didn't want to go to all the trouble of a faux rust finish.

I also lightly burned the wood with a small torch, only where bare sawn wood was exposed, to darken it up a bit.

So, here it is, reassembled and waiting for the epoxy clear coat. I'm going to give the paint a little more time to fully cure before I start with the epoxy.

[texan16]

Very nice !!!

[JayB]

In for the final. Looks really good.

.....and God Bless America.

[MikeyG]

Now the question stands.....how much would you sell this for? More or less than $874?
If I had the time/skill to put into something like that, I can almost guarantee I would try to sell it for more (if I were going to sell it).

and for the record, I am very impressed with your work - that is a beautiful piece.

[twosixteens]

Very nice

[Brad96]

Now the question stands.....how much would you sell this for? More or less than $874?
If I had the time/skill to put into something like that, I can almost guarantee I would try to sell it for more (if I were going to sell it).

and for the record, I am very impressed with your work - that is a beautiful piece.

Great question. I was just thinking about that the other day. Now that it's almost finished, if someone were to offer me $874 for the table, I would have to think about it pretty hard. Even if it's not quite professional quality, I have a bunch of hours invested in this thing.

I'm still glad I built it instead of buying one. But, the price from IndustEvo doesn't seem so crazy now.

[Brad96]

Clear on bottom

For everyone waiting for the final pictures, we're almost there!

I've never worked with this epoxy clear coat stuff before, so I started on the bottom of the desk. I'm using Kleer Koat by U.S. Composites. It looks wet in the picture, but that has already cured. It's just super glossy, like water. It also darkened the color of the wood as it wet the surface, which I wasn't expecting. This stuff is messy to work with, but I knew to expect that.

I wrote my name and date and where the materials came from on the bottom wood, and embedded a couple of pictures in the epoxy. Just in case this table is still in use by somebody after I'm gone, and they're curious about where it came from.

[RifleBowPistol]

I like it, pretty nice looking.