Simple desk from weathered 2x12's & old steel

[Brad96]

Finished!

It's finally done. Unfortunately, I ran out of epoxy while doing the "flood coat" on top, so the top surface is not nearly as smooth as the bottom. It's not real obvious unless you're looking for it, though. I can always sand it down and add another coat of epoxy to smooth it out. Not right now, though. I'm behind on other projects.

Thanks for following along! I'll post a list of lessons-learned later.

[Blane]

Sharp work.

[Ouch]

Bang up job. Very nice!

[Mary]

Wow...love it. Really nice work!

[texan16]

That turned out really nice man, you will enjoy that for a long time.

[bowmansdad]

Wow! What a beautiful piece of work, you have mad skills!

[JayB]

I will say it turned out pretty cool looking. You can be proud to pay those bills while sitting at the desk you made from repurposed parts.

[Brad96]

Thanks!

Thanks all for the compliments. I'm certainly no carpenter and don't have any special skills at this, but I learned a lot along the way.

Just in case it helps anyone else, here's a short list of lessons-learned:

1. Working with old, warped wood is a lot more work than using new, straight boards. I would totally do it again, but next time I would know up-front that it's going to be more time-consuming, dealing with the irregularities.
2. Similarly, and not surprisingly, working with old metal takes more time, because you have to deal with rust before painting.
3. Despite #2, I wish that I had worked harder to use only reclaimed metal, instead of buying some new pieces. Then I could have left the natural patina on the metal, although I still would have had to deal with the rust.
4. The clear epoxy will darken the wood, kind of like wetting it with water, but permanently so. I'm fine with the final color, but just didn't expect it to darken so much.
5. I used the epoxy manufacturer's guidelines to estimate how much epoxy I would need, but ran short. I should have bought extra. The old, cracked wood soaked up more epoxy than new wood, some of it dripped through the holes, and some of it ran off of the edges. I think their estimate would have been perfect if not for those factors.
6. I think that thicker 2x2" legs would look better than the 1x2" tube that I used.

Now I kind of want to build another one, so I could do things differently and make some improvements. But, I don't have time for that. Other projects are waiting.

Thanks for following along!

[LouisianaExpat]

Wow that turned out great. Thanks for the lessons learned!

[bgleaton]

Awesome job!

[Merrick7.3]

looks great!!

[atcfisherman]

Excellent job