"The sQuik" A hardline watercooled custom corner casedesk

[sQuik]

This is going to help me out a bunch when going out to talk to the different wood guys and furniture makers!

 

I think i'm going to ask the local wood company tomorrow and ask to see what they would recommend of their wood's to use as a tabletop for my project, gonna bring along the tablet with all the sketches on so i can really show them what the purpose of the wood is.(probably wont get more done this weekend with easter and all)

 

Getting a hardwood desk top seems to have quite some things that could go wrong (having to glue up multiple tops and get the equipment for it) and is a tat expensive for my normal trial and error approach, so if i would be able to use either plywood or MDF for the tabletop that would be better in my case i think (i'm seeing alot of desk's being sold as having an table top of 22mm MDF core sandwiched in veneer, but i'm guessing that's duo to being a cheaper option)

[Shan-Dysigns]

For your top, if you are concerned about cost, you can use MDF and then veneer it, but that may be more $$$ than using hardwood plywood. The comparative cost is hardwood > hardwood plywood > plywood > MDF with veneer > MDF only ( MDF only being cheapest), but remember you get what you pay for. If you decide to just use MDF (no veneer) for your top, my concern would be the surface texture (roughness) of the wood. If you can, I would ask multiple lumber shops the same questions. I'm sure they can help you locally at this point. You should have a lot of ammo now to ask the right questions so that you get the right material.

[PcMarine52]

snipped

 

For your top, if you are concerned about cost, you can use MDF and then veneer it, but that may be more $$$ than using hardwood plywood. The comparative cost is hardwood > hardwood plywood > plywood > MDF with veneer > MDF only ( MDF only being cheapest), but remember you get what you pay for. If you decide to just use MDF (no veneer) for your top, my concern would be the surface texture (roughness) of the wood. If you can, I would ask multiple lumber shops the same questions. I'm sure they can help you locally at this point. You should have a lot of ammo now to ask the right questions so that you get the right material.

 

Hi been following just kinda wanted to weigh in on Ur project as i have some experience in wood working myself for your table top i would do the following if cost is a concern as this is what i did in my l desk that i did for my parents home office i took 2x6 boards and glued them together using wood glue and lots of clamps lol but u can circumvent this buy getting a nice thick plywood hardwood would be preferable because unlike the other plywood the hardwood is able to be brought to a nice finish when sanded down unlike mdf... on the other hand to save costs an aspect i totally understand what you can do is get the thick plywood that you were talking about earlier and then get a thin sheet of the hardwood ply to glue to the top /bottom if your so inclined and then sand that to a finish and stain and varnish etc etc .. What i did on my parents like i said i used 2x6s glued side by side (harder to do without proper space and tools) and then placed a hardwood ply Oak if i remember correctly that i had cut to size at the store and then glued that to the desk i can post a pic or 2 if you would like... o when staining remember this one tip for the best finish you need to apply a coat wipe the excess and then let dry sand and repeat until you  get the darkness your looking for also pay attention to the stains so that you can get the wood grain to come out in the wood if your so inclined or you can get stains that completely rid the boards of the grain hope this helps

[sQuik]

U guys rock! i think its duo to cost i see those tables in MDF over plywood then, i was maybe wondering if they did it because it would sag less than plywood, but i doubt that's the case. 

i think hardwood plywood in birch is going to be the wood used overall(except for some support beams and such), i guess that way it will all absorb the stain more or less the same way aswell my only concern at this point is if the table top will start to bend downwards slightly over time, or if u where to lean on it with your elbows being made of 18mm hardwood plywood, or if i would have to design some extra support (there will be a leg back in the corner there isn't on the drawings, the longest distance from leg to the leg back in the corner is 1350mm), my plan here is to take the sketches down to the local wood store and ask for an expert to help answer those questions, i can imagine the amount of sag depends on quality and many other variables, so hopefully they have a person down there that knows what their wood is more or less capable of.

[Janssent11041]

 

my only concern at this point is if the table top will start to bend downwards slightly over time, or if u where to lean on it with your elbows being made of 18mm hardwood plywood, or if i would have to design some extra support (there will be a leg back in the corner there isn't on the drawings, the longest distance from leg to the leg back in the corner is 1350mm), my plan here is to take the sketches down to the local wood store and ask for an expert to help answer those questions, i can imagine the amount of sag depends on quality and many other variables, so hopefully they have a person down there that knows what their wood is more or less capable of.

You can (if there's enough room) mount an L-bracket or two underneath the desk. And you can also just mount some kind of support (like a 2x4) against the wall to make sure the rear of the desk doesn't sag. If you go with these solutions the desk won't be moveable though.

[sQuik]

i was down talking to the local wood guys again and it should be fine with a hardwood plywood table top with my current design, they didnt have birch plywood in 18mm in house, but i got it ordered home. i'm going down there again tommorov to talk to a guy about staining and hopefully getting some samples and some sample wood to try it on.

 

 

You can (if there's enough room) mount an L-bracket or two underneath the desk. And you can also just mount some kind of support (like a 2x4) against the wall to make sure the rear of the desk doesn't sag. If you go with these solutions the desk won't be moveable though.

 

 

I think i'm going to do something similar but instead of mounting the 2x4 against a wall i'm going to connect them to a leg in the corner like this;

 

 

hopefully that should be enough to make sure it wont sag in the rear of the desk

[Shan-Dysigns]

I should have used Sketchup to do this, but I thought I could explain it faster using Photoshop (I think you will still get the idea). Speaking in terms of what @Janssent11041 said above about using 2" x 4" strips of wood for support (you could probably get away with just using 2" x 2" pine lumber strips for support), you could piece something together similar to the image below. If you search online for how a house floor is constructed, you will recognize this type of framing support. You could alter the direction of each board and their length so less would be visible from the front.

 

 

 

Use your imagination for this image. The yellow-ish strips on top of the table would represent the 2" x 4" or 2" x 2" wood supports underneath.

 

 

Keep in mind, if you do use some kind of support structure like this, you will need to adjust your corner leg. You would need a piece of 3/4" to 1.5" hardwood plywood (or you can probably just use 3/4" hardwood) cut (wide/long) enough to attach to the support strips, and then attach your corner leg to it (review image below).

 

 

Let me know if all this makes sense.

[sQuik]

Yes that makes alot of sense, i just want to make sure my long legs doesn't end up bumping into any beams underneath (that is 1 of the problems i run into quite often, being a taller person), but if i make it of 2x2 then there shouldn't be any problems. I could make the beams in the back that connect to the corner leg of 2x4 and the beam right where u sit of 2x2 just to save abit extra leg space.

[PcMarine52]

honestly if u make a thick enough desk top u shouldnt theoretically need the extra supports just the sides and the 2x2 in the back heres a video if u are curious on how to do the desk kinda like this just use this as an example on how to make the top 

[LegendKillerRG]

Someone did something very similar to this a while back. And it's very impressive. It'll be interesting to see more of these awesome builds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTv2hEfeFP4

[sQuik]

Someone did something very similar to this a while back. And it's very impressive. It'll be interesting to see more of these awesome builds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTv2hEfeFP4

Man i love the way he got that UV reactive green to look, i wish i could find some UV bright orange (much like the sleeving on my cables), but i can only seem to find some that turn out more like orange juice sadly. so either i'm going to see if i can mix up something to get the effect i'm looking for, else i guess it's blue or green for UV reactive dyes (i had a blue in mine previously wasn't really the effect i wanted with orange fans and orange sleeving)

[LegendKillerRG]

Man i love the way he got that UV reactive green to look, i wish i could find some UV bright orange (much like the sleeving on my cables), but i can only seem to find some that turn out more like orange juice sadly. so either i'm going to see if i can mix up something to get the effect i'm looking for, else i guess it's blue or green for UV reactive dyes (i had a blue in mine previously wasn't really the effect i wanted with orange fans and orange sleeving)

If you watch his videos of his desk building, he put the radiators under his house lol.. He have to crawl under to put it there because 580s runs crazy hot(3 cards running max can cook eggs with foil over it) and having it heat up inside the house isn't a good idea.

[sQuik]

maybe i should consider doing some redesigning to take advantage of the colder temps we get outside here in denmark(we go to something around -5c at winter, and hit around 30c in shorter periods in summer), and maybe make some outside mounted radiators, definitely worth looking into, i have been playing around with another design with the glass plate in the corner wich might be more suitable for such a system, that way i'm just running into leg space problems that i'm currently trying to find a workaround for (might do something similar to his design with a little cutout for the legs,

[sQuik]

 

second design idea, not sure about how complicated i have made it by having a circular cutout in the glass plate. I do like this design better in some ways though, being able to sit and watch directly down into the abyss while sitting and playing is most likely going to make me able to enjoy it alot more, as long as the glare doesn't become too much.

[Shan-Dysigns]

I do like this design better in some ways though, being able to sit and watch directly down into the abyss while sitting and playing is most likely going to make me able to enjoy it alot more, as long as the glare doesn't become too much.

 

If you are going to get this fancy with a tempered glass plate, you might as well play with the curved side. I think it adds a lot to your overall look, but will definitely change your support structure. I imagine you are going to sit where your legs fit underneath the glass (in the middle). This might make your legs boxed in, but you could adjust for that. I've made many ergonomic measurements for how I would want to move around while working (distance for my legs to move and swivel, arms, etc.). Make sure you design this ergonomically before its wow factor, but what you've done here is getting closer to some of my plans (so I've already thought about all the things I need to think about when it comes to measurement and support). I'm shorter (thankfully), so I don't have to worry about leg space as much. But, considering your monitor(s) will be in the corner, I think you are getting close to glare issues (like I originally mentioned in this thread). Anyway, I like the change.

[sQuik]

If you are going to get this fancy with a tempered glass plate, you might as well play with the curved side. 

What do u mean play with the curved side? 

 

Yea i think the biggest issues with this design is going to be glare, if u notice the video's on the L3P d3sk that got linked in here too there is alot of glare to notice in his setup, might just be the filming angle though.

 

one thing i do love about this design too, is that it makes good room for a spot to a mini-fridge and a phase change cooling system under where the pc components would have been on the previous design

[Shan-Dysigns]

What do u mean play with the curved side?

 

I mean "play" as in to move forward with that idea. Maybe it's more of a locational term (American term).

[sQuik]

I mean "play" as in to move forward with that idea. Maybe it's more of a locational term (American term).

 

ahh i get u now, yea i really like the way the 2nd design looks with the curved glass, so i'm pretty much decided on going that way instead.

[sQuik]

Got the second design finished in sketchup and mocked up where i wanted the components and if they would fit.

 

 

Component layout;

 

 

Going to make the top and the visible sides of birch plywood, and the rest of MDF wood (just duo to it being alot easier to work with at thoose places)

So should be able to get started sometime the upcoming week hopefully!

[Shan-Dysigns]

Looks good. Keep posting updates.

[Shan-Dysigns]

Hope you get sponsored for this build, keep it up

 

How "do" people get sponsored for builds? I always thought the only ones who got sponsored were those with social media accounts with a large number of followers, but I've seen threads where people seemingly are sponsored, but they never mention any social media accounts nor do they advertise that they have any social media accounts. It seems some of these people are just thrown various components. How does one even approach a vendor about sponsorship?

[sQuik]

How "do" people get sponsored for builds? I always thought the only ones who got sponsored were those with social media accounts with a large number of followers, but I've seen threads where people seemingly are sponsored, but they never mention any social media accounts nor do they advertise that they have any social media accounts. It seems some of these people are just thrown various components. How does one even approach a vendor about sponsorship?

 

Good question indeed, i have actually thought about reaching out to the company that has supplied me with most of my gear so far, just not quite sure how to go about that (not so much for sponsorship only, but also just to have them over the project to help finding parts and such, would like to get my hands on some 400mm frozenQ liquid fusion resevoirs ) 

[sQuik]

Got the MDF for the "frame" cutout and ready, going to get the wood for the bottom cutout here today or tomorrow so i can start putting it together  

 

 

Looking into getting a dslr camera for some better quality pictures in the future.

[sQuik]

Hey everybody, after having some issues i had to take care of, i had to put the project on hold and actually forgot abit about this post sadly.

 

But now that is all sorted out i'm starting up the project again ! i got still had most of the wood i got cut out before i had to put everything on hold, and i got the bottom piece for the underside cutout today, so i'm going to start putting the underside for the pc part together tomorrow!

 

Hope all of u haven't lost interest completely

[Overkilled]

You stumbled across a desk like that? Where?