curved reception desk

[reck123]

Good afternoon uk worskhoppers. I wanted to ask your opinion on the following. This just landed in my inbox and I was asked to quote for it. A rather large chunk of a reception desk to be made from solid wood.

Whilst i'm a competent woodworker I haven’t built something with curves on this scale before. The curved slat section has a length of 2855 mm and with the added wings reaches 3695 mm

What would be your method of building such a thing. My idea would be to create a curved form from ply that then gets veneered. Then the covering slats would with be steamed bent or bent laminated to cover. neither of which technique I have much experience with.
Also what would be your quote for such a piece its undoubtedly a lot of work and materials costs won’t be cheap either?

 

[niall Y]

A nice, enjoyable job, to quote for,

My gut feeling, like yours, would be to go for ply to form the main shape of the desk front,, with steam bent elements applied., Though these might best be glued up from thin layers of solid wood. It will probably be much easier to control. Also, there is no really direct line of sight that would make this method of construction noticeable. I'm a bit confused over the grain direction of the top as it seems to run along the length of the piece except where it is jointed into the verticals of the back with the rather blocky finger joints. At this point there will be side grain, which might present problems,, unless it is reinforced in some way.

Likewise, the little side shelf which seems to be showing side grain on the end - only possible with lipped board.

If you are using ply for the main form, then - if I am reading it correctly - the grain appears to be running vertically on the inside and horizontally on the outside. Something easily achieved ,if you use multiple layers of ply to build up the form.

Best of luck Niall

 

[reck123]

Thank you niall for the valued input. A good shout about glueing up the pieces from thin ply and as you pointed out there won't be a direct line of sight. I was given an old vacum press bag from a guitar builder friend of mine. so i'm thinking now it might be better to create a form just for the curved end parts. batch those out and domino them to the long straight horizonals to create the whole piece. or just have a shadow gap between the straight parts and the curved horizontal part. yes no idea whats going on where the top surface meets the vertical part. I would re-design this section. I guess for now i'm going to throw a fairly high number out and see what comes back before delving too much in to it.

 

[HOJ]

That would a good project to get, If they have gone to the lengths of producing this image, I would expect them to have detailed drawings
that would show the dimensional, construction and specification requirements, in order to send out for competitive quotations.

I have done a few big curved pedestals and tops, which were all made with mixture of ply/mdf and solid wood lamination's, using a vacuum press, along with some specifically made, bought in polystyrene moulds, which I have kept for the day when another job comes in!

I was given an old vacum press bag

Did you get the pump as well?

I guess for now i'm going to throw a fairly high number out and see what comes back before delving too much in to it.

Please don't just clutch a random number, my advice would be get as much detail as you can, work out a cost then apply the rule: anything with curves in it, then TREBLE IT!.

 

[Yojevol]

Here's my suggestion for the main structure

Brick build the carcass from say 10 & 16mm ply. These would be straight lengths and curved 'hockey sticks' about 50mm wide.
They would be built up in modules of 3 x 16mm ply and 1 x 10mm ply.
The 48mm modules would then be lipped with 3 x 6mm laminas and the 10mm ones lipped with a 2mm strip.

After cleaning up they would all be stacked and glued to achieve the full height

I would not recommend steam bending as it will be difficult to get consistent results. In this design they've got to be perfect.

The biggest problem I can foresee is finding good straight timber which will need to be about 5m long. This may influence your material choice. It would help if there were the possibility of a join in the centre but this would certainly detract from the design.

Food for thought
Brian
.

 

[gazuzu]

Design looks great, my only 2 cents on it would be to eliminate the recess for the monitors.
If they ever upgrade to a wider monitor that doesn't fit the recess they'll be forced to have it forwards and possibly fighting for desk real estate with the keyboard.

 

[Cabinetman]

Also the pieces of vertical wood at the back will be the bane of the receptionists life, they will constantly catching it with their elbows.
You did say that it was to be made from solid wood though. Do be careful if the client is expecting solid and you veneer!
The confusing direction of grain is due to the thing being drawn up on a computer by someone who literally hasn’t got the first idea! Problems will occur if the client is also clueless.
Personally, even though it would be wasteful in terms of wood I would look at making it out of solid pieces. For a start it would be quicker. Messing about with veneer which won’t stand up to the rigours of chairs catching the edges can be hugely time consuming.
I think that beautifully finished end grain sweeping round the corner would look fantastic.
This will be VERY heavy, perhaps incorporate two vertical lines in the front and make it in three pieces?
Ian
Edit, forget the vertical lines- bad idea, just split it horizontally into 3.

 

[reck123]

Thank you all for such valuable and useful input. it's very helpful indeed to have so much experience and insight in one place.

I put out a quote yesterday based on my material calculations and anticipated work. they seemed keen on me but got back to me saying they received an offer for 5k and could I match it. I quoted just over twice that.

The aggressively competitive offer just seems totally dubious/unrealistic from a materials and production standpoint considering they want it all out of solid hardwood. Which I voiced in my response without sounding bitter.

seems I have no choice to put this one on ice for the moment untill i maybe hear back from them again. thank you all once again for the fantastic feedback

 

[Ollie78]

Thank you all for such valuable and useful input. it's very helpful indeed to have so much experience and insight in one place.

I put out a quote yesterday based on my material calculations and anticipated work. they seemed keen on me but got back to me saying they received an offer for 5k and could I match it. I quoted just over twice that.

The aggressively competitive offer just seems totally dubious/unrealistic from a materials and production standpoint considering they want it all out of solid hardwood. Which I voiced in my response without sounding bitter.

seems I have no choice to put this one on ice for the moment untill i maybe hear back from them again. thank you all once again for the fantastic feedback

Just trying it on maybe ? I would not be surprised if you get a call back once the other quoter (if they exist ) finds out the material costs will cost almost as much as his price.

 

[Cabinetman]

It’s nice to be appreciated, thank you.
A very quick guesstimate, the solid Oak would be £1750. So you were correct to let someone else work for next to nothing per hour. And yes they may come back, good luck.
Ian

 

[niall Y]

Wait and see, I've thrown drawings and quotes in the bin, only for the job to be resurrected by a phone call, months later.

If the job does come your way, it might be worth discussing with the client about how to tackle it. Making the top and the side shelves out of thickly lipped and veneered board is going to give you the look of the rendered image, whereas solid wood won't.

"I want it in solid wood" is often a shorthand for " I don't want chipboard with edge banding" One can still have robust well made furniture with the judicious use of both solid wood and veneered board. Often the client just needs to be reassured that what is made will be of top quality.

 

[worn thumbs]

Thank you all for such valuable and useful input. it's very helpful indeed to have so much experience and insight in one place.

I put out a quote yesterday based on my material calculations and anticipated work. they seemed keen on me but got back to me saying they received an offer for 5k and could I match it. I quoted just over twice that.

The aggressively competitive offer just seems totally dubious/unrealistic from a materials and production standpoint considering they want it all out of solid hardwood. Which I voiced in my response without sounding bitter.

seems I have no choice to put this one on ice for the moment untill i maybe hear back from them again. thank you all once again for the fantastic feedback

I suspect they are hopeful of your quality at a mythical price point,maybe a budget has been allocated and you exceeded their guess or a buyer might be on a commission based on what discount he can achieve.That kind of stunt is all too common and your best course of action is to stick to your guns.I would hazard that they will be back in touch and still trying for a discount.At worst,somebody else will catch a cold trying to produce it for a bargain basement quote.You might ask for a fully detailed construction drawing as it could knock a lot of time off the job and I doubt the interior designer would know where to start.The justification you advance in asking could be that you have a CNC cutting service down the road and if you supply CAD data for all parts,the setting out time will be reduced by a (rather modest!) percentage,but only if CAD drawings of every single component can be sent to you.

 

[Cabinetman]

@worn thumbs "and I doubt the interior designer would know where to start" well worth it just to get his knickers in a twist. Interior designers do have their place, but designing pieces of furniture shows most of them up. Damhik.

 

[HOJ]

put this one on ice for the moment untill i maybe hear back from them again.

And when they do tell them its gone up 1K

Did you actually get any other details or did you price it from the pictures?