Roger Schroeder

photo of oak panels attached

Hi, Robert,
I see, according to the membership roster, you’re in the Islips. I’m in Amityville. My address and phone number also in the roster.
If you can come between 9 and 10 tomorrow, Thursday, that would work really well for me. If not, the wood is under a blue plastic tarp near the garage.
You don’t have to take it all. You may envision no use for some of it. If boards and scraps end up in a friend’s fireplace, I feel that’s a decent final chapter. The curb-side pick up isn’t.
Roger

Guys,
Thank you all for the tips and advice. This is where the forum really pays off for me.
Roger

Thank guys. It will be in the November show.
I don’t build for ribbons, Daryl, but thank you for your generous thoughts. Your supportive responses are sincerely appreciated as are your tips on design and construction.
As for the wood, I studied lots of roll top desks. Most around the turn of the last century were built using quartered white oak, which I had been collecting for a while. I have seen ones in walnut, but rare. The antique roll top I own is mahogany, and I’ve only come across one other built from this wood. I think in person, if you can overlook my faults, you’ll appreciate how the grain and color really contribute so much to this small-scale desk. But there’s a look of age that the stain contributes to, and that was something I aimed for. Good ol’ Behlen stains.
As for mistakes, I was aware as I constructed the different frames that the rails must be running at a precise distance measured from the bottom or from the top of the frame. I constantly walked around the desk–my workbench is on wheels so I can move it into the center of the shop–as it came together, making sure I could eyeball a straight line along the top or bottom edges of the rails and of course take measurements. For the two tiers and modesty panel, I was on the money. But when I got to the tambour casework, I was 3/16″ off with one of the rails! Yikes!! So I rebuilt part of it. Yeah, attention to details, with no room for sloppiness.
And Charlie, I did have to redo the tambour roll. The canvas was way too porous, so I needed three coats of contact cement instead of two, and I had to turn the tambour with canvas side up and put pressure on the canvas to guarantee a strong bond. A shame to go through all that knowing I’ll probably never make another roll desk like this one again.
Hope this year is a productive one in your shops.
Roger

Thanks, guys, for the encouragement.
Yeah, contact cement has its minuses. I had to do the glue up in the garage or turn off the gas in the house. Dangerous stuff to work with, although I’ve read there’s a water-based cement which is pretty harmless.
I read about an antiques restorer who uses “old brown glue” to repair roll top tambours. I assume this is an old timers’ name for hide glue. I’m certain that before white and yellow glues became the norm, and before contact cement, hide glue was it.

Hi, Bill,
Thanks for the tips and advice.
If you came to my shop, you’d see a lot of yellow (Dewalt) and Naval colors (Delta).
Glad you’ve had good luck with Craftsman. I haven’t since I purchased my radial arm saw in 1976. The drill I need to replace is a Craftsman and, without a lot of use, the chuck barely chucks. Fortunately, it was a freebie in a raffle.
I looked around the shop and found only one Milwaukee tool: a small sander for lathe work. Nicely designed and made.
Will look into what Milwaukee is offering these days.
Best,
Roger

Photo of roll top in progress

Thanks, Joe. Praise is always appreciated, especially from a talented woodworker like yourself.
The tape? Well, care must be had in moving the desk, but the tape is holding. The color? Blue is a championship color. But, yeah, green isn’t. Honorable mention? Not acceptable!
As for the glue up of the end panels, it went smoothly. I was worried about racking, but the short stiles are wide enough to have provided some built-in squareness when assembling. The same for the rails. I did clamp the top and middle rails to the side stiles first, then clamped the bottom rail and short stiles in place. All is secure.
Work continues.
Roger

Charlie,
Thank you! You allayed my anxiety about using a forstner bit and offered a solution to achieving a concave to convex match of knob to curved drawer front.
Roger
PS. Stay tuned to some more head scratchers.