Tools
I designed the desk around the tools I had at hand. A small table saw, jig saw, drill, and router, along with a few hand tools.
Fasteners
This desk was designed around the fasteners. Screws don’t hold very well in end-grain. The 3½” long ⅜″ bolts hold the feet and desktop supports and 1/4″ lag screws go through a lap joint at the end of the stringer and into the leg through the dado rather than into the end-grain of the stringer. You will need ⅜″ and 1/4″ brad point drills for clearance holes and a 3/16″ for pilot holes for the lag screws.
Design
The Baltic Birch plywood comes in 5′ by 5′ sheets. The lumberyard cut this in half for me, but I later found it would have been better if desktop portion was 2″ wider. This would have left a nicer overhang of the feet and desktop supports.
From the smaller portion, cut eight 7½″ high pieces. These should then be cut to a pattern made from bristol board, like the one seen behind the router in the above picture, with a jigsaw or scroll saw. The best of these will become a template to make them all uniform size by using a template bit in your router. The edges that don’t contact the floor or desktop may then be rounded using a ⅜″radius bit.
These large feet and desktop supports will allow you some tolerance for uneven cuts or floors.
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