Banca Desk

Dave Richards

Member
Messages
2,927
Location
SE Minnesota


I woke up at 2:00 am this morning and couldn't sleep so I started perusing some of the furniture design sites in my Favorites list. I came across some interesting pieces by a fellow by the name of Torsten Sherwood. I'm not a fan of some of his pieces but I like this desk. The corners are joined with box joints which creates interesting details at the tops of the legs.

On his website he has a link to a thing called the Sesame Seed Project. It's an "open design" thing with sort of plans for some pieces he's designed. Some of those pieces look rather flimsy and they are all rather rough, being made out of low grade pine and assembled with sheet rock screws but they might be useful as a starting point for designing your own furniture.

FWIW, although it may not look it, the grain is running the in correct direction on this piece. The texture is from a photo of a lovely piece of maple with ribbon grain. I bet it was a big challenge to plane it smooth.
 
Last edited:
Very interesting design. I really like the box joints at the top of the legs, and the "split" leading up to the top, but would prefer the table top overhang all four sides including the tops of the legs.
 
Rob, I can't take credit for the design but thank you.

Al, I suppose the aprons could be modified so the top clears the top of the legs. I just drew it as built and, except for the wood species, I didn't take any liberties with the design.
 
Are you planning on building it and selling it to an Entrepranuer for big bucks, or using it in your own home, or just daydreaming about it?

To me it looks like it would fit into a revrends office in a church (don't know why, just my first thought).

Looks like an easy to match credenza, and maybe some bookcases, and a big lateral file cabnet.
 
I don't know Scott. I was thinking it would be easy to riff on the design ideas and do a coffee table as well as side tables. Maybe a low case piece could be worked out of it, too. I mostly drew it because I needed something quiet to do at 2:00 this morning while the rest of the family slept. It sucks not being able to sleep through the night.
 
For a coffee table variant I think it might look nice with a floating top.

Certainly an interesting idea, sort of the exposed variant of the interlocking mortise. I'm unsure how well I'd like it in use - the low to negative overhang seems like it wouldn't be very functional as a kitchen type type. If you were using it only as a display piece I suppose that would be fine.
 
Side note - I'm wondering what the best way would be to make sure that the split on the legs doesn't travel.. I'm assuming that the legs are a 4 piece glue up so also getting the splits to all align could be .. interesting.
 


The legs are indeed four pieces glued together. They might be bent dry but I think I would steam bend them so they are less interested in straightening out. Getting the bends to come together properly would take a bit of care.
 
The legs are indeed four pieces glued together. They might be bent dry but I think I would steam bend them so they are less interested in straightening out. Getting the bends to come together properly would take a bit of care.

Yeah pre-bending around a form would probably be the best way... if they were slightly over bent then the table assembly would actually pull them together a wee bit.
I suppose even if they were a smidge off if you left the ends a few inches long in either direction you could just adjust them during the glue up.
 
Yeah. I was thinking that you might make a bending form that would allow all four piece to be bent at the same time. or perhaps just steaming them and clamping them over a dummy of the apron corner would work. I think the design would fail if the bends weren't the same in all four pieces and all four legs.
 
Top