X leg Office Desk
This office desk is a spin off of my X leg bench. A reader suggested it and I thought that was a great idea! I also modeled plans for an X leg dining table and a console table. With this plan you can build with very simple construction to create a sturdy, inexpensive desk. For about $30, it’s hard to beat!
Build an X leg Office Desk
Supplies:
- Five 60″ 2×6’s
- Four 96″ 2×4’s
- 2 1/2″ wood screws
- wood glue
Tools needed:
- Miter saw that cuts up to 49 degree miter (mine cuts up to 55 degrees)
- pipe clamps (lots of them)
Step 1: Build your desktop. Use glue and clamps to glue up the 2×6’s into one large slab. You can use a belt sander to sand down the top and get rid of the seams where the planks were glued together.
Glueing tip: It’s easiest to work in pairs. Glue up two pairs of 2×6’s and then sandwich the last one in between the two pairs for final glue-up.
Step 2: Build leg boxes. Use wood glue and 2 1/2″ wood screws in each joint.
*It takes two 2×4’s, cut as shown below, to create each “leg”.
If you don’t want to mess with the angles, you could always leave the X’s out.
Step 3: Cut angles for X leg pieces.
4. Cut notches for half lap joint
Once you have two X pieces cut, insert them into the box (they’ll only fit halfway in at this point) and mark where they cross. Mark one side then flip the entire leg over and mark the other side.
Cut out the wood where you just marked – but only halfway down on both boards — this creates a half lap joint.
To cut out the notches, I used my miter saw and made a series of cuts about 1/8″ apart from each other — just to the halfway mark on each board. Then I broke out the wood that was left.
Now the legs should fit together like this.
Attach the leg boxes leaving an even amount of desktop reveal on the outside, front and back of legs. I show 1″ in my drawings. Follow instructions in x leg bench tutorial to secure box and then legs to desk!
Sand, stain or paint and top it off with poly or your favorite topcoat, (maybe a few coats of wax) and you should have a sturdy desk that cost you around $30.
More plans you might like:
If you like this plan you might also like my plans for the X-leg Console Table and the X-leg Dining Table.
How did you cover up that nail holes in the legs?
This is definitely not a plan for “fine furniture”. It’s a quick and dirty plan to build a simple, chunky desk out of construction lumber. The X is simply for design, it’s not structural.
No cabinet or furniture piece will sit well on an uneven floor without the help of levelers or…shoving a wedge under a leg or two. There are lots of things you can do to fix that problem.
Well executed but the design is mechanically illiterate.
Does not withstand longitudinal racking.
Uses an excessive amount of wood.
Will not sit well on an uneven floor.
The x-timber is in the wrong plane…….
Always a good idea to look at traditional forms and constructions and ask, “why did they do it like that”.
These are the result of centuries of evolution. Strength, economy and asthetics.
Practical is good. If you inderstand pin joints, encastre joints, bending moments, second moment of area, torsional index/constant, trusses, stress distributions etc–you will look at a structure or framework and instictively know it is right, better when it is truely brilliant and walk away thinking “if only I had known that before’.
What you do IS great. Admire your drive and enthusiasm. Bookwork, study and learning will speed you up in the future. Take the knowledge of many life times that already exists and push beyond it.
Please keep going I would really like you to show the potential that you evidently have.
Sounds super cool! I know what you mean about working bent over. My neck gets super sore from sanding parts on my assembly table for long periods. Working on an adjustable height table for that.
My husband and I used the leg portion of your plans, but we made them taller. I wanted a craft/sewing table, but painting bent over hurts your back. The taller desk is great. I also used an antique door that we used for the top