Jeff Segal Cabinetmaker - Handmade furniture in the Arts and Crafts tradition

Pegged oak office desk

Pegged oak desk - front view

Pegged oak desk - drawer dovetail detailPegged oak desk - top view

Pegged oak desk - rear viewPegged oak desk - joint detail

Office desk in solid English pippy oak with pegged joints

This large hand-made desk in solid pippy oak is the first of a suite of three commissioned for a busy office in London. It's got a country feel to it, with influences from the English and American Arts and Crafts movements, and the engineering draws on traditional timber framing techniques.

Just like the beams in a mediaeval barn, each of the 22 three-way joints is securely locked with a square 'peg'. As well as giving the desk massive strength and stability, the little protruding pegs also make a pleasing decorative effect.

There's a quiet beauty, too, in the pippy oak (Quercus robur), which displays a swirl of 'cat's paw' knots on the desktop surface and glittering silver rays on the two drawer fronts and the horizontal rails. It comes from a couple of logs I bought that were grown in Perton Wood in Staffordshire, near Wolverhampton.

To find out more about how the joints work and how this piece was built, take a look at my project diary.

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