Pegged oak office desk
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.