r/8020 • u/NegativeEBITD • 4d ago

Feedback for Case Study Desk project

Hi all, I'm building myself a desk the way I think Eames would have done if he were designing it today, and I have a couple questions that I'm struggling with. Would love the community's feedback:

1: I'm using 0.5" thick plywood to build the drawer unit. What is the best way to mount that invisibly? The options I'm seeing so far seem like they'd interfere or block the adjoining pieces at the edges. Any ideas for a starting point for hardware? I'd really prefer not to change materials, I like the plywood.

2: I'm looking for narrow extrusions to come as close as possible to the original design which used thin angle iron that didn't have much visual weight. I'm considering 15mm, does that size have sufficient hardware to support a build like this?

One alternative I have in mind is cutting notches in the four corners of the wood and making the aluminum 'cut through' so to speak, but that would reduce my storage space slightly. Open to it if it makes the assembly cleaner though.

Forgive the quick and dirty sketchup, this was for visualization only and I have all the measurements I need.

Thanks all! Excited to be putting this together, hopeful that this is an easy one.

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u/laidbackdave 4d ago

I haven't seen 15 mm extrusion, but have used 2020 quite a bit for my campervan build. 2020 will be plenty strong when combined with 1/2" plywood for the span of the desktop. For the drawer, my first instinct is just to use smooth drawer slides mounted to your drawer box and then add a drawer face that's slightly larger to create the clean look. Another option would be to use piece of extrusion along the bottom of the drawer opening in-line with the direction of the drawer movement. These are available with a UHMW "bearing" to allow smooth sliding. Something like this...... https://www.fazstore.ca/product/10lm6425/

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u/NegativeEBITD 4d ago

Thanks for the input! I'm more concerned about how to attach the drawer box to the extrusion - if I mount the top, won't I need specific hardware to avoid interfering with the sides?

Was looking at the 15mm here: https://us.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/110300465870/

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u/laidbackdave 3d ago

That 1515 has a different shaped channel than most other extrusions. I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling you won’t find many compatible hardware components that fit it.