Attaching desktop to legs (perhaps) without an apron

Hi,

Thanks for sharing this. A really tempting base for a project.

Please take the below for the partial guesswork it is.

Danish seems very tenable (please search for klassisk dansk skrivebord), and perhaps mid century – had it not been for the handles with their routed recesses, which seem a bit more contemporary. Or, why not the 1930s?!

There seems to be a frame, which I venture consists of a facing covered with a palisander (or other rosewood) veneer (the perfect book matching of the right drawer carcass cannot possibly be from solid wood).

The frame, I guess is jointed by tenons and mortices, or perhaps with dovetail joints, covered by rounded over strips (cf front left corner).

The aprons/rails of the frame appears to be quite thick (2″?), with mortices for tenons of the legs. If the inside could be inspected, one would perhaps find draw bored dowels to further force the leg shoulders tight to the aprons.

The frame parts /aprons have been chamfered, I imagine to make it look less sturdy. (Please see attached photo of my Danish writing desk)

The top appears to be resting on rebates along the inner top edges of the frame.

It’s a wide and deep table, so perhaps the drawer carcasses are fastened to the top in a manner to prevent it from warping.

Could it be that that the small pieces attached to the legs and drawer carcasses make the carcasses also act as stretchers?

Always happy when I can be of any kind of assistance.

It’s a wide table; would a sliding dovetail crossbar be of value, as an addition to the turn buttons in keeping the top flat? With the top is “recessed” into the rebate of the frame, the ends of the housing/dado for the joint wouldn’t be visible.

Faarup Møbelfabrik + Jørgen Linde + Dining Table in Rosewood led, among many other, to a link (a mile long) that had photo, which perhaps gives some insight, literally, on how these pieces were made. The facing might be beech, but the rosewood is clearly not veneer, but thick enough to be “moulded”.

The end grain of the facing of the piece I saw, looks like beech (could of course be any wood), and as beech is the second most common tree species in Denmark, allegedly often used by the furniture industry (less so nowadays, I believe), I will go with the facing being beech.

If beech, then that should be dimensionally stable (information from purchase head at local timber yard; a man with a PhD in dendrology), and that is as much as I understand of wood dimensions and humidity. Precisely as this writing desk, prestigious antique furniture doesn’t seem to be afflicted – at least not the pieces I’ve seen.

You’re welcome!

Looking forward to the result, and more so if the progress were to be shared.