Bob figured it was about half of his life. That's why he decided to gift himself an amazing desk. A place that would foster creativity and have the feeling of "his space". He wanted it to be personal, unlike the majority of work he performed. Bob loves sports cars so it's no wonder we used a few car parts in the actual desk top.
Here I have the main desk out in the drive so that I can polish it with many diamond bit abrasive pads. I think I took it down to 3,000 grit. Yes, I know, I'm a woodworker . . . well sculpture was my first introduction to the 3d world, including mold making.
I built a mold and we poured the concrete in his garage. There are four holes in the top, two are car parts; a transmission ring and a tie rod. Two are for the legs which will pass though the desk providing an internal wire chase. We acid stained the colored concrete and we also added some cool rocks in the mx which will appear as I grind the surface.
Contrary to what you may assume, this desk is hollow.
The photo to the right shows the wire chase detail for the speakers. We made the bracket from stainless steel. The chase itself was made of Tiger Wood aka, Goncalo Alves. Although it appears to be one piece it actually comes apart at each end for wiring access. I also made a custom clip at the top of the chase to attach the monitor bracket
I found the lovely boards of Goncalo Alves at our local hardwood supplier. They were about 12" wide and 12' long. I resawed the planks. This means that I took the wood and made the boards thinner by cutting long slices. It was the only way I could make the tops of each return desk with the amount of wood I could find. I had been doing quite a bit of veneer work so the challenge was mainly having enough tools. This was the job that completely reinforced "you can never have enough clamps"!
We wanted the concrete to look like it was a big chunk taken out of some cool building or sculpture.
This was one of my all time favorite projects to make. I was challenged all the way through to the end. I really loved figuring out how to make all those compound angle cuts and fits and creating shapes that intersect.
Thank you Bob for having such courage to create something like this for your home and trust in my craft to be able to pull it off.
Cheers!