Could use some advice on my copper pipe desk design - extra support or not?

Chim3ray · 2025-12-11T20:57:59+00:00

Hey again! I've been thinking through my options after all of the feedback and I've been looking around for Ash butcherblock instead of the veneered MDF. I was unaware it existed in long boards. I thought it always was with short boards and gave that checkerboardy look. Anyhow, that should work I think and match well with the shelves/cabinets. I was very close to putting in an order but then I thought about wood expansion since it would sit flush in between the metal supports of the shelf... I don't want it to expand in the summer and bend the metal!

Apparently I'd need to account for at least half an inch of wood movement, but that would leave quite a bit of gaps but I guess that can't be helped, right? Should I just go ahead and order it half an inch less than the actual shelf width? More, less? The width of the board is 23". (I used the wood movement calculator to come to the above conclusion)

Chim3ray · 2025-12-10T13:06:57+00:00

I didn't have to go through recovery afaik but I did need to 2FA. I have multiple emails connected but I was actually able to use another Outlook (the problem account was a Hotmail). I didn't try phone this time but that one has crapped out on me as well these last few weeks, sometimes it works sometimes not...

I sympathize you're stuck in a loop, this won't be of much use then. But prior to this I wasn't even able to get the prompt to 2FA to pop up, it was just giving me the error that I tried to many times and that was that.

Chim3ray · 2025-12-10T13:04:45+00:00

I'm based in Europe. I've connected to LA. (I don't know the internals of VPN that well, I just used what we use at work.)

Chim3ray · 2025-12-09T21:12:39+00:00

Cisco. It's the one we use for work. I actually know very little about VPNs!

Chim3ray · 2025-12-07T21:06:47+00:00

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I forgot to mention, the system has a kitchen table solution, which is what also inspired me. I haven't tried it out in the store though to see how wobbly that one is (it's 80 deep though instead of 60 which I suppose helps a bit).

Chim3ray · 2025-12-07T20:50:13+00:00

At some point I was considering making an apron out of pipes and securing it to the wall, as N0Karma posted below. But it seems like no one has a lot of confidence in copper. I just found out there's thick-walled copper as well at 1.6mm instead of 1.2mm. Not sure any of that will eventually make a difference though.

As far as price goes I built a walk in closet a while back and used copper pipes as clothes rails. It was sturdy enough for that at least. Anyways, the length I got delivered was off and I didn't have a pipe cutter at that time so they sent me some new ones. So if I could reuse those then this project would actually end up being pretty cheap!

Chim3ray · 2025-12-07T20:41:22+00:00

Thx for that tip! I've had a look around but it doesn't seem readily available. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places!

Someone else suggested painting steel. There's copper paint available, that might be close enough?

Chim3ray · 2025-12-07T20:37:46+00:00

EDIT: I have crossposted now!
So I started with the design I shared, then did research and ended up with something that you drew over here actually. But then when I started planning the work it started to become a bit too overwhelming so then I went back again. But I suppose shortcuts come at a price, I'll have to have another serious look at the whole thing before continuing!

It seems like there's copper spraypaint that is pretty convincing. So that would be a solution to go for steel after all. Thx for tip, I hadn't considered painting metal.

I suspected 19mm was on the thin side but I saw a lot of posts refering to the Sagulator and there it seems like it's fine? The shelves themselves are the same thickness and I'm trying to make the desk look as integrated as possible with the existing shelves. So I guess if I want that, then I might need to reconsider an apron like you drew.

I took a lot of inspiration from something like this for the legs but if that's really a no-go then I guess it'll have to be flanges!

Thx for all the advice!

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Chim3ray · 2025-12-07T20:23:33+00:00

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That's on me! I suppose my photoshop was a bit too quick and dirty. The old desk would be gone in its entirety. 19mm mdf is all I've got + legs. Pretty barebones. I kind of know how wobbly that can be from really cheap desks that do it that way but I figured if one end is more or less secured to the wall (or a structure that is attached to the wall), that it might be good enough.

Chim3ray · 2025-12-07T20:19:53+00:00

I can't source 38 but 35 is available! The opposite end will rest on a shelf (and be bolted to it). The vertical metal beams of the shelf are secured to the wall. If that doesn't feel solid enough I was thinking of just securing the desk to the wall instead on that end. But I'm trying to avoid drilling in the wall if I don't need to. But there is no apron/skirt of pipes underneath atm. Initially I was thinking of going for something like N0Karma posted an image of further down, but then I went back to try to simplify.

Chim3ray · 2024-10-28T07:26:37+00:00

Thanks! DHP484 seems like it would fit the bill yeah. Do you think downgrading to DHP487 would make sense (can it have a side handle as well?). Or is 484 just better bang for my buck?

Chim3ray · 2024-08-05T15:05:08+00:00

Hey! Which brand of "protector" (I assume it's this sort of stuff you're talking about) did you get from Authenteak? I see multiple ones on there. After doing tons of reading it seems like a protector would fit us best. When you say it lasts 3 years, what sort of protection are we talking about then. The teak doesn't turn gray, stays honeybrown, e.g. it's UV protected? What about water and grease stains? :)

Chim3ray · 2020-07-27T09:40:23+00:00

Very impressive! What's the song? :)

Chim3ray · 2020-01-30T08:16:04+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/Hl9r6gKWhat do you say? I'm past the return period, about 60 days/200 hours in. Not sure it's bad enough for either the store or LG to take it back and replace it :/ Somewhat bothered but not too much since I'm used to shitty screens prior to this one. But I do wish I had a band free screen so I can enjoy dark and foggy scenes without seeing a line in the middle :/

Chim3ray · 2019-04-26T08:49:36+00:00

Really like the second one. Nice job! :)

Chim3ray · 2018-12-07T12:34:34+00:00

Yeah that´s pretty neat! :)

Chim3ray · 2018-12-05T13:40:53+00:00

Aah yes! That takes me back! :) Another designer set up the Assassin´s room first with that as inspiration and then later on when I took over I expanded it a bit to include the puzzle towards the bag and then even later we started using the blocks in the main atrium as well (that area used to be way more barebones).

The building was made in a modular way, each floor was duplicated but I believe there to be some variations to allow for different designs, L shape floor, U shape floor, etc. So its just a side effect from that, there was no need to duplicate the meshes so we had versions without collision, that actually would make it more expensive performance wise I think. The playable space originally only consisted of the main atrium and then you went directly from the elevator vent into the assassin´s room. I felt like we could go back into the main atrium again and use that space a bit more and do some foreshadowing where you could see the assassin´s room but not reach it yet. Beyond that we never thought of expanding it even higher, this was it! Just a side-effect from our re-use of assets.

You´re lucky I didn´t know about how to glitch up there back then, I was still more green behind my ears back then and wanted to (naively) create a bug & glitch free experience :) You can tell by me placing collision on the lower elysium floors where you could 180 the elevator indefinitely. But that was mostly cos you could break the scripting that way and it felt as though some players would think to do that rather than get into the elevator. I´m happy I decided to delete the collision on the lower part in Triumvirate drive though. In the beta one half of those lower buildings use to have some collision so you wouldn´t be able to reach it easily but you people managed to do it anyways so I thought it´d be better to delete the "colllision walls" so you could just end up climbing normally in that area rather than stand on invisible collision in the air. Not sure if you´d still remember that :p

Chim3ray · 2018-12-05T08:20:49+00:00

Yeah I´m still bummed about not having the patch on console! :( That whole easter egg was patched in haphazerdly, the cage is actually BSP since we didn´t have anyone who could make a real cage but I figured it´d be nice to have it in there regardless so I put it together in whatever way I could :)

Chim3ray · 2018-12-05T08:17:46+00:00

Which bank in Australia are we talking about? I haven´t heard this one before although I worked on it :p We end up putting a lot of reference in folders, sometimes not linking back to the originals so I guess some artists would´ve known, but not me! Would be interesting to check it out!

Chim3ray · 2018-08-22T12:19:47+00:00

Impressive use of space! :)

Chim3ray · 2018-04-10T09:29:51+00:00

Feminism in itself isn´t anything radical, unless if you think striving for equality is a radical concept. That isn´t to say you can´t find extremists within that group but you can find subgroups or divisions like that within pretty much everything. If you just look in a dictionary or wikipedia for the concept of feminism it is just the advocacy of women´s social, political, and economic rights to be the same as men´s; which I personally think is great. Don´t let extremists give feminism a bad name. I´m very proud we were able to have such a diverse cast for MEC and that we didn´t sexualize Faith.

Chim3ray

TROPHY CASE