How to Build a Polished Concrete Desk

This Instructable documents the construction of my new Modern desk with a polished concrete desktop!

Step 1 Plans!

Plan and layout the desk. Take measurements of the location you plan to place it. Nothing is worse than building something you wont be able to use. Make sure the concrete is broken up into manageable pieces both to prevent fractures, and to make sure that it is humanly possible to carry it to its final location! Also consider styling and other design elements. I decided to build a relatively minimal and modern corner desk.

Comments

[abadfart]

where did you get the fiber optic cable im not finding any that isn't worth its wait in gold around here. i really like the idea of the idea of having stars in my counter top

[hivoltage]

its eg12 endglow cable from fiberopticproducts.com

[abadfart]

thanks ill start on this when i get in to my new house

[CoolKoon]

This project sounds like an interesting idea if one wants to have a desk with a polished stone-like appearance. I've seen this project a long time ago (about 1-2 years back) as well, but a question has popped into my mind only now: how much hammering would such concrete board/desk take? And would adding a thicker mesh improve its durability? What do you think?

[hivoltage]

Do you mean literal hammering? I have not done anything like that on this desk since I built it, but it seems very tough. Thicker mesh might improve the strength but I have not needed it just for use as a computer desk. I think too much impact would probably crack it but I am not really sure. There are other additives like polypropylene fibers and such that are supposed to really increase the strength and plasticity of concrete but was not able to find any locally when I built this desk.

[CoolKoon]

Yeah, I meant its usage for hammering stuff like you usually do in a workshop. Thanks for the tips though ;)

[barefootbohemian]

I have really REALLY been wanting to make a concrete counter for my vanity, and even though this is a desk, I think I could use a lot of your great info here to build me one! Thanks for sharing!

[SDDPhoto]

The desk is wonderful. Could you please give us your supplier for the Lyptus. Thanks.

[hivoltage]

Thank you! I bought the Lyptus at Peterman Lumber in Fontana, CA. One of the employees there incorrectly told me that it was a hybrid of eucalyptus and mahogany, but I have come to find out that it is really a hybrid of two different eucalyptus species. It is environmentally sustainable because it grows extremely quickly in Brazil and is not harvested from old growth forests like many of the other exotics. I mostly purchased it at the time because it is an attractive wood and the price was very reasonable.

[the sonic division]

Nice instructable but the support mesh should be on the bottom of the finished piece witch means the top on the frame, not in the bottom of the frame (top of the finished piece). And of course with enough space to be covered by the concrete.
I recommend to start filling the frame without the mesh up to 2/3 of the total height then place the mesh and finish pouring the last 1/3 of the concrete...

:)

[concrete guy]

That is a very cool project. I was looking for concrete polishing for floors when I found this. I have a client who handles big concrete floor polishing jobs, so I became interested in other applications. This is my client. http://www.concretereflections.com/

[notingkool]

which compressor did you use to run that pneumatic grinder?

[hivoltage]

a big 60 gallon compressor. Had to run the air hose from the garage through the house into the backyard. A smaller compressor would probably work as long as it can supply the amount of air the grinder calls for.

[notingkool]

i only have a small 2hp, 5 gal compressor, even if a conect a second tank of 20 gal, i don't have enough air to run any pneumatic tool, exept the spraygun

[sarliaee]

Windows 7 was my idea. Concrete Desk was yours. Congratulations. Beautiful job!

[will1947]

 So you're to blame for Windows 7.  Widows 7 convinced me to give up and switch to Mac. LOL

[WhiteTigerTails]

And Mac convinced me to quit and switch to Vista Ultimate.

[hintss]

then that convinced me to switch to linux since that broke. I post a video sometime. remind me. basically, going to the grub menu, then choosing windows, it says "Loading Windows Vista" along with a progress bar, then when it finishes, the screen turns black and it sits there. I've let it sit for an hour before.

[archion]

And the combination of frustrations from Linux, MAC, and Vista have convinced me to be very thankful for the stability of Windows 7 :)
This is probably my final windows operating system though, I refuse to operate off of a cloud. (Win 8 is cloud based)

[will1947]

It amuses me that 18 months on suddenly people are commenting on a lighthearted comment I made about Windows referring to their TV ad. It did end in LOL which I assumed everyone knows the meaning of. I still posses a laptop running 7 (I don't like the Mac version of MS office) and it crashes quite often.

[hintss]

switch to linux soon?

[altomic]

aside from instructables i use pen and paper.

[HeyImInventingHere]

*LIKE BUTTON*

[bahi]

This is incredibly weird, someone makes an instructable about a nice forniture. And most of the comments are related with computers, OS,...!
Hivoltage, did you expect this?

[hivoltage]

I didn't, but I probably should have. On a related note, windows 7 professional runs great on the water cooled i7 quad core machine that now sits on this desk. Plus it was free through MSDNAA.

[Sakrete]

Awesome idea! Very creative with the top being Concrete.

[joeyoung25]

I would just like to say that from the pictures, Unless you are hiding some major "screw-ups", this desk looks simply amazing! I really like that the top is concrete but is not plain like a driveway. I really like the woodworking you do also. This is a really good looking desk.

[bahi]

Superb, better than those silestone surfaces. But I'd prefer debian or ubuntu instead of win7

[userhck]

Actually in this situation you'd probably be better off with a triple boot consisting of Windows CE (compact embedded), Windows ME (Millenium Edition), and Windows NT (named for the new Intel processor, "N-Ten"). This would, if my calculations are correct, create Windows CE-ME-NT. Maybe later you could upgrade to Windows CON-CR-ETE.

[mdeblasi1]

Or you could cloud compute and go abstract. M

[hintss]

thats almost always based on linux

[bahi]

CE-ME-NET, HAHAHAHA now I understand why microsft says that their OS are solid.

[archion]

Windows CEMENT;
"Hard as a rock, dumb as a brick" ;- )

[X3heartless]

What a knee slapper.

[the_burrito_master]

The flagship of computer desk instructables.

[hintss]

someone should write the flagship of flagship instructables

[nitsuj1098]

I think the arduino would be the way to go. I don't know much about them, but I'd think the ability to customize the lights would be cool. Steady on, variable brightness, color change, gentle flicker, maybe even add a sensor so it could respond to sound like typing or the beat of the music you're listening to.
Where did you source the fiber op cable?

[hivoltage]

Yeah I was thinking it would be neat to have a slow fade mode, quick fade mode, random flashes or something and some kind of sound or music responsive mode, if I built it using an arduino or other microcontroller. I have a little experience programming arduinos but not a lot. I usually just find other code online that is close to what i want and make modifications to it. I have five bundles of fiber, so at minimum thats five rgb leds, preferably more. that means i'll likely need some sort of i/o expander or led driver IC to be able to individually control that many. I'll have to do some research. The fiber is called eg12 cable because it is jacketed clusters of 12 .75mm diameter fibers each. I think I got it at fiberopticproducts.com at like a dollar a foot.

[hintss]

look into shift registers. (I think thats what they're called)

[nitsuj1098]

A picture of it lit up at night would be awesome!