Legend of Zelda Steampunk Desk

Inspired by the franchise and mixed with a little steampunk flare this desk was built as a birthday present for our youngest son who just loves Zelda.

It is constructed primarily from MDF for ease of painting.

(3) 4' X 8' sheets of MDF( Medium Density Fiberboard)

(1) 1/2" diameter 36" long wood dowel

1/4" 48" x 48" polycarbonate sheet

assorted screws

wood glue

Finishing materials (paint I chose metallics)

Although I do use Fusion 360 for my 3D printing designs I wasn't using fusion when I designed this.

I used two pieces of software for this design Google Sketchup and Vectric Aspire.

I made a 3d mock up of the desk in Sketchup to work out the proportions first and then converted the parts to a DXF file format which Aspire could work.

I used Aspire to program the paths for the CNC to follow.

I cut the parts using my home built CNC which I made several years ago back before home use CNC's were a thing, it has a fairly small cutting area 26" x 34" but I was able to cut the larger parts by creating an index point whereby I cut the first half of the part, paused the machine, moved the part and aligned the index point with the cutter and finished cutting the remainder of the part.

At first I tried to make the gears on my own but I was having trouble getting the teeth to mesh I mean it had to look like it could actually move right?

I ended up finding a free gear generating software that made DXF files for cutting.

Gear Generator

If you have ever worked with MDF then you'll know it soaks up glue like a sponge! The trick to a good solid glue up with it is to apply a light coat of glue and allow it to dry partially before applying the coat which will bond the parts together.

As a final step before painting you should dry fit all of the parts together to make sure nothing needs to be adjusted or sanded.

Painting MDF is fairly straight forward but to aid in keeping the board from soaking up your paint you should first apply a "fill primer" fill primers are heavy bodied to fill in imperfections and as a result do not soak into the MDF as easily as thinner primers so it takes less finish coats to get a good finish.

I chose Rustoleum Aged Metallic for my final coat to give the desk a worn look

Aged Metallic

The last thing needed to finish off the desk is to cut the polycarbonate and place it over the top as the writing surface.

This is my first instructable, I know it's not super detailed but I hope it is at least a little inspirational.