In September of 2004 I started playing with the SCA. Like most newbies, it was very hard to pin down exactly
what Society activities I wanted to take up. After a few months I discovered that I had
an aptitude for and a desire to learn more about the scribal arts. My barony,
Windmasters' Hill, is lucky enough to have a well
established and talented scriptorium that holds meetings every month. While at these meetings, I noticed
that lots of people had special angled desks. "How could I get my hands on one of those?" I wondered.
Subsequent internet searching turned up Lia de
Thornegge's site on how to make a period scribal desk.
Lia's site is by far one of the best on the web regarding the making of scribal desks. I admired the
period example upon which it was based and was inspired by the fact that she made hers portable.
I decided to make mine based on Jehan Meliot's desk featured in Medieval Craftsmen: Scribes and
Illuminators, by Christopher de Hamel. It is simpler than Lia's design and
closer to the examples from my chosen time period. My dad and I sketched it out the design
in AutoCAD (link to come).
Here is Meliot's desk:
Sorry this is a poor quality picture.
The pieces of wood we used were large brown melanine covered particle board. Ironically, they came from the computer cart I had while in school.
As you can see from the front, the desk is quite wide. A strip of wood held in place by plastic clamps hold my work (item on the desk is the AutoCAD design). This device can be adjusted to different heights. Another strip of wood is screwed to the bottom edge to keep work resting in a straight line.
This is the side of of the desk. You can see the angle at which the writing side is raised and what shape I made the legs. You can also see the thumbscrews holding the stablilizing piece to the legs.
From this back angle you can see how the stabilizing piece fits to the legs and how the clamps fit. The piano hinges allowed the legs to open farther than I thought, leading them to splay out a bit. Thus we made a stabilizer. NB: The desk does not lean to the left as in the picture, it was just taken from a funny angle.
This is a very good angle for seeing how the legs are attached to the desk. We used piano hinges because they add extra stability and look very classy. You can also see a close-up of how the wrist rest is attached. It is a thin strip of wood screwed onto the desk.
Here is the desk completely collapsed. From this view and the one above, you can see that it folds up very flat. It is still quite wide, but I find it stashes away under a car seat or slides between a car seat and a door quite easily. I haven't sewed one yet, but I imagine it would store very well in a slim canvas bag with handles.
