Drove to my mother-in-law’s (~180miles), disassembled a piece of furniture, loaded it in her car, drove back home, unloaded, slept, woke up, drove back, loaded the balance, drove home, unloaded, cleared off my wife’s desk in the den (covered in boxes of things from her college days and the kid’s drawing/artwork/school stuff).
Next, need to dismantle that desk and get rid of it, so that I can then assemble a:
Last few digits are month/year of construction, so June 1942 (for that part at least) — it was assembled out of a couple of tables discarded from a local company many of my wife’s family members worked at:
It’s missing the hardware to hold it at an angle, so I’ll need to fabricate that, and there are some other odds-and-ends which I’ll need to make/repair — debating about doing rust removal and re-bluing the hardware…
Oh, wow; the memories come back with that picture. I started out at a company in 1975 with two tables just like that (I have no way now to know if they were Hamiltons.)
I had to put down that green drafting top since others before me had abused the surface so badly.
Many sets of drawings were completed (always in a rush) there.
Please, Will, make it look right again. As if you have nothing else to do!
Fortunately, nothing here is irreversible, so worst case if I just oil and install as-is, I can revisit the hardware at a later date — I’m inclined to hold off a bit, so that I can fabricate and test the new mechanism, then everything which needs to be blued can be in one batch.
Unless I wimp out and just get a pair of the brass mechanisms:
It does have a green drafting top (ragged along one edge?) but the pine underneath looks to be in perfect shape.
I’ll get a detail photo of one of the screws which was fully hidden from view but which was in great shape when I (hurriedly) tossed it in a zip lock bag w/ the rusty hardware…
I will be measuring/drawing each part before moving it downstairs, and (eventually) working it up as a parametric file, so if anyone wants to make one, they’ll be able to.
Ah if you’ve got other work to do on it, holding off feels right. Making your own piece might be fun but looking at those features, I’d worry about manufacturing them causing a stall in the entire process.
With my projects, if something stalls I have to evaluate the space impact. In this case, if it means having large pieces if a desk laying about in an unusable state for weeks (bleeding into months…bleeding into years in my experience ) then I’d purchase the nice brass pieces and work on manufacturing them yourself after the rest of your plans are completed.
You could design them on the drafting table itself as a nice way to close that loop
I don’t mean to dissuade your current plan, just to give my perspective and experience. Though I’m sure you’re a good bit more focused than I tend to be so it may not be relevant
As always, I’m forward to the updates on the project
As if you have nothing else to do! 
) then I’d purchase the nice brass pieces and work on manufacturing them yourself after the rest of your plans are completed.
