A Home Built Office Desk

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Assuming that the circuit can handle the load safely, you can provide surge protection with inexpensive wiring strips and surge-protected adapters sold in most telephone and computer supply stores and departments.

If your home lacks modern grounded (three-prong) wiring, you must ground the individual components. Easiest is to connect each instrument through one of those little three-prong-two-prong adapters you'll find in every hardware store. Get adapters with a little greenpainted metal tab on one edge. Connect a length of 12 gauge or larger wire from tab to a bare metal plumbing pipe or outdoors to a buried metal stake (keep soil around stake wet in dry weather to assure good contact).

OFFICE PHONE

You'll want a phone in the office. See the article "The Secret Circuit In Your Phone Line" starting on page 62 for hints on how to run an extension phone, intercom or closed-circuit TV monitor if your tastes are extravagant. To protect your phones (and if you are plugged into the Internet, your modem and computer) from lightningstrike-induced surges on the phone lines, you can install a phoneline surge protector between hi-lines and electronics.

About five years ago I bought a dual-function surge protector that plugged into a conventional two-outlet wall socket and had inlet and outlet jacks for RJ-11 phoneline plugs. It provided surge protection for its four power outlets as well as the phoneline.

One morning the phone was dead through the line running out of the surge-protector, but was fine direct frorn the wall jack-the only clue that the 1-shot surge protector had been activated. I unplugged all the equipment and took the device apart. Sure enough, a fat, red component inside connected to the phone sockets was burned black—having sacrificed itself by absorbing a surge that could have cooked my office equipment.

I had to buy a new phoneline surge protector, but did so gladly. (The power-outlet breaker had not activated, which meant that the strike hit the phone lines only. The little unit—sans phone lines—serves still as a housepower surge protector.)

Tools andMaterials List

Wood Stock:

2 hollow interior doors
2 1x2x8' soft pine for rear supports
2 1x4x8' soft pine for backboards
Plywood:
14'x4' half-sheet of 1/2" interior ply finished both sides.
1 2'x4' quarter-sheet of 1/4" lumber to make spacers, fill hollow doors, and assemble cabinets and shelving (as indicated in text or graphics)
20' of Veneer or 1 1/2" x 1/4" wood strips to edge doors, glue and trimming tools (see text)

Hardware:

6 flat "L" brackets
Self-tapping wallboard-type wood screws in 1", 1 1/4", 1 1/2", 2", and 3" lengths
1 1/2" finish nails
Sanding and finishing materials

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