Do-It-Yourself- Animation Desk

As I mentioned in the previous post you may purchase a standard wooden drafting table and cut a 16 1/2" hole in it to fit a standard animation disc.

This is probably the easiest "do-it-yourself" animation desk if you have the right tools to make a precision circular cut like that. (it's trickier than it might seem at first, so "measure twice, cut once" and be careful.)

If you're skilled with woodworking you may also want to build your own portable animation table from these plans: 

Here is a link showing Sheridan College animation student Brock Gallagher making an animation desk very similar to the one shown in the plans above:

Building a Do-It-Yourself Animation Desk



Here is another do-it-yourself animation desk project with photos and detailed instructions:

How To Make An Animation Desk - Part 1 -4

The finished product from the project linked above:

(click on images to see them larger)


This photo from animator Dan Caylor shows the portable desk that he refurbished and added a new LED backlight unit mounted on a cross brace underneath:



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UPDATE: I'm happy to say I heard from animation student Marty Walker who built an Animation Desk using the Jim Macaulay plans I posted above. Check out the results :

http://chipsandsolstice.blogspot.com/2009/06/we-built-animation-desk.html



Marty was also good enough to list all the Materials and Tools needed for the project . See the link to his blog for the materials list.

By the way, for those of you who may not recognize the name of Jim Macaulay he was a great teacher of animation at Sheridan College in the 1970's , 80's, and into the 90's. Jim passed away at age 91 in 2015 .  He influenced many of us who attended Sheridan's Classical Animation Program during those years he was actively teaching (about 1975 - 1995) Here's a photo of Jim with a student :


(teacher Jim Macaulay with animation student 

Cathy Parkes at Sheridan College , about 1980.)

Jim also co-authored a book on storytelling in animation called "And Then What Happened?" with another Sheridan professor , Zack Schwartz.