



Thanks to all for replying to my original request. Decided on using the finish from the above link (ENCurtis - youtube).
Not as many choices of woods around here as in large cities, I went with a cherry plywood, and the edges are a simple D shaped pine trim. After starting and making mistakes along the way, needing to sand it back down to bare wood and restarting, I got the top done. The trim pieces were a challenge as I 1) have never done any woodworking, so 2) have no tools, materials, or experience. Went through 6 different test pieces to get them finished. Since the trim is made of pine, the grain was very different than the cherry, so any finish that brought out the grain just made it look disjointed. Ended up finding Polyshades and that was what worked for me.
Next summer, will try to make a keyboard tray for this desk... Wish me luck!
You can also buy a lot of the materials from FCs. Scarce items will be scarce at FCs too, but they do pop up, just get there quickly. also, be prepared to pay a lot for these mats.
There is also mission rewards which drop a lot of rare mats, keep checking every on foot mission board for 'Procurement', but not any that go to a settlement; and, 'Salvage', Crash site or wreckage. Setup your ship with an SRV and a couple of racks of dumbfire missiles as some sites can have a welcoming party that is easiest to deal with from the air. If you do not pickup the target item, you can relog and clean out the sites again.
If you want credits, hunt down the PTN group on Discord. They have various ways to make serious credits.
Anarchy settlements can be massacred and looted with no bounties or notoriety.