My TV Console - Finally Finished

[Chris Bruno]

Installed!

(Note: Yes - I know the TV is crooked.. its actually between the TV and the base of the TV and it annoys the crap out of me.. Is it wrong to return a $1300 TV because the base is crooked?)

[Edward Porter]

Chris,

Your cabinet looked great and it just happens to be very close to the color I am trying to obtain for a corner cupboard that was designed by Lonnie Bird from a corner cabinet that was originally built in about 1745 from the Eastern Shore region of Virginia. I have completed about 95 % of both cabinets, and started applying the finish on one of the cabinets. I started with a coat of Boiled Linseed Oil and let it dry for over one week. I then added a small amount of lemon trans-tint dye to a wash-coat of dewaxed blonde shellac before applying General Finish Brown Mahogany gel stain. I had put on a one coat of Brown Mahogany stain, but was not able to make the finish dark enough with an additional coats of stain on a test board. The yellow - amber color from the shellac just didn't provide a pleasing result with a light coat of brown mahogany gel stain.

I noticed that you mentioned that you needed to apply the brown Mahogany Gel Stain with a light touch. That was a fantastic tip. By very carefully wiping off the excess gel stain with clean paper towels using a very light touch, the project seems to be back on track. Since I have spent an unbelievable amount of time making the cabinets, obtaining a good finish is very important to me. I spent an lot of time trying to come up with a good finish before deciding to use the General Finish Brown Mahogany Gel Stain. Both my wife and I now like the color of the wood I have stained, but it will be a while before I am able to complete the entire cabinet.

Your project and staining procedure has been very helpful, and I appreciate the time that you spent letting others understand how you achieved your fine finish.

Thanks
Ed

Haha.. I'm blushing.

The positive comments on the finish are actual a bit comical to me.. I very nearly threw the whole thing out after the first attempt at staining... So I'll give you the COMPLETE rundown of the finishing process for this piece.. :-)

(For the record, I wanted a medium brown-red tone that would still show the slight curl of the maple and then warm it up further with a dark glaze in the crevices for a rich furniture look)

Finishing schedule:
1. Research for 4 days different maple finishing techniques.
2. Buy no less than 4 different dyes, 2 gel stains, 1 water based stain, 2 oil based stains and 2 glazes for experimenting
3. Spend 5 days blending, layering, sanding and top coating no less than 25 cutoffs
4. Find the combination that you like! (for the record, it was 1:1:1 General Finishes Cinnamon:Med Brn:Reducer)
5. Show sample to SWMBO and promptly get rejected for being too 'red'.
6. Go to Rockler with SWMBO - she picks out 'Candlelight' Gel Stain
7. Final prep piece
8. Apply stain....
9. Shriek in horror with the results... (For my tastes, it was much too orange/yellow - it had a country cottage type look that I felt would have looked much more at home in knotty pine. Further, my prep job was HORRENDOUS. Areas that I thought were smooth were not even close, areas where I thought I had cleaned up glue I had not, and so on. It was really really bad).
10. Deliberate for a day over how to fix.. decide to take the most painful but best path - Sand it out.
11. Make decision to get glaze effect by subtraction instead of addition.. that is, sand out all flat surfaces to bare wood but not the nooks and crannies.
12. Spend 4 hrs with the ROS and multiple grits trying to get the flat surfaces as good as possible.
13. Stain with General Finishes 'Brown Mahogany' Gel stain - when wiping, be gentle. It's easy to wipe the maple down to be too light and lose the warmth in the stain. In the corners/nooks/crannies especially if you want to have the glaze effect.
14. Sigh in great relief for recovering from the finishing nightmare.
15. Top coat with 4 coats of Arm-r-seal gloss.
16. Laugh when people admire/inquire how you achieved such a great finish.

:-)

I did the doors and drawers only in the brown mahogany - I didn't make the mistake of using the candlelight on them after doing the main carcass. So to get the glazing look on them I had to take a slightly different approach. I sanded the flat surfaces and primary endgrain sections all the way down to 400 grit (prior to staining).. Except in the corners and crevices - for those I only went down to 220 grit, and even at that I tried not to sand well in the corners. Then, they took the stain darker than the other surfaces, giving me the glaze effect without any follow up treatment.

In the end, the hue is pretty close to what I wanted (maybe a touch more red would have been nice) and I got the glaze look that I wanted.. But the maple is a lot more work to get even coloring than I had thought.. Anywhere that I had used a wet wipe to wipe up glue or a pencil mark (even if I did it before 'final' sanding) made these awful dark regions of stain... similarly, sanding marks that I couldn't see at all in bare wood, showed up instantly when stained. It was quite a learning experience.

-Chris

[Edward Porter]

I meant to say your TV Cabinet looked great, not your corner cabinet
Ed

[Gordon Eyre]

Very nice work Chris. Your finish is excellent and it was fun to read about your experience obtaining it.

[Mel Fulks]

I can tell it took a long time ,my guess is you started it about 1974. You are the only guy I know who missed the
"entertainment center" era. Where are you going to get a tv small enough to fit in there? Nice looking job though!

[Mark Valsi]

Very nice project !

[Pat Barry]

Chris that is a very nice piece. As others have mentioned the finish looks really nice. I also like the overall design and fit-up of the drawers and doors - just the right gaps. A question though on the end panel. Any idea why the top portion of the panel turned out so much darker than the lower portion? It seems to be just that panel, so not something caused by the photograph. Maybe the photo or lighting just accentuates this but if the colors are correct it would drive me crazy after putting in all the great work you did.

[Mike Hollis]

Stunning work Chris. I love the raised panels on the ends, but wonder why you ran the grain horizontally?

[Jerry Olexa]

Nicely done...Good job! Looks great!!

[Jim Becker]

Very nice work, Chris!

[George Bokros]

Awesome design. execution and finish.

Wish my projects came out as fine as yours did.

George

[Sam Layton]

Chris,

Your TV console really turned out great. Your finish looks outstanding. All of your hard work to obtain the finish was well worth it.

Great job, Sam

[Jeff Monson]

Chris, I really think the finish makes the piece. Its funny to read your process, been there done that....but not that well! Very nice piece and you should be proud.

[Chris Bruno]

Haha, funny to see this thread revived after so many months.

Sorry to everybody for the delays in responding - I haven't been on the site in a little while.

Chris that is a very nice piece. As others have mentioned the finish looks really nice. I also like the overall design and fit-up of the drawers and doors - just the right gaps. A question though on the end panel. Any idea why the top portion of the panel turned out so much darker than the lower portion? It seems to be just that panel, so not something caused by the photograph. Maybe the photo or lighting just accentuates this but if the colors are correct it would drive me crazy after putting in all the great work you did.

I didn't get all of my maple at the same time and that piece of wood took the stain darker. If you look at the 'before stain' pictures on Picasa, you'll see that they look exactly the same before finishing. As it was a 'wood character' thing instead of an 'I screwed up' thing, it doesn't bother me so much, but the takeaway is that glued up panels should really try to use wood off the same tree if possible if you're not going for the look of different boards standing out.

-Chris

[Chris Bruno]

Stunning work Chris. I love the raised panels on the ends, but wonder why you ran the grain horizontally?

Hi Mike,

If you look carefully, I made the panels in the front drawers horizontally because it was a more efficient use of the maple boards I had - I didn't want them to be glue-ups. So I thought it would make more sense if the side panels grain direction were consistent. I've never looked at them and had it bother me, but then, it probably wouldn't have bothered me in the end if the side panels grain direction was different than the drawers...

-Chris