Media Stand / TV Gear project (video)

[Art Mulder]

Media Stand / TV Gear cabinet
(video link at the bottom)

Here is the "before" photo:

About thirty years ago, my dad built this simple plywood cabinet for me to hold my stereo when I went to college. Since then it has served many purposes: stereo stand, bookcase, junk holder, TV stand, etc...

But it was time for something else. I wanted something taller, narrower, with room for all our gear, and maybe still some room for drawers.



Here’s the source wood:


Everyone hates the word “reclaimed” these days, so I won’t use it. A few months ago we salvaged this solid wood table on trash day in our neighbourhood. It is likely an Ikea table, but that is just a guess. The top was solid pine -- laminated strips. The legs and understructure were painted hardwood.

I was pretty sure that the I could build this stand from the pine table top -- or at least build most of it.

After some work in Sketchup, I got busy ripping out the panels I needed:


I then planed them to get rid of the finish and more importantly, get rid of the stains and dings in the old top. Fortunately it was over an inch thick. Unfortunately my side panels were too wide for my planer, so I had to rip them in half first and then re-glue them together afterwards.



I was keeping things quick and simple, so I went with pocket holes for the assembly.
As a side note, if you do use pocket hole joinery, then I highly recommend that you get one of these clamps. It is known as a right-angle clamp. I had a pocket hole jig for many years before buying this, and yes you can just use regular clamps. However this clamp is much quicker and makes the process just easier.



Here I’m screwing hardwood runners in the cabinet for the drawers to ride on:


I also assembled the drawers with pocket holes. This is so quick and easy, and the resulting holes are hidden by the drawer front. The rear holes face the inside of the cabinet so you never see any of them.



I ripped dados in the sides of the drawers, to run on those runners noted above:


Test-fitting one of the drawers



[CONTINUED…]

[Art Mulder]

[CONTINUED…]




This is a fairly plain cabinet, which is fine, but I wanted to add a little touch of something to the drawer fronts, and not just have flat faced drawers.




I wanted to add a bead along the top and bottom edge of the drawer, but I don't have the right router bit. So I looked through my bits and was pretty sure I could get something similar with two operations, first using a small roundover bit, and then using a Small Drawer Lock Bit.




(I did this on test pieces first) The roundover bit gives the curve along the edge of the drawer, and the small drawer lock bit cuts the groove.




Here is a closeup of the resulting bead. I think it turned out pretty good, and it really makes the front of the drawers look better.









With the drawer finished I could now put on the back of the cabinet. It is just behind the drawers, not behind the upper shelves





I then wiped on a coat of shellac, followed by 3 coats of Varathane (Polyurethane)





Finished Project, installed in our basement playroom









More details are on my website:http://www.wordsnwood.com/2014/tv-gear-stand/


And I also made video of the process:

[Jim Becker]

That's a really nice repurpose of the original material, Art!! The end result looks great and is spot-on functional for the need. Bravo!

[Bart Goldberg]

Very nice job! - Good idea to use reclaimed wood.

Regards
Bart

[Art Mulder]

Thanks for the kind words, Bart and Jim!

This year it seems like I've seen all kinds of reclaimed wood projects on youtube and the forums, but mostly all I see on garbage day around here is foil faced particle board junk. So it was pretty exciting to find that solid wood table.

Of course I still love working with black cherry and other hardwoods!

[Phil Thien]

That really came out great.

As far as projects made from reclaimed materials, you raised the bar there quite a bit.

[Rick Potter]

Very very nice.