Saturday, April 21, 2007

Entertainment Centre Part 4


Well, the drawer boxes, top, base, legs and aprons are all stained. I used Varathane Gel Stain. I like using it. I've had good luck with it. The color is Early American. It's a little darker than I liked, but the Honey Oak color they have looks like hell.

I'll stain the drawers when I can free up some bench space. They will be the toughest to finish because of all the detail nooks and crannies. I'll get some poly on everything, take it on site for final assembly, and then do a wipe on coat of poly once there.

I should have it off the bench and in it's new home late next week. I figure 4 nights of finishing left.

I'm anxiously awaiting my Festool order. It should arrive next week. A Domino, an MFT 1080 and a TS55. Check out my Tool Blog for info on those. Then I have to update the lathe...probably a Nova 1624-44. Anyway, back at it...

Cheers!

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Entertainment Centre Part 3


I got the face frames on the boxes, cut the false front and attached them and flush trimmed the edging tonight. The drawers are fit with their slides and I have the two ends of the apron doweled and glued. I'll head back down to the shop, tonight, and glue the long stretchers of the apron to have it complete. I'll wait until tomorrow or Saturday to attach it to the base. At that point the project is ready for the finishing room. As I stated before, I'm going to finish the components and then assemble them at my parents house. This thing will be way to heavy to get into their basement by myself.

I went back down to the shop and finished the glueup on the apron. Final assembly is just a day or so away. I'll post once I start finishing.

As always, complete construction shots with captions are in my Latest Project Picasa Album.

Thanks for looking!

I'll have to give the shop a good cleanup before finishing. The flush trim bit made a mess. I'm really going to consider a Festool router. I'm getting tired of the mess. I have some Festool products on order. I hoped to give them a whirl before I get too carried away with going "green."

Monday, April 16, 2007

Entertainment Centre Part 2


I'm continuing with this project. All of the pieces are cut and assembled and ready for finish. I was debating a final assembly and then finish, but this is going to be heavy for just one person to move, so I'm going to finish it, then assemble it in place.

I spent some time with my new Dowelmax jig and have really enjoyed using it. It's so easy and so precise that you look for things to do with it. I should be able to start finishing this project this week. I have to fit a face frame and mill some trim, but it's got a couple of hours left of woodwork before it gets some color.

As always, captioned pictures of the construction process are in my Picasaweb Latest Project Album.

Friday, April 6, 2007

Entertainment Centre


I started an entertainment centre for my parents basement. Dad has a TV down there for when my mother uses her treadmill. It's sitting on a rickety table from the 60's and he wanted a new table. I thought, let's build one. He gave me a plan that would take me about 11 minutes to build and that I'd hate for a lifetime. I remembered an entertainment centre plan from Wood Magazine and went about searching for where the heck I put that issue. I found it. I'm building a version of this one.

I have an album at Picasaweb that follows the build of this project. The site has each photo captioned, so I won't repeat the text here.

If you want to take a look at the build in progress, please take a look at my Latest Project Album.