Media stand, part 2: shelves

My not knowing what I'm doing is going quite well, thank you.

I cut one of my panels at a 45 degree angle to give me a top and one side panel. With a 45 degree trim to the other side and another cut to my second set of joined boards, I had a top and two side panels. The left over second set of boards was also long enough to use as a middle shelf. Math is fun sometimes.

Next step, I tried to chisel out a dado for a middle shelf. It's not clean, but seems to be doing the job. I added some 1/4" dowels to help hold things in place before cutting the drawer dividers that will also support the middle shelf while I finish getting pieces together.

That would have been a lot easier with a table saw.

The drawer supports are pretty horribly cut as well, but as long as I get them closed up no one will ever see them.

The dividers are on scrap b/c I wanted the last set of boards for the bottom to end in butt joints on the inside of the side panels, so they had to be 3/4" off the ground when attached to the shelf. Once the bottom was cut to the right size I kregged it to the sides from underneath. With the kregs, the dividers, and dowels things are together enough even without any glue I can pick everything up as one piece. I think we're in good shape, but I'm still going to add some brackets on the back side when we're finally done for extra support.

Ooooo-weeeee, look at those shavings.

I'm not sure about how clean the miter is going to look at first since some of these boards cup pretty terribly, but the measurements track and I can deal with that when I have to. I'll glue the dowels in and attach the brackets before that so I can set the top on by itself so I can fine tune it as necessary.

Whew. That's a pretty short post for what was A LOT of project time. It's getting damn heavy to keep lifting but it's looking pretty good in the shop right now.

this summer's big project: media stand

Okay, time to move onto this summer's big project. Here's our current tv stand:

It's probably over 15 years old, and when we bought it to go with a ridiculously massive flatscreen we thought it was temporary. It did the job but it's been through 4 moves by now and 15 years is temporary enough. The kids like to see how much food and crud they can get on it before I yell at them and at this point it's getting to be quite a bit. I think it's time to replace it.

And by replace it, I mean pour over media stand plans for weeks until I find something I like, and then try to do it myself. And that's just what I've been doing. Ultimately I decided to take elements from this, and this, to create something like this:

I should probably look into sketch up at this point.

Again, I have little to no idea what I'm doing most of the time. So I've talked myself into trying a miter joint at the top, and cutting a dado into the sides for the middle shelf. Hopefully I can paint the bottom frame with a good rustoleum and get the metal look from that first stand. We'll see.

A lot of this is trying to do parts of old projects better this time around. I don't like how the console table butt joints look, so I'm trying a miter. Now that I have a bench plane, I can join some 10" boards and make it cleaner than I did with the desk. And that's actually where I started, with a lot of boards from Menards to start framing things up.

I started this while the bench was still in the shop. It's going to be a long build.

I'm not ashamed to say I'm still using my kreg jig a ton, and especially on projects like this. The boy's desk is holding up so far, so why not stick with it if it's still working. Anyway, planing and sanding these boards ate up the rest of my time, but also gave me plenty of time to think about how I want everything to fit together. There's a plan in place, we'll see if it actually works out.

It's just a box, it shouldn't be too complicated.

And yet, I almost didn't find time to finish my housewarming gift in time for it to go on its delivery. Almost.

It cost me not doing a second coat of lacquer, but I thought the box was in good enough shape looking at it last night that I decided to get some of the hardware on. I taped the hinges to the lid so they'd be lined up properly and then messed with making sure the plastic and magnet would both fit and still close. It took some playing around but everything worked.

So this morning I glued the glass on and put some felt on the back and viola, one shadow box. I tested it out with some help in the shop...

and then took it upstairs to see how it looked on the wall. But it looked a little empty, so I added some more friends.

The wife did not approve of that one, and didn't want me to get any ideas about decorating the living room with more of them. Oh well.

But it's on its way to Colorado now, hopefully it's sturdy enough to make it out there while bungied to the backseat of a goldwing. I'm sure it is, and I'm enjoying feeling like I've at least done the social minimum for a family member who's just had a big event happen in his life. Good enough for me.