Now that all the holiday crap is over with I can get back to things.
I decided to build out an inner frame from more pine to hold the fireplace insert. Rather than hacking 95% of the material out of a piece of plywood. That way I can use that piece as a larger bulkhead brace behind the fireplace unit. The two holes in the last photo are for pegs that will go into the corner leg pieces.
Still figuring things out as I go. It's been near 20 years since I last made any kind of wood furniture. I'm so used to just gluing everything together for speakers anymore. Any kind of jointery seems like such a foreign concept. I'm sure many mistakes will be made due to that. Ofcourse, now that I look at that last photo I'm realizing there is nowhere to sneak in a pocket screw to attach the leg. Ugh I'll figure something out. Maybe just remove the assembly screw and put a pocket screw coming out that location.
Used dowel centering pins to transfer the locations to the legs. Drilled the spots in the legs and glued pegs in the holes in the horizontal pieces. Once dry I drilled the pocket screw holes. I did end up putting a pocket screw (going out instead of in) through the location of the previous assembly screws in the fireplace "frame" shown above.
First time trying both peg and pocket screws on the same joint. It works realy well! The pegs resist the pocket screw natural tendancy to pull the piece off the desired location due to the angle of the screw (my pet peeve of pocket screws). After this I'm pretty convinced pocket screws alone are just not particularly viable by themself. For me atleast..
So I stupidly stored the cut pieces almost directly over a floor register. Some of the plywood pieces developed a pretty bad warp. The same for the piece of pine I bought to use as the drawer front. I hope I can mitigate most of this later. we'll see. May need to just buy a new drawer front piece.
Yeah, but there is always a side load that can be relieved if the piece is knocked hard enough. Then it shifts and the joint is losened a bit. It seems many just use pocket screws as a permanent clamp for gluing. Which is fine I guess, but just a replacement for a long clamp. The only real time they would become the only realisitic option is in excessively long pieces that a long clamp is not feasible.
One of those items that appear to be a miracle product, but realy they are just another tool that has its own set of good and not so good use cases. For dry (unglued) joints I would argue they alone are not a good solution.
The screws are for both clamping the glue joint and structural, kind of like a dowel. They are used in kitchen cabinets almost universally, so they can't be that bad. lol
IDK, Just personally I found "if I still have to clamp the joint anyway, then whats the point? It's just more steps"
But I do see how it could be nice to keep in your back pocket as more universal, scalable solution. That is why I have both the harbor freight jig and the mini kreg kit. I just mostly use em for fringe use cases like brace pieces in speakers where a standard clamp won't work.
Sorry, not trying to derail your thread, but you guys need to try epoxy. For things like the braces your talking about, you don't need to clamp, just apply epoxy and install the brace, no clamping required.
Now back to the tv stand, it's looking good.
For the sides, I'm going for the framed panel look. So I cut some 1x2"s and drilled peg holes. Then glued em to the top and bottom of the side plywood panels. Transferred the peg locations to the corner legs and drilled those holes.
Sofar just planning to put pocket screws behind those top and bottom pieces into the legs and let the rest of the panel in between go unattached to the legs. I have a sneaking suspicion that might not be a great idea, but also suspect drilling peg or pocket screw holes in 1/2" plywood by itself might have disasterous results. Only other thing I can think would be biscuits.. but I don't know if that is also not a good idea to attempt in 1/2" ply.. As I have never worked with biscuits. However, no matter what, the inner vertical bulkhead (behind the fireplace insert) and shelf panel will be directly attached to the side panels to provide some resistance to warping. Currently working on marking up locations for cleats to glue to the inside of the side panels to attach the bulkhead and shelf pieces.
So the inner bulkhead piece of plywood ended up being the worst for warp, the piece that was going to be the inner frame to hold the fireplace insert until I changed it up. Probably about 3" of deflection over the 5ft length. Tonight I did battle with it: Glueing and screwing 1x2"s edge-on (perpendicular) at either side to pull the warp out. I ended up laying on the whole thing while predrilling and sinking screws in to get the set right. Gotta get physical with the projects sometimes.
Dorking around with ideas for the sub. Since it will be hidden I can keep things basic (ugly). The absolute dimensions I have to work within are 10.75"x14.5"x60". The shelving boards I have are 48"x11.25". So 48" width it is (that was easy). The other dimensions will be a bit smaller too for a bit of air gap. I scored a couple thicker shelving boards (~1-1.25".. don't fully remember) to use as top and bottom for added mass. Insetting one end cap a few inches for a seperate space for the Yung 500w plate. Planning to partially double up panels at the driver location so I can recess it 3/4". The UM12 fat roll surround will still protrude but it should help. Resulting volume after driver and bracing should be around 2.1cf sealed. The plate amp has the 6db 25hz boost so that picks up where the enclosure starts to drop off. Otherwise it would have a ~32hz f3.
It definately needs mass. The existing enclosure will move about 1/4" when giving it the beans.
Fun with MS paint. Above and below the amp plate will be a small gap that I plan to chamfer to open up for passive cooling inlet and outlet. I imagine it should do ok only mounted from the sides since it is lsolated from the internal SPLs.
Drilled more pocket screw holes so it could all be tightened together. This allows me to better check the fit of the inner shelf board... Needs a bit trimmed off the length. I set in the dividers and plonked the top board on to get a better idea of the whole shape. The dividers seem OK on the dimensions so I ironed on some maple edge veneer to cover the plys. It matches well enough. Will only be exposed when the drawer is opened, and the whitewash should have a muting effect on all the wood grain anyway.
Up next is trimming that shelf board and getting it screwed down. That should pull the warp out of it and all the parts it attaches to. That way I can do the final check on the divider dimensions before proceeding with adding more attachment points to them.
More boring cutting behind the sceens. I trimmed the shelf board and screwed it down. I wanted to be sure the fireplace still fits before I completely finalize the structure, so I laid it in. I dinged one of the face boards pretty good while doing it. This is why I have been putting off trying it. Hopefully a moist rag and an iron will pull it mostly out.
Snapped a pic of the open back space to hide the subwoofer.
This evening I glued on some blocks to the dividers. Top one is just to provide more meat for screws. That way I can drill some pocket screw holes to support the top face board that is just swingin in the breeze by itself currently. The drawer slides will attach to the bottom one.
Next up, attach the dividers and maybe cut the cord passthrough/heat venting openings in the back. Then start thinking about drawer construction.
Providing some heat ventilation out back is a good idea. My A/V preamp even in standby / passthrough mode puts off some heat (and my shelf is fully open through the rear).
@tajanes said:
Providing some heat ventilation out back is a good idea. My A/V preamp even in standby / passthrough mode puts off some heat (and my shelf is fully open through the rear).
I plan to chop out a "U" section from the top at the back on either side (none behind the center). I theorized the top front face board would would be a bit of a dam that would coax the heat to spill out the back opening. Creating a gentle flow.
For cord access to the turntable I'm debating cutting small openings at the back of both dividers. Or a single hole in the rear support. Maybe do both to maximize wiring options and just cover the ones thet dont get used. Trying to minimize dust ingress since It seems I won't be able to use the dust cover for the turntable.
I just remembered the existence of desk grommets. I'll need to check what sizes of holesaws I have compared to the grommets I can get at Menards.
@DrewsBrews said:
For cord access to the turntable I'm debating cutting small openings at the back of both dividers. Or a single hole in the rear support. Maybe do both to maximize wiring options and just cover the ones thet dont get used. Trying to minimize dust ingress since It seems I won't be able to use the dust cover for the turntable.
I would suggest designing to keep power cords separate from source & speaker cables (unless you’d like them to hum along… and/or balanced).
I trimmed up the largest remaining scrap of 1/2" ply to correct dimensions for the drawer. The drawer will be a "flatbed" of sorts with no sides that wrap around it. The intent is to minimize awkwardness in loading the vinyl. So I'm building a simple cradle frame that goes underneath for the drawer slides and front to attach to. Well I though it would be simple, but somehow I cut pieces wrong twice (ugh). 3rd time I think is on the money.
Just resting on the drawer bed for clarification.
I noticed a corner that must have been a booboo from the tablesaw. That will not go well for edge banding. So I used a box cutter to shave off the corner of a scrap. One of the few times I find masking tape is an adequate clamp for glue-up. As long as the glue holds up to sanding back into shape that is the most force it will see.
Corner sanded. Edge banding veneer applied to the exposed sides, trimmed and sanded. Then glued the cradle frame on. Marked and drilled all the screw holes for the drawer slides. A drawer is born.
Yes, technically the dust cover fits. It just contacts the bottom edge of the upper face board when the cover is opened to load up vinyl. Even when the turntable is moved all the way forward on the drawer bed. I don't like that since, over time, it will likely wear a line into the plastic cover and potentially rub into the finish of the face board. So probably will go without the dust cover.
And I still don't think the drawer is the best solution.. Just the most practical for the situation. It is a roll of the dice if the drawer slides help to decouple, or act as a springs that magnify frequencies. Maybe both, but I suspect more of the latter.
Can you remove the side blocks that the slides are attached-too and attach the slides to the vertical partitions directly which will give you greater vertical depth to play with concerning turn table mounting?
Yes and no. The blocks are glued on so would probably mean re-making the sides entirely. Also that would leave very little to attach the drawer front board to. And very far off center creating alot of bending force every time the drawer is opened and closed. Likely eventually stripping out the screw holes holding the drawer front on.
I feel I'm already pushing it as-is on that side of things. That more orange colored board in the pics will be holding the screws that go into the drawer front. The slides are "Soft close", and that soft close mechanism is wound up by pulling against a spring the first couple inches of travel. I'm a bit worried that board will be slowly ripped out of place over time from the force pulling the drawer open. Contemplating adding some screws into it from the other pieces to help reinforce it. Right now it is held on only with glue.
OK, what do you have planned for objects that sit upon the top surface right above the turntable?
(Just thinking that like the old consoles of my youth you could make the turntable stationary - leaving the drawer out completely from the design and have a hinged (w/gas shock support) lid over the turntable instead?).
Then you could put sand bags under the turntable or whatever stabilization scheme you desire and do away with the dust cover . . .
When I was in the design phase I thought of something not alltogether different from what you suggest. Possibly just having a section of the top that could be removed to expose the turntable. But ruled that out. Just didn't like it. Would have to stare at big seams in the top.
It is what it is. I'm rather committed to this design and I accept it's pitfalls. I add my concerns as more a word of warning incase anyone might want to build something similar.
I'll just leave the cover off and do what I can to seal up the space to minimize dust ingress. I might need to vacuum out the space every year or so, but I think it'll be fine all things considered.
Comments
Now that all the holiday crap is over with I can get back to things.
I decided to build out an inner frame from more pine to hold the fireplace insert. Rather than hacking 95% of the material out of a piece of plywood. That way I can use that piece as a larger bulkhead brace behind the fireplace unit. The two holes in the last photo are for pegs that will go into the corner leg pieces.
Still figuring things out as I go. It's been near 20 years since I last made any kind of wood furniture. I'm so used to just gluing everything together for speakers anymore. Any kind of jointery seems like such a foreign concept. I'm sure many mistakes will be made due to that. Ofcourse, now that I look at that last photo I'm realizing there is nowhere to sneak in a pocket screw to attach the leg. Ugh I'll figure something out. Maybe just remove the assembly screw and put a pocket screw coming out that location.
Used dowel centering pins to transfer the locations to the legs. Drilled the spots in the legs and glued pegs in the holes in the horizontal pieces. Once dry I drilled the pocket screw holes. I did end up putting a pocket screw (going out instead of in) through the location of the previous assembly screws in the fireplace "frame" shown above.
First time trying both peg and pocket screws on the same joint. It works realy well! The pegs resist the pocket screw natural tendancy to pull the piece off the desired location due to the angle of the screw (my pet peeve of pocket screws). After this I'm pretty convinced pocket screws alone are just not particularly viable by themself. For me atleast..
So I stupidly stored the cut pieces almost directly over a floor register. Some of the plywood pieces developed a pretty bad warp. The same for the piece of pine I bought to use as the drawer front. I hope I can mitigate most of this later. we'll see. May need to just buy a new drawer front piece.
No more misaligned pocket holes . . .
Yeah, but there is always a side load that can be relieved if the piece is knocked hard enough. Then it shifts and the joint is losened a bit. It seems many just use pocket screws as a permanent clamp for gluing. Which is fine I guess, but just a replacement for a long clamp. The only real time they would become the only realisitic option is in excessively long pieces that a long clamp is not feasible.
One of those items that appear to be a miracle product, but realy they are just another tool that has its own set of good and not so good use cases. For dry (unglued) joints I would argue they alone are not a good solution.
The screws are for both clamping the glue joint and structural, kind of like a dowel. They are used in kitchen cabinets almost universally, so they can't be that bad. lol
I always use glue with pocket holes then remove the screws because I am too cheap to buy custom screws all the time . . .
:
IDK, Just personally I found "if I still have to clamp the joint anyway, then whats the point? It's just more steps"
But I do see how it could be nice to keep in your back pocket as more universal, scalable solution. That is why I have both the harbor freight jig and the mini kreg kit. I just mostly use em for fringe use cases like brace pieces in speakers where a standard clamp won't work.
Sorry, not trying to derail your thread, but you guys need to try epoxy. For things like the braces your talking about, you don't need to clamp, just apply epoxy and install the brace, no clamping required.
Now back to the tv stand, it's looking good.
For the sides, I'm going for the framed panel look. So I cut some 1x2"s and drilled peg holes. Then glued em to the top and bottom of the side plywood panels. Transferred the peg locations to the corner legs and drilled those holes.
Sofar just planning to put pocket screws behind those top and bottom pieces into the legs and let the rest of the panel in between go unattached to the legs. I have a sneaking suspicion that might not be a great idea, but also suspect drilling peg or pocket screw holes in 1/2" plywood by itself might have disasterous results. Only other thing I can think would be biscuits.. but I don't know if that is also not a good idea to attempt in 1/2" ply.. As I have never worked with biscuits. However, no matter what, the inner vertical bulkhead (behind the fireplace insert) and shelf panel will be directly attached to the side panels to provide some resistance to warping. Currently working on marking up locations for cleats to glue to the inside of the side panels to attach the bulkhead and shelf pieces.
So the inner bulkhead piece of plywood ended up being the worst for warp, the piece that was going to be the inner frame to hold the fireplace insert until I changed it up. Probably about 3" of deflection over the 5ft length. Tonight I did battle with it: Glueing and screwing 1x2"s edge-on (perpendicular) at either side to pull the warp out. I ended up laying on the whole thing while predrilling and sinking screws in to get the set right. Gotta get physical with the projects sometimes.
Enough done to losely fit the basic structure together.
Dorking around with ideas for the sub. Since it will be hidden I can keep things basic (ugly). The absolute dimensions I have to work within are 10.75"x14.5"x60". The shelving boards I have are 48"x11.25". So 48" width it is (that was easy). The other dimensions will be a bit smaller too for a bit of air gap. I scored a couple thicker shelving boards (~1-1.25".. don't fully remember) to use as top and bottom for added mass. Insetting one end cap a few inches for a seperate space for the Yung 500w plate. Planning to partially double up panels at the driver location so I can recess it 3/4". The UM12 fat roll surround will still protrude but it should help. Resulting volume after driver and bracing should be around 2.1cf sealed. The plate amp has the 6db 25hz boost so that picks up where the enclosure starts to drop off. Otherwise it would have a ~32hz f3.
It definately needs mass. The existing enclosure will move about 1/4" when giving it the beans.
Fun with MS paint. Above and below the amp plate will be a small gap that I plan to chamfer to open up for passive cooling inlet and outlet. I imagine it should do ok only mounted from the sides since it is lsolated from the internal SPLs.
Use cross braces every 6-7 inches and I'll bet it is pretty stiff.
I cut the top and a couple wall shelves to go above it out of a 3'x6' 1,1/8" piece of finger jointed and edge glued pine.
Crappy pic (low light)
Drilled more pocket screw holes so it could all be tightened together. This allows me to better check the fit of the inner shelf board... Needs a bit trimmed off the length. I set in the dividers and plonked the top board on to get a better idea of the whole shape. The dividers seem OK on the dimensions so I ironed on some maple edge veneer to cover the plys. It matches well enough. Will only be exposed when the drawer is opened, and the whitewash should have a muting effect on all the wood grain anyway.
Up next is trimming that shelf board and getting it screwed down. That should pull the warp out of it and all the parts it attaches to. That way I can do the final check on the divider dimensions before proceeding with adding more attachment points to them.
Wow! Nicely done.
Very nice. I would not worry too much about anything behind the doors.
More boring cutting behind the sceens. I trimmed the shelf board and screwed it down. I wanted to be sure the fireplace still fits before I completely finalize the structure, so I laid it in. I dinged one of the face boards pretty good while doing it. This is why I have been putting off trying it. Hopefully a moist rag and an iron will pull it mostly out.
Snapped a pic of the open back space to hide the subwoofer.
This evening I glued on some blocks to the dividers. Top one is just to provide more meat for screws. That way I can drill some pocket screw holes to support the top face board that is just swingin in the breeze by itself currently. The drawer slides will attach to the bottom one.
Next up, attach the dividers and maybe cut the cord passthrough/heat venting openings in the back. Then start thinking about drawer construction.
Providing some heat ventilation out back is a good idea. My A/V preamp even in standby / passthrough mode puts off some heat (and my shelf is fully open through the rear).
I plan to chop out a "U" section from the top at the back on either side (none behind the center). I theorized the top front face board would would be a bit of a dam that would coax the heat to spill out the back opening. Creating a gentle flow.
For cord access to the turntable I'm debating cutting small openings at the back of both dividers. Or a single hole in the rear support. Maybe do both to maximize wiring options and just cover the ones thet dont get used. Trying to minimize dust ingress since It seems I won't be able to use the dust cover for the turntable.
I just remembered the existence of desk grommets. I'll need to check what sizes of holesaws I have compared to the grommets I can get at Menards.
I would suggest designing to keep power cords separate from source & speaker cables (unless you’d like them to hum along… and/or balanced).
I trimmed up the largest remaining scrap of 1/2" ply to correct dimensions for the drawer. The drawer will be a "flatbed" of sorts with no sides that wrap around it. The intent is to minimize awkwardness in loading the vinyl. So I'm building a simple cradle frame that goes underneath for the drawer slides and front to attach to. Well I though it would be simple, but somehow I cut pieces wrong twice (ugh). 3rd time I think is on the money.
Just resting on the drawer bed for clarification.
I noticed a corner that must have been a booboo from the tablesaw. That will not go well for edge banding. So I used a box cutter to shave off the corner of a scrap. One of the few times I find masking tape is an adequate clamp for glue-up. As long as the glue holds up to sanding back into shape that is the most force it will see.
Corner sanded. Edge banding veneer applied to the exposed sides, trimmed and sanded. Then glued the cradle frame on. Marked and drilled all the screw holes for the drawer slides. A drawer is born.
Yes, technically the dust cover fits. It just contacts the bottom edge of the upper face board when the cover is opened to load up vinyl. Even when the turntable is moved all the way forward on the drawer bed. I don't like that since, over time, it will likely wear a line into the plastic cover and potentially rub into the finish of the face board. So probably will go without the dust cover.
And I still don't think the drawer is the best solution.. Just the most practical for the situation. It is a roll of the dice if the drawer slides help to decouple, or act as a springs that magnify frequencies. Maybe both, but I suspect more of the latter.
Can you remove the side blocks that the slides are attached-too and attach the slides to the vertical partitions directly which will give you greater vertical depth to play with concerning turn table mounting?
Yes and no. The blocks are glued on so would probably mean re-making the sides entirely. Also that would leave very little to attach the drawer front board to. And very far off center creating alot of bending force every time the drawer is opened and closed. Likely eventually stripping out the screw holes holding the drawer front on.
I feel I'm already pushing it as-is on that side of things. That more orange colored board in the pics will be holding the screws that go into the drawer front. The slides are "Soft close", and that soft close mechanism is wound up by pulling against a spring the first couple inches of travel. I'm a bit worried that board will be slowly ripped out of place over time from the force pulling the drawer open. Contemplating adding some screws into it from the other pieces to help reinforce it. Right now it is held on only with glue.
OK, what do you have planned for objects that sit upon the top surface right above the turntable?
(Just thinking that like the old consoles of my youth you could make the turntable stationary - leaving the drawer out completely from the design and have a hinged (w/gas shock support) lid over the turntable instead?).
Then you could put sand bags under the turntable or whatever stabilization scheme you desire and do away with the dust cover . . .
When I was in the design phase I thought of something not alltogether different from what you suggest. Possibly just having a section of the top that could be removed to expose the turntable. But ruled that out. Just didn't like it. Would have to stare at big seams in the top.
It is what it is. I'm rather committed to this design and I accept it's pitfalls. I add my concerns as more a word of warning incase anyone might want to build something similar.
I'll just leave the cover off and do what I can to seal up the space to minimize dust ingress. I might need to vacuum out the space every year or so, but I think it'll be fine all things considered.
For once, soft close seems appropriate. Normally seems cheezy to me. Woo live action!
https://i.imgur.com/DmOMTv8.mp4
Looking good!
Couldn't see that coming
Dumb tv FTW!