Next project: Entertainment center

zbhover

Hey there eveyone I just thought I would share a couple drawings I made up of the entertainment center that I'm going to be making. It will be the first project for my new 3.25hp triton router and router table that I built. I'll post some pictures of the router table as soon as it warms up a little and I can get the doors put on it.

Anyways I'll be making the entertainment center out of pine since all the trim that I put up in the house is pine and floors that I refinished are pine. Right now the TV is sitting on an old end table to it will be nice to get something in there to hold the TV and all that other stuff.....

I attached 2 drawings, let me know what you guys think, etc........



bye

Attached Images

	ZBHC Entertainment Center.jpg (347.5 KB, 30 views)
	ZBHC Entertainment Center 2.jpg (336.6 KB, 19 views)

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curiousgeorge

Nice plans, zbhover. Did you use Sketchup to draw them?

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George
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Mike

Pine is a poor choice for furniture of this type. Loews have what they call "Handy panels" of glued up white aspen, which like poplar is a hardwood. This would be a much better choice and have a similar appearance to pine. These panels are available in sections 24" wide and 4 or 5 feet in length. The big advantage of aspen is it does not have the green bands that poplar is prone to. Another option is baltic Birch plywood which would easily finish up like pine. Extremely stabil and strong since it has no voids this is often a cabinet makers choice. All you need to do is dress up the edges.

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zbhover

George:
Actually I used a program called Rhino 3d with the Flamingo plug-in..... Its the program I use to design hovercrafts. I can dissasemble it on the computer and make a cut list templates, etc...


Mike: I'm just curious why you think pine would be a bad choice???? Just because it's a soft wood????

I actually love working with poplur but my wife isn't a big fan of it. I like the Greens, blues, blacks and sometimes pinks and reds that are mixed in with it.

I actually got about 15 poplar pallets a few years ago with a bunch of great looking 1 1/8" thick 4' long boards on them. My dad's work was going to through them away because they thought the dark greens and black were mold... Of course I snatched them right up I still have lots of the plan green stuff left and a little of the stuff with darker spots.

bye

harrysin

Sorry zb, but I think you're design is out of date. Tube type TV is well on it's way out and the prices of what's left in the stores is so low that other than the most minor repair, it's throw away. LCD and Plasma are fast getting bigger, better and cheaper, even here in Australia a 42" Plasma can be had for under a grand. The point of all this is that 42" is fast becoming the norm, and these sit on top of entertainment furniture because of the size and ventilation required. With you're programme, a re-hash should take but minutes.

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Harry

The best advice that I can give a newcomer to routing is, learn to use the router mounted, this can be as simple as a board held in a vice, with the router firmly attached and a simple fence held with clamps, and when he/she feels competant and confident in it's use and is familiar with all aspects of safety, THEN, and only then proceed to learn how to use the router hand held. This is MY opinion, and may or may not coincide with that of the forum management, but is based on a lifetime of woodworking.


http://members.dodo.com.au/~sharry02/

reikimaster

Oh, goodness! Aspen is stringy as hell. At least the aspen I got from Lowes when I did my bathroom. I did all of the wood trim from aspen because when I stained it, it was about as perfect a match as I've ever seen for the old pine that exists in the house.

For edge routing it wasn't bad as long as the grain was up hill. But as soon as you turned the board around to do the other side you had a fight on your hands as the grain ran down hill and you were cutting into it. Brand new bits, several light passes, it still wanted to fuzz up and tear out.

Now I know that all of this is true, to some degree, with any wood. Grain is grain. But this was my first time with aspen and it was a struggle at times.

zbhover

We could really care less to have a TV that big or even spend the money on one. We only have a 27" TV that will be going in this and won't be getting anything any bigger. Eventually we'll be finishing our basement and will have a family room down there so if we do get a bigger TV later that's where it would go. We just bought this TV a couple months ago and is a 27" Toshiba digital tube TV, I think it cost us about $200. Not two exspensive and would fit in the throw away catagory, but my dad and grandpa have had there Toshiba's for over 10 years and not had a single problem, we'll see if they still make them with the same quality.

Some other people on the woodnet group mentioned making the top part a seperate unit from the bottom so that it could me taken off, modified, or a new one made. This way it will work the the Tube TV we have now and if 5-10 years from now this TV dies and we can't get another tube TV the top could be removed or modified to fit a LCD or what not.



Thanks for the suggestions.... Lots to think about now.... I'll modify my design a little and post some updated drawings....

bye

Mike

My suggestion about pine is based on the fact that it is a softwood and likes to travel. One project I worked on should of had a passport it moved around so much. As we continue to learn things that the masters of old already knew, people have noticed that the wood movement can be accommodated by using nails instead of screws in projects. The nails can bend or slip a little instead of the wood splitting. This is proven by many antiques that still survive.
For any others considering building an entertainment cabinet of this type for a CRT television make sure you leave room for a digital conversion box if your model is not digital. The change takes effect next February.

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