Well, well, well.................What do you do if you need a place to put your flat screen TV which is in the same room with your built-in library?  You make a stand to match it!  That wasn't too hard to figure out now was it?  This project is the description along the way for the construction of that TV stand. 

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The first thing to do naturally, was to get a bill of material list together.  I used the TV stand plans that I designed for my grandson's TV stand as a starting point and modified the drawings to accommodate the new overall width, face frame style and openings in the new cabinet.  As you can see here on the right, after compiling the material list and ordering the quarter sawn white oak stock, I picked it all up and unloaded it onto some sawhorses in my front garage.  I ordered the wood from the same place I get most of my wood and that is L.R. Nisley & Sons Hardwoods near Goshen, Indiana (an Amish operated business and an amazing place to see by the way).

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The first thing I set out to do after unloading the lumber was to let it acclimate to my shop for a couple of days.  Then I took the boards that were to be used to make up the sides and jointed the edges on my jointer.  The next step that I always use (whenever I can) is to use biscuits on the edges before gluing up the panels to help in aligning the panels.  You can see some of this operation in the pictures below.
 

Using my Bosch biscuit jointer to cut the # 20 biscuit slots in the  edges of the boards.

View showing the insertion of the biscuits just prior to appying the glue.

A view of the panels after glueup and  being clamped prior to  cutting to OA length.

The next step was to cut bevels on two sides at the the bottoms of each one of the legs.  I completed this task on the bandsaw and then clamped the legs together at the workbench.  I then used my Porter Cable belt sander to smooth out the profile on all the legs.  The photo on the left shows the legs before clamping in the workbench front vice and prior to sanding them with the belt sander.

After the legs were completed, I cut the glued up end panels, the sub top panel and the bottom panel to their final overall lengths.  Then I cut biscuit slots in the panel edges to join them and to make the outside perimeter of the main case .  I dry fitted the panels prior to the glueup to make sure they fit correctly.  This can be seen in the left photos below.  The center panels were then laid out on my infamous old door assembly bench to route the dados that would hold the eventual center section shelving of the cabinet.  You can see in the right photo below how I set up the center panels to do that task.
 

This photo shows the case perimeter after dry fitting the pieces and prior to the eventual glueup.

This photo shows how I set up the  panels to cut the dados for holding in the eventual center section shelves.

The stand is designed to have a storage compartment on both sides of the cabinet and to have doors enclosing them.  In the center section of the cabinet, there will be two shelves that will hold components such as satellite control boxes, my DVD player and other components and a drawer at the bottom center of this section to hold my DVD's.  I needed a way to make the center section able to hold these components without showing all the ugly wiring necessary to hook them up.

I decided to design the drawer at the bottom to be shorter in depth than the entire full depth of the cabinet.  My thinking was that I could make cutouts at the rear and center of the two shelves to allow the wires to be fed through.  By making the drawer shorter than the cabinet depth, this would allow me to cut an access hole through the back panel and behind the drawer that would not be seen due to the drawer being installed into the cabinet.  The wiring could then be fed up through the cutouts in the shelving and into the components making a clean appearing setup.

To accomplish this, I took the center shelf panels to my drill press and used a 1 1/8" forstner bit to cut nice smooth rounded corners for the cutouts.  You can see this operation in the left photo below.  After finishing the cutouts with a saber saw and final sanding, I laid the shelves aside and assembled the center vertical panels into the case.  You can see what that looked like after the glueup in the center photo below.  The final step was to slide in the finished horizontal shelves, gluing only the front 4 or 5 inches of the shelves edges to allow for their expansion and contraction.  You can see what the cutouts look like in the photo on the right (below) after they were assembled into the main case.
 

View showing rounded corners being cut with forstner bit on drill press.

Main case after vertical panels were inserted and after glueup.

View showing cutouts  at rear of center shelves.

After these pieces were assembled and with the insert panels in place, I mounted and glued them into the legs making the completed end panel assemblies.

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The next step was to cut the pieces for the face frame.  I followed the design for the bottom piece of the face frame by using the same design that I used when I made the sideboard for our kitchen.  This design allowed for a long radiused piece at the bottom of the frame.  In the photos below, you can see the back side of the face frame prior to assembly onto the main case showing the pocket screw joinery I used to assemble the frame.

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When this was all completed, I again dry fitted the pieces together to check for fit prior to applying the finish.  I wanted to make sure that things worked out correctly because after applying the Orange TransTint® wood dye, there would be no turning back if you miss something and had to redo something. You can see what that looked like at this stage of the game in the photo here on the left side of the page.

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After checking and stamping my approval of the dry fitting procedure, I laid all the components out in various places around my shop and gave all the pieces the orange tint treatment.  After waiting for the dye to completely dry, I then lightly sanded all of them to remove the slight raising of grain that this procedure created.  I then applied a coat of dark walnut gel stain to all the components.  The four photos below show some of the various different pieces after the staining process. You can also see some of the biscuit slot cuts that I used to fasten the face frame to the case.  If you look closely you can see how this orange tint makes the rays and flecks in the quarter sawn oak "pop" as they say (make sure to double click the pictures to really "see" this in detail).

Cutting the dovetails. Layout before assembly. Completed drawer.

With all the main cabinetry completed, I moved on to making the drawer for the lower part of the cabinet.  As I had stated earlier, the drawer was designed to hold some of my DVD's and would help to make the overall appearace of the cabinet a little more attractive, not to mention the function of hiding the wiring to the components in the upper shelves. The top photo on the left shows how I cut the dovetails using my Porter Cable Model 4212 dovetail jig.  I love this jig!  It sure makes dovetailing drawers a lot easier for those of us who have not developed the skills to do it by hand.  You can see the cut drawers laid out and ready to assemble in the center photo.  Note that I also routed a 1/4" X 1/4" groove in the bottom edges of these pieces to accept the drawer bottom. The lower photo shows the completed drawer with a partition built in the center.  I eventually used full extension Knape & Vogt drawer slides to mount the drawer into the cabinet.  I also used the same styled handles that I used on the lower cabinets of our built-in library.

Cabinet after installing the bottom drawer.

Closeup showing  drawer slide detail.

Finished cabinet with lower drawer closed.

Dave
dave@oldaveswoodshop.com