This entertainment center (which I built for my son Andrew) was designed to provide support for a large video gaming monitor as well as the game systems and storage for the game cases. Fortunately, those game cases are the same size as DVDs, so it will store them equally well. To that end, I borrowed and compiled design elements from classic Arts and Crafts examples: rectilinear details, tapering front rails and the repetitive lines of the exposed storage area are a few examples.

Constructing the Front

The case is constructed of three subassemblies: the plinth, which lifts the piece from the floor; a solid-oak front (a modified face frame), which creates the shape of the entertainment center’s silhouette; and a central box that holds the center’s various storage compartments.

I built the front from solid oak, tenoning the various stiles into the bottom front rail, while the top rail sits behind the stiles and is screwed to their back faces. In my original drawings of the entertainment center, the top rail was mortised to receive tenons on the stiles, but — at least to my eye — the presence of that top rail created a visual dead space over the storage slots.

In a bit of an unusual technique, I glued and screwed the back of the bottom rail to a cleat that would catch the lip of a rabbet on the plinth deck.

The most complicated feature of the entertainment center’s construction was the installation of the tapered stiles. In order to open up the spaces above the banks of storage slots, I decided to stop the top rail at the stile on either side of the central compartment.

This would have left those tapered stiles unsupported (with no rail connected to them) at the top prior to the installation of the unit’s top. In order to stabilize the tapered rails, I temporarily ran the top rail long, across the top of the storage slot openings, attaching it to the tapered stiles with screws. Later, I cut the ends free after the front was screwed in place. (Note: these rails are tapered only after they have had the tenons formed on one end and test fitted in the front.)

Making the Plinth

My dad was a cabinetmaker for much of his working life, building custom cabinets for dozens of kitchens and bathrooms, as well as dozens of commercial offices in northern Ohio. The plinth — or base — for each of his cabinets was constructed of 1 x 3 material nailed together into a ladder-like frame to which the cabinet front was attached and on which the cabinet was constructed. This is the approach I used for building the plinth of this entertainment center.

I built a ladder from spruce furring strips ripped to a 2-1/8″ width that I fastened together with 1-5/8″ drywall screws. The ladder was built without a front rail in order to create visual space under the arc at the bottom of the cabinet front.

I then attached two glue blocks on the inside front end of the ladder’s long end pieces. These provided me with my initial attachment points for joining the plinth to the front. This attachment was reinforced as other components of the case were installed, by attaching them to the front and to the plinth.

Assembling the Case

The case of this entertainment center is fabricated from oak plywood. Plywood is much better for the case than glued-up panels of solid oak for several reasons. First, plywood panels need only to be cut to size. It isn’t necessary to glue up narrower boards and then surface them before sizing them. Second, plywood is dimensionally stable. It doesn’t shrink across the grain, which eliminates the need for frame-and-panel construction. Plywood is also much less expensive than enough solid wood to create the top and end panels. And finally, plywood is much lighter, and speaking from the point of view of someone who carried one end of this cabinet into my son’s second floor apartment, a heavier cabinet would not have been wise.

The plinth deck is a sheet of paint-grade plywood which is rabbeted on its front bottom edge so it could be screwed to the oak cleat on the front’s bottom rail. I then screwed the bottom to the plinth with 1-5/8″ drywall screws, giving me a solid base for the rest of the construction.

Next, I removed the screws attaching the front’s top rail to the tapering outside stile and cut that rail off on the outside of the stiles, planing the end grain flush with their outside edges. The end panels are made from oak veneered plywood, but to economize on the oak plywood, I created the interior walls from two pieces of plywood (the front and rear dividers). The front section was oak plywood, but the back section was paint grade ply. The end panels and the front dividers require careful preparation: 1/4″ x 1/4″ dadoes need to be milled onto these surfaces to accept the ends of the short oak shelves that will be housed there (see the Drawings). The dadoes on the end panel must be long enough (15″) to allow the shelves to be slid in from the back of the cabinet prior to the installation of the rear dividers. The front edge of these dadoes are blocked by the cabinet front.

After I finished those dadoes, I plowed the slots for the game case shelves. It was now time to install the two end panels. To stabilize them until the top had been installed, I first temporarily placed corner brackets into position, screwing these brackets to the base of the cabinets and the inside face of the end panels. I typically use these brackets to ensure that case pieces remain square while the glue is drying, but I’ve found them useful in many other assembly contexts as well.

I screwed the bottom of each end panel to the plinth, and at the same time I applied glue to the forward edge of the end panels and clamped them to the front until the glue had cured. Following that, I installed cleats (see the Drawings for details) on the top inside face of each end panel. These cleats are the primary means of attaching the top. From oak plywood I cut out the top and secured it to the cleats, then I removed the corner brackets.

Once the top was attached, I put the cabinet face down and installed cleats on the top and the plinth deck to which I would screw the front and rear dividers. First I had to notch the front dividers to accommodate the top rail. Then I secured the front divider to the cleats with glue and screws. Now is the time that you need to put the solid oak shelves into the 1/4″ x 1/4″ dadoes that you cut earlier. As I was preparing to mount the small shelves that would contain the game boxes, I realized that a narrow band of the paint-grade plywood I used for the bottom of the cabinet would be visible below the bottom shelf, so I removed the top veneer layer of the paint-grade plywood from that visible section and replaced it with a strip of oak veneer. Sometimes late “discoveries” like this happen even to very experienced woodworkers.

After that repair, I glued the shelves into their grooves, fitting each with a few strokes of a block plane. As I did so, I glued the shelf stops on each shelf with a quick rub joint. (Note: As you can see in the photo at right, the rear divider isn’t installed until after all the small shelves are in place.) Four additional cleats hold the two large shelves — mount them as shown in the drawings. Then attach the shelves to the cleats … I made mine from oak plywood with a solid oak facing on the front edge.

Building the Doors

The doors are made from solid oak using frame-and-panel construction. I first chopped the mortises in the stiles and cut matching tenons on the rails, fitting each to its mortise with a shoulder plane. (See the Drawings for details.) Then, on the table saw, I plowed the 5/16″ x 5/16″ grooves in the rail and stile stock that would receive the edges of the door panels, after which I turned my attention to the raised panels that would be fit inside the frames.

The flat front face of each door panel is decorated with walnut stringing made with a quick-and-dirty inlay technique. I first used a hollow-ground planer blade on my table saw to cut clean grooves on the face of each panel. I left that same blade in the saw to rip off thin strips from a walnut panel I had thicknessed to the exact width of the grooves. After applying a little glue to the grooves, I tapped the strips into place. I completed the process by planing each strip flush with the surface.

Since the door panels show their flat faces in front, I raised the back surface of each panel by planing wide bevels all around to reduce the edge thickness. The bevels were laid out by marking one line on the edges of each panel about 5/16″ from the front surface and a second on the back surface of each panel about 1-1/2″ from the edge.

After dry-assembling each door to check the joinery, I glued the mortises and tenons and clamped the assembled door, leaving it to cure on a flat surface.

My setup for mortising door hinges employs a vise, a catch block and one of the corner brackets I used earlier when installing the end panels. This presents the door at a convenient height for handwork and keeps it stable under the force of chisels and a mallet.

The mortises on the door frame, however, have to be chopped on the assembled cabinet in less convenient circumstances. However, despite my gauge and my careful installation, I still managed to goof in the installation of one door. I could have filled the hinge screw holes and re-installed the hinges. (Like I said, things can happen …) Instead, I decided to fix the error with a plane. To do this, I marked the high section with pencil scribble, then removed the hinges and planed those scribbled high areas flat.

Now that my machining and joinery was completed, I moved to sanding the project smooth up through the grits, and applied three coats of oil-based polyurethane — this sort of project takes a bit of abuse.

All that remained to do was to bring it to my son’s apartment, which unfortunately meant carrying it up a few flights of stairs. Maybe the next time I offer to build something for him, delivery will not be included in the bargain.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

The post PROJECT: Arts & Crafts Entertainment Center appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

In most cases, a woodworker selects specific wood to suit what he or she is building. In this case, I decided to build myself a small box to show off the piece of wood. Its uneven natural edge appealed to me — as did the coloration of its heartand sapwood. While a waney edge might not be everyone’s cup of tea, to me, the contrast between the clean lines of the box and legs and the uneven edge of the bubinga was very nice to look at.

Building the Box

The sides and ends of the box (pieces 1 and 2) were simply ripped to their proper width and then miter cut to length on my miter saw. My saw has the depth of cut necessary to make these cuts; you may need to set this up on your table saw. Speaking of the table saw, I moved over to mine to plow the grooves that would capture the bottom (piece 3). Check out the Drawings for all the construction details required for this project. Go ahead and cut the bottom from 1/4″ plywood and you are ready to glue up the box pieces.

Test-fit the pieces to be sure that your miters are tight and the bottom is properly sized. When you have done that, apply a thin coat of glue to the corner joints (no glue for the bottom!) and clamp it up until the glue cures. I prefer band clamps for this task.

While the glue is curing, set up a 1/2″ dado head in your table saw and make a shallow test cut in some scrap lumber. Surface some maple down so that its thickness fits perfectly into your test dado cut. Now you are ready to mill the legs (pieces 4) to the dimensions listed in the Material List. Strike a curved line on one of the pieces, as shown in the Drawings. Cut the curve on your band saw and sand it smooth to the line. Now use that completed leg to trace the curve onto the remaining leg blanks and repeat the process for each of them.

As shown, I rounded over the curved edges of the legs using a roundover bit in my router table. Note that I used a screw clamp to hold the leg during this operation. It would be too dangerous to try to hold the pieces with your hands.

Once the legs were completely machined, I was ready to move on to forming the corner dadoes. The legs are housed in dadoes on the four corners of the box. I cut them using a sled that held the box at 45° to the dado head. I secured the sled to my table saw’s miter gauge with a couple of screws, and it worked like a charm.

I built the sled by gluing together four layers of 1/2″ plywood and trimming it into a 5″ x 16″ rectangle. Then I set my table saw blade to exactly 45° and bisected it across the 5″ dimension. I flipped one piece over, and the exposed bevels created two 45° faces. I clamped the bases between two long “fences,” gluing them in place. After adding a tall fence in back to clamp to the box, my sled was done.

Go ahead and cut the dadoes for the legs and glue them in place. Once again, the band clamp is a good choice here.

When the glue cured, I cut out an opening for the drawer. With a hand saw, I carefully cut down 1″ as shown in the Drawings. (The cuts align with the inside face of the box ends.) Then I set up my router table with a straight bit and a couple of stops on the fence, and routed the drawer opening. It took a few passes, raising the router bit about 1/4″ for each pass.

Building the Drawer and Top

I mounted drawer supports (pieces 5) inside the box, level to the drawer opening. The drawer consists of a solid piece of wood that forms the drawer body and a drawer face made from the same material as the box (pieces 6 and 7).

As you can see in the photo, I used a core box bit guided by a rub collar and a template to form the recesses in the drawer body. Use the Drawings to determine the dimensions that I used. (You can also create your own shapes if you’d like.) I attached my template with short brads driven into the drawer body, but double-sided tape would work, too. When you’ve completed the routing, place the drawer body in the box and locate the drawer front on the body.

Mark the location with a pencil and then glue the face to the body. Now you can make the drawer handle (piece 8) in the same manner as you made the legs. Locate it in the center of the drawer face, and glue it flush to the top edge. With that done, make the drawer blocks (pieces 9) and glue them to the bottom of the drawer body (keep them just far enough from the edge to clear the drawer supports). These blocks and the pull form three legs upon which the drawer sits when it is removed.

Here’s a fine opportunity to give the whole box and the drawer a good sanding, taking it up through the grits.

Adding the Top

Now you are ready to make the top (piece 10). As I stated at the beginning of this article, my top was made from a really interesting piece of bubinga. I cleaned up the waney edge of the top with a brass brush, to remove any loose pieces. In truth, this box would look good with a pretty piece of wood of any species — that will be up to you to decide. But there are a couple of important details that you should know about the top.

I used Soss hinges (pieces 11) in the top because they are strong and attractive. Sadly, they are also a bit of a pain to install. Drill out mortises for the hinges in the box first. I used a drill press to remove most of the waste and then followed up with a sharp bench chisel for the final fitting. When you’ve got that done, carefully transfer the hinge locations to your top workpiece. Repeat the procedure and then temporarily mount the top. Now mark where the legs meet the underside of the top when it is opened. I used a Dremel tool to carve out two little mortises that allow the top to open to a full 90°. Sand the top and you are ready to apply the finish.

In this case, I applied a wash coat of amber shellac thinned 25% out of the can with denatured alcohol, just to add a bit of amber coloring to the wood and to seal the pores. Then I sprayed a couple of coats of lacquer, de-nibbing between the applications. When the finish cured, I remounted the top and the box was completed.

It is funny how things work out. This little piece of wood from Africa went from the burn pile to becoming the focus of a classy little box. Now I’ll always take a second look at waney-edged scraps!

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

Brad Becker is a professional woodworker and a regular contributor to the Journal.

The post PROJECT: Natural Live-Edge Box appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

The post Puzzle Piece Pattern appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.