Popular Woodworking 2009-02 № 174, страница 26
A classic furniture form revised for 21st-century entertainment. Shaker BY MEGAN FITZPATRICK I » have a love-hate relationship with my television. I love (too much, perhaps) to watch shows, but 1 hate having the TV out in the open as the focal point of my living room. But I also dislike most commercial entertainment centers, as I've a penchant for antique and antique-style furniture. So, 1 flipped through a pile of books on Shaker furniture and auction-house catalogs to cull design ideas for a stepback cupboard that could be repurposed as a modern entertainment center that would not only allow me to hide a 32" flat-panel TV behind doors, but also house the cable box, DVD player and various stereo components. (Of course, if you want to use it in your dining room, just omit all the holes in the backboards for air flow and cord management.) A Plethora of Panels While this project is quite large, it's suprisingly easy to build - though it's an exercise in organization to keep all the parts straight. The upper face frame, lower carcase and all four doors are simple mortise-and-tenon joints, with panels floating in grooves in the doors and carcase sides. The first step is to mill and glue up all the panels. Use your best stock for the door panels, as they'll show the most. And here's a tip I didn't know until after it was too late: Keep all your cathedrals facing in the same direction and your panels will be more pleasing to the eye. For the four doors, you'll need six Vs'-thick panels, two each of three sizes. You'll also need two 5/8"-thick panels for the lower carcase sides. Unless you have access to a lot of wide stock, you'll also need to glue up 3A"-thick panels for the upper carcase sides, top, bottom and shelves, and the lower carcase bottom, shelf and top. 1 glued up all my panels oversized. After the glue was dry, 1 took them out of the clamps, stickered them and set them aside. 1 cut each to its final dimension as it was needed, after calculat- |
