Finished!

Finally Done.  I finished setting it up on Monday, it took several hours to put in all of the electronics, to do the wiring and, of course, to take a bunch of pictures.  Let's start with the before:

The previous set up.

The old entertainment unit.

And here we see the wiring problem.

More wiring.

Not pretty.

OK, now that we got that out of the way, let's look at the finished cabinet:

Here it is, still in the basement

View from the back with the removable back in place

The top.  It took four coats of polyurethane to get it right

Some of the smaller details:

Removable back with UHMW tape

I was looking for a solution for the removable back so it would slide smoothly in the grooves.  I was expecting to find some sort of wax but I found UHMW tape instead.  It works well.  The only downside was the tape was thicker than I expected so it was tough to apply evenly.  Also the back fits very snug, but it does slide smoothly and doesn't bind up at all which is what I was really looking for.

Powerstrips hidden behind the drawer.

Rear fan for the HTPC

Left Side: HTPC, Cable box & Network Switch

Right Side:  Wii, XBox 360, PS3

Onto the wiring.  As I said this took awhile.  I used a combination of cable ties with cable tie mounts and good ol' electrical tape for the thin speaker wires.

Finally, organized wiring.

The removable back in place, minimal wires exposed.

And lastly, the finished cabinet, all wired up and in place:

Hard to believe I started this project more than 8 months ago.  It took way longer than I thought it would but I'm really happy with the results and it was great learning experience.  Time to sit back and watch some TV.

HTPC "Case" Mod

The final piece to the cabinet is the Home Theater PC.  In our current set up we a have PC hooked up to our TV, so there definitely needed to be a place for that in the new cabinet.  I decided that, with all of the venting I put into the cabinet, instead of just throwing the PC on shelf, why not consider the cabinet to be the case and mount the components directly on one of the shelves?

So I modified one of the shelves.  First, I added a raised platform for the motherboard.  This platform sits about an inch off the shelf.  The reason for the raised platform is so that I could run all of the PC wiring under the motherboard instead of on top for a cleaner look and better air flow.

Shelf with raised platform

Raised platform from the side

I mounted the motherboard standoffs right to the wood platform.  I drilled a slightly smaller hole than the standoff and screwed them in.  They fit pretty snug, hopefully they'll hold.

Then, I mapped out where all of the components would go, again using Google SketchUp.  I actually used a couple of old Steel Tec sets (these came in really handy) to mount the components to the shelf and make a small rack for the hard drives.

All components installed

View form the top

Lastly, I wanted to put a face on the front that would hide the components and tie into the cabinet.  I made the face with some of the 1/4" plywood I used for the back and dyed it to match the cabinet.  I had an old Dell case lying around, which just so happened to have a great front panel that I could incorporate into the face.  It was the exact shape of a hole you could make with a router so I measured and cut the hole in the face and it turned out to fit perfectly. 

I also thought it'd be cool to disguise the DVD drive and make it look seamless.  I wasn't sure if it would actually work but I thought it was worth a shot.  I cut another hole in the face then took a separate piece of plywood for the DVD drawer and rounded the sides manually using a Dremel tool.  Finally, because I couldn't think of a better way, I super-glued the drawer piece to the DVD drawer.  It came out better than I expected. 

Front panel and DVD drawer

The HTPC case mod is complete.  As for the rest of the cabinent, I have finished varnishing and everything is assembled.  All that's left is to bring it up from the basement and wire in the components.  The plan is to do that on Monday and then finally be done.  Stay tuned for the unveiling!

Mounting the Cabinet Doors

Over the weekend I knocked out a lot of the little stuff left on my To Do list.  The biggest tasks were creating the drawer face and mounting the cabinet doors to the cabinet.

I chose to use euro style hinges because I like the clean look of not seeing the hardware from the outside.  Also the doors can overlay the frame completely when closed.  Installing them took several hours but actually wasn't that difficult.  I spent a lot of time making sure everything lined up correctly.  My biggest fear was accidentally drilling straight through the doors and ruining the face.

Cutting the drawer face was pretty simple, just a rectangle.  Home Depot didn't carry solid maple that wide so I had to use some plywood which meant more edge banding.  Not a big deal though, it came out pretty good.  What's crazy is that I *think* the drawer face was actually the last thing I had to cut.  From here on out its just some gluing, drilling, a little bit more dyeing and then a whole lot of varnishing.

Cabinet Doors: A Lesson in Patience

In one of my earlier posts I was testing out ways to make the joints for the cabinet doors.  It didn't go so well.  What I learned is that I really didn't have the right bits for making these joints.  So, for my birthday, my sister (thanks again) bought me a set of stile and rail bits made for this purpose:

There's plenty of stile and rail sets out there but most have a 1/2" shank and require a high-powered router (my router can only use 1/4" shank bits).  The above set were from Amana Tool.  Despite the troubles I'm about to describe the bits worked great, and my frustrations were due to operator error more than anything else.

First Attempt

Everything was going great.  I had cut the wood to length, made the decorative edges and made the rabbet on the back side which would eventually hold the glass.

First Attempt:  Stiles and Rails

All I had left to do was to make the end cuts on the rails so that they would nest with the stiles.  This was my fatal mistake.  As I discovered, when making an end cut with a router, as the bit exits the wood it has a tendency to tear out, destroying the edge:

No longer a nicely finished edge

One after another, no matter what I tried, the edges of the rails were ruined.  This was probably the most frustrated I've been in awhile.  After thinking I was so close to being done with the doors I had to start over.  I decided to take a week off so I could come back into it with a clear head.

Second Attempt

Giving myself a week off really helped.  I thought a lot about the process and came up with a new cutting order to hopefully solve the problems of my first attempt.  I also decided to start from scratch rather than reusing the stiles because I hadn't really focused on making everything square.  That would be another big disappointment if, at the end, everything didn't fit together correctly.

Here's the order of steps I came up with:

1. Cut the stiles and rails to slightly more than the desired length
2. Plane the edges to help make each piece square
3. Cut the stiles and rails to the exact length, square
4. Route the decorative edge on the stiles
5. Route the rabbet on the stiles
6. Route the end cuts on the rails
7. Route the decorative edge on the rails
8. Route the rabbet on the stiles

A couple of notes on the various steps:

Step 2:  I didn't have a planer or jointer so I used the idea from Spielman's, Router Basics and used the router as a jointer.  I had to make a fence for the routing table specifically for this purpose as it involves fixing a sheet of acrylic on half of the fence (I used double sided tape).

Fence for jointing

By using this fence the wood is trimmed by a small amount (the width of the plastic) with each pass.  I had mild success with this but I found the hardest thing was getting the fence to be in the exact right position.

Step 3:  I had a hard time making cuts square with the router.  I'm sure there must be some jigs or other tools out there that excel at this, but I wanted to try to do it with just the tools I had.  Here's what I came up with:

Jig to help make square cuts

Lining up the cutting line with the MDF guide

I used a piece of MDF that I made square by very carefully measuring and cutting.  Then I clamped the piece I wanted to cut up against the MDF while lining up my cutting line with the edge of the MDF.  Finally, with the help of a flush trim bit, I clamped the guide for the router on top of that making sure the bearing on the bit came into contact with each end of the MDF while the router was riding against the guide.  Needless to say it was tedious making these cuts, but worth it in the long run.

Step 4:

Step 5:

Step 6:  By routing the end cuts on the rails before doing the other edging I could prevent the tear out.  For one, there would be a lot more wood to help hold it together but more importantly, I could hold it against a piece of MDF as I was cutting.  The idea here being that the bit would pass cleanly through the wood into the MDF as if it was one contiguous piece, reducing tear out.



Sadly, I forget to take pictures mid-process but here's the finished rail:

The completed rail, NO TEAR OUT!!

Finally, the end result:

Assembled Frame

Stile meets Rail

Back side with the glass in place

So I guess it's true, we learn the most from our mistakes.  I was so incredibly frustrated but taking a break and starting over was definitely worth it.

At this point I *think* all the major stuff is done.  There's a ton of little things though, so I'm working on making another list to help keep me focused on finishing this.
  

Sanding, Dyeing, Gluing

(I'm going to try to catch up on logging the work I've done over the past month today, hopefully that's not an April fool's joke).  

So, first the boring stuff.  Sanding took the majority of a weekend and nights during the week.  It was really tedious and monotonous and any other -'ous' word that really just means boring.  There's not really any pictures worth posting on that.  The edgebanding is also complete, the edges are noticeable (or rather no longer noticeable) in the upcoming pictures. 

After the sanding, I decided to pre-fit the drawer slides.  I figured it would be easier to work before everything was glued together.  

Attaching the drawer slides

It turned out, unfortunately, that the drawer was just slightly too wide.  It pressed the wheels of the slides against the rails making it very hard to move the drawer.

Wheel pressed right up against the rail

So to fix this problem I decided to route out a groove where the slide would sit on either side of the drawer.

This groove was less than 1/16" deep but it was enough to fix the problem

Once the grooves were done I re-fit the slides and the drawer moved much smoother.

On to dyeing.  Much like sanding, dyeing took several days to complete.  I used much more dye than I thought I would need and had to go buy more.  (Here's an earlier post about the dye I'm using.) 

Getting ready to dye

The most tedious part was probably trying to get the dye into the vents on the side pieces.  I still need to go back and touch it up.  I chose to dye before I glued anything because I wouldn't have to worry about getting the rag into tight places and, because the dye is water based, it wouldn't hinder the glue joints.  

On to the gluing.  It took me a few days to work out a gluing strategy.  I wanted to break it up into steps so I wouldn't be frantically trying to fit the cabinet together and position all of the clamps before the glue dried.  I should have written the list down because towards the end I forgot one of the steps and ended up doing just that:

First:  Gluing the inner walls to the bottom

Next:  Gluing the outer walls to the bottom

Finally:  Gluing the inner back and top to the walls and bottom

That last picture is when things got frantic.  Trying to fit all of the pieces into the dadoes and clamp it all together while looking out for dripping glue was difficult.  As a result I did end up making one mistake.  One of the inner walls and back did not fit exactly into their dadoes.  I was able to fit them in after the fact using some clamps but because everything else was glued together I couldn't re-glue that joint.  So, begrudgingly, I used a bracket to hold that joint together.  It was the easiest and safest fix at this point and luckily it's in the back of the cabinet so it won't be too noticeable.

The next step would have been to varnish the cabinet, however, I decided I needed a break in the monotony and decided to build the doors instead...

Cabinet Picts - Part 2

More progress has been made.  I've been sitting on this pictures for a few months now and am finally getting around to posting them so this post may be a little lengthy.

First, I finally took on creating the vents in the sides for real.  I was nervous about this step as screwing up would mean having to make a whole new side.  I had my trusty jig though so I was ready to take it on.

Setting up the first side.

A little more than half way through (so far so good).

Completed.

All cleaned up.

The jig was great, it saved me so much time and I got beautiful results (IMHO).

Next up was cutting the vents and wire holes in the two backs.  I'm embarrassed to say I don't actually remember what type of plywood I'm using for the backs.  Home Depot didn't sell 1/4" in maple so one of the guys pointed me towards what's normally used as backing.  Of course, I don't think this stuff is meant for this type of cutting.  As you'll see in the picts below the very top layer chips and peels away with some of the cuts.  However, it does have once good side so not really that big of a deal since I can hide the bad sides from view.

The wire holes only run through the inner back, the vents run through both

Here's the inner back finished except for the holes for the media PC

Close up of the right side

Moving on.  Next was the dowel joints for the top:

The dowels inserted in the top

And the corresponding holes in the sides

This was another step I was nervous about.  I was so relieved when the holes lined up and the top snapped on.  For those curious, I used a doweling jig, I can't imagine trying to do this without one.

Then, finally, I built the drawer box.  I originally was planning on cheating here and just ordering one because I wanted the drawer joints to be dovetailed and I don't have a dovetail jig.  However, it was going to cost $60 with shipping which defeats the purpose.  So I used dowel joints instead of dovetail and it came out pretty good.  I'm actually glad it was too expensive now.  For wood, I ended up having to use poplar instead of maple as, again, Home Depot didn't have maple in 1/2" stock and I thought 3/4" walls were too thick.  (I also don't have a planer so I couldn't make my own.)

The drawer box assembled but not glued

Glued and dyed

The drawer was also the first thing I dyed.  I thought it would be a good test as it'll be on the inside anyway.

OK, so, where are we?  I still need to finish the edgebanding, sand, and then glue the cabinet together.  After that, I need to tackle the doors and finish the drawer.