Build You Own (BYO) TV Stand - Page 40

I love it when a plan works out

Yeah, you're telling me. =) I was giddy when I found out gravity was the culprit. =) Thanks for your suggestions.
I also just installed the soft-drop hinge this morning for the bottom-middle door so gravity can't have its' way and adds needed support when I install the glass. I didn't realize I needed vertical clearance above the actual hinge and the hinge was hitting the middle shelf, so I made an adjustment and works out nice now. Only consequence is that I have one screw hole open, but it's so small that it won't be bothersome.

Tonight, I just need to paint the door-window trim that will be visible and make the back panel and the unit should be complete.

Oh, what do you guys suggest I use to buff the top surface for an even and glossy look? I know what do on small surfaces, but this is a big flat surface, so I'm sort of at a loss. If you guys can let me know, I'd appreciate it. thanx!

Good Morning All. I finally made the decision to move the Avion-unit to the living room and install all the equipment. So far everything seems to be working fine, but I did forget to connect the PC since I was doing this till 1 a.m. Looks like I barely had enough room for everything. The gigabit switch, cable modem, power conditioner and the cable box, along with an extra power strip all fit into the middle bottom opening. Wii and 360 gets to share a room together. Thank goodness the design called for vents since they do look cramped, but they do have enough airflow from the bottom, top, and back, so it should be good; and if all goes well, I won't need to add fans. Anyways, here are the pics of the setup. I am still missing the glass, which I hope to get next week and I will start on the back panel today, but isn't crucial to the unit since it can't be seen. Thanx for looking.

Is anything going to go in the "windows" on the front or will they be left open?
Unless you live alone I wouldn't count on the top of the cabinet to stay clear very long. It's much too tempting to sit something there.

VERY nice rain2! I was so impressed I showed it off to my wife and her immediate comment was "the door handles are in the wrong place". I see it as not having to bend down as far to open the doors. I'll send her to her room to watch Lifetime or something. Again, great job.

I'd probably figure out a way to put a center channel speaker in the top spot and lower than display about 2 feet or so, so it's just above the top of the cabinet.

Hey all. thank you for the compliments. It was a lot of work. =) The glass did finally come in, so I did install them over the weekend and will take pictures of them tonight. I still have the back-middle panel to finish; I have it measured and ready to cut, but I've been busy with other house work that needed attention. I'll also post a reference picture as the top-middle 'window' is a drawer for storage / center speaker, if you so desire. For me, I'm using it for storage of Blu-Rays and Games. Like I said before, I tried to make it as close to the Avion design as I could, as it did everything that I want it do.
If anyone wants to build this, just let me know and I can help with the list of materials and where to get the parts.
For me, I only used the following tools to build this (I highly recommend a table saw...I didn't have one, so I used what I had):
1) Circular Saw
2) Jigsaw
3) Router w/appropriate bits (saving grace...trimming bit)
4) Iron (for the edging)
5) Cordless Drill w/ appropriate bits
6) Kreg's Pocket Hole Kit
7) Level (to help with the straight lines over 22" that a square couldn't do)
8) Square
9) Measuring Tape (use one with both Metric & SAE...some of the instructs. were in metrics)
10) Lots of Clamps!!!
I believe that's all I used, tool-wise. I created all the jigs on-the-fly as I needed them since I couldn't predict what/how I was going to move forward if I ran into a problem. Will post more tonight. Thanx!

Good Evening. As promised, here are the photos of the finished unit. The first pic is the reference picture from the actual BDI Avion unit that usually goes for ~$1300 - $2000 (could be more now). The rest of the pics show the glass installed and stuff put into the drawer. =) PC working fine as you can see with the AVS Forum page on the T.V. I did find out that I can't have the Receiver and the PS3 on at the same time as the receiver heat goes directly on the PS3, so it increases the PS3's heat, which isn't good and makes the fan go crazy loud. I'll be getting an AV cooler for the receiver and possibly the PC, just for safety reasons, but we'll see. Thank you for following my first woodworking project ever and hope there will be many more. =) Now to figure out my next project....

This thread has been a great read and has definitely inspired me to build a new stand when I get home in a few months. I do have a question for the experienced wood workers though:

I already have some tools ( a good circular saw, drill and jig saw) and I am trying to decide whether I should buy a table saw or compound miter saw for help with this project. I can use a rip guide with my circular and get pretty decent cuts so I'm leaning towards the miter. What do you guys think would be a larger help with projects such as this? the compound miter or table saw? ( I have about a 300 dollar budget for one or the other).

thanks in advance

I got by with a mitre saw for years due to the cost of tables saws. Now days, Ryobi and others put out some decent (not great) portable table saws that are within your budget. My major caveat is to closely check the mitre angles with a carpenter's square and double check measurements prior to cuts with these saws. Using a circular saw is an option, but after I got my first portable, my use of the circular dropped dramatically.

Even though I have a large, well powered table saw now, I still have large sheets of plywood cut down to reasonable sizes at the big box home store prior to taking home. Its tough to keep large sheets square to the fence, so any reduction prior to cutting to measurement helps here. I also took time to build a large table for my table top table saw to help with larger pieces, but this was before they started adding larger side wings to the table tops.

So my $.02 having done it both ways is to go with a Ryobi type table top table saw.

Good luck and always wear your safety glasses.

bob

Well it depends on the design of the TV stand you will build. If you are going to use a lot of sheet material such as plywood then you will be better off with a table saw since miter saws do not have very large cross cut capacity. Even sliding miter saws only cross cut about 14".

If you can possibly stretch your budget I'd encourage you to stay away from the very cheapest table saws. You won't be very happy with their performance and if you do more woodworking you will probably end up replacing it very quickly.

Now on one hand, I hate to disgrace the excellent workmanship in this thread with my POS workings, but as I looked through this extensive thread, and got starry-eyed and drooly, I knew I was years from having the craftsmanship skills you all seem to have.

I knew I would be able to make a few circular saw cuts, drill a few screw holes and rework my existing stand, so I took my existing entertainment center, which looked like this;



Disassembled it and made it just pedestal height. I brought the very top shelf down, reworked all the innards, moved the storage doors to the outside edges, and viola;



Not the be all, end all, best TV stand ever, but it does the trick I think.
I'm happy with it at least - and I didn't have to throw out a perfectly good "old style" entertainment center.

Basically the project fit my abilities pretty well. I know it's not in the same league as the other work seen here, but I thought I would add mine here in case someone else is looking for a beginner skilled idea, or wants to recycle an existing entertainment center into an entertainment stand.

Looks good to me, Dude...

Yup, that's why I haven't posted pictures of my weak effort. All I did was buy a display Salamander synergy and replaced all the posts with those of a different height from 8020.net. (Thanks to the poster on this thread that pointed out 8020.net. It helped me convert a floor model triple 20 into a triple 30 for a combinded price of just under $550. The new posts cost more than the floor model stand.

Part two will be post worth. I'm adding another section (like a quad) on one end to go over my sub and then put some shelving in to hold my CD, DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray discs.

I think "you can never have too many clamps" is pretty much the moral of the story for everyone here.

Anyways, congrats on finishing your stand and on a job well done!

Thank you for the compliment. =) I'm thoroughly enjoying it and has been very help in keeping everything in place. I just need to re-do the wiring inside as I did a rather rush job on it.

Anyways, I've decided what my next project is going to be. I'm going to be building a Mame Arcade cabinet with a modular control panel to use for various games, along with Street Fighter IV and will make an attempt to make the controls compatible with PS3, 360, and Wii; will have to do some research on that. This is thanx to Gamespy for doing an article about it and making me realize that building one wouldn't be too bad and be nice to have around for friends to come over and play and maybe settle some scores in Street Fighter old-school style. Heck, even some Mortal Kombat 2 competition would be fun. =)

After reading this thread, I was inspired to build my own stand for our new 46in Samsung LED!

Not too complex - just a drawer on the bottom with 2 levels of shelf space above. Used melamine and other scrap wood lying around the house and spray painted the final product glossy black.

I have been putting off building a EC and am still worried about how I will do sanding and staining.. and how much time I will have to put in sanding and staining.

Couple questions.. on sanding.. is it ok to use an electric sander or do I have to do it by hand?

On the edging.. I am concerned how the veneer tape or banding will look...Is there a wood that would look good on the edge for painting or staining? I will probably use 3/4 or 1 inch thick wook. If I do go the veneer tape route...do i sand it any when applying the clearcoat?

If you're not trying for heirloom quality, electric sanding with an orbital sander is great. Be careful if you have mitered pieces coming together as you'll have a cross grained situation. If you pre-sand prior to assembly, then use a very fine grain paper just prior to finishing will eliminate a lot of the cross grain hassles.

I prefer to use veneer tape mostly on shelving. On sheet goods I prefer to use solid wood of the same or close species if it's an exposed edge. Having said that, even then some variations in color/grain can occur. If you're going to paint, then I'd just use poplar as an edging or even leave the exposed sheetgood as the edge, but fill and sand any voids. One way to do this is just take some drywall compound, run it down the edge and sand after it is dry. Once painted, you cannot tell it is a plywood edge.

With veneer tape, as with the plywood, both have a decent finish. There is not a lot finished wood on either one, so a light sanding is all that is necessary or even possible to give the finish something to bite into. Light sanding between coats is usually recommended by the finish manufacturer. It really doesn't take long just to go over LIGHTLY by hand and then use a tack cloth to remove the dust on subsequent coats.

Even if you are short of time as you state, you'll want a decent finish which is after all what most people will judge your work by. A little bit of extra time here is worth it.

Finally, check out Fine Woodworking on line or other woodworking web sites. There is a lot of info out there and a lot of variations on finishing depending on desired outcome.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted.

After quite a long time of planning it out and reading through this thread I have finally completed my own stand. This was based off a design I found in Finewoodworking but I modified it to suit my needs. As you can see I built it a little big to allow for a larger tv in the future. The TV in the picture is a Samsung 61" DLP.

Frank

Good job!

I don't particularly like those of you that can stain your stands.

I had to paint mine black to hide all the flaws.


Nice job.

And you don't think you can hide flaws with stain

SWEET! Nice work. Being able to modify is the first step toward your own designs.

It works Nice job.

Fortunately the flaws that weren't hidden by the stain is hidden by all the components.

My wife was behind me all the way on this build because, as you can see in picture 1 the legs of the folding table with a sheet over it that filled in as the TV stand until this was completed. She was ecstatic when I completed the stand.

I'll be building my own soon. Nothing out there will fit a 60" LCD and a 10" high center speaker. So I'll build my own, at the correct viewing height. I plan to have space under the center speaker to throw my DVD binder under (If I put a drawer face on it, it will be hinge down only, no real drawer). Then one side will be CD changer, VCR (used to send cable TV to up-scaling AVR) and DVD on top. Other side will have AVR. Both sides will be open for access and air circulation. The back side will be closed except for a center strip which will be left open I think. The stand will be about 68" long, maybe 22-24" deep and somewhere between 18-22" tall I'm guessing.

I'll be staining it a deep Red Chestnut with a high gloss polyurethane. The same as my custom speaker stands. I'm working on those now for my BIC Acoustech PL-66's. It started out as "throw some scrap 2x4's and 2x8's together and paint it black".... Now I'm several hours into it, $21 worth of wood. 1x10 for the top and base, with the top cut to shape of the speaker. I bought the mid-grade wood and cut out the best knot free parts, shaped, sanded, etc. Then ripped the 1x4's with 45* angles to make a hollow box column which I will run the speaker wire in and also throw a bag of something in the bottom to weight it down some as the speakers are 15lbs. After thought is I should have sprung for the top grade 1x4's for $4 more total (didn't realize it was that cheap) so I wouldn't have any knots in the columns either. I glued and used brads to hold the column together. There is a slight gap as the table saw didn't do a perfect job. I think the stain will get in there and then several coats of poly will seal it up good enough. If I had to do it over again with the tools I have, I'd use a solid 4x4 of top grade and just staple the wire down...

Anyway, I'll use some wood conditioner before I stain and hopefully the speaker stands will turn out good and I can do the same for the TV stand. I didn't want to go with a black cherry/Cabernet stain as that would be too dark with all the black components and I wanted to richen it up some. Cherry would have been too orange for me. The red chestnut is on the slightly purple hue of red from my test board, but with oil based poly it should shift it to a true red. I'll do a test of several different coats of stain and then put poly on them to determine how dark I want. I also plan to do a custom subwoofer 6-7cu foot in this color with high gloss as well. The sub will be a tall rectangle that will sort of match my 43" tall towers.

If you don't mind, may I ask you a little bit more about the details of your construction?

1. What are its dimensions? L x W x D
2. I like the wood trim on the top surface, how is this fastened to the plywood of the top surface? (biscuits?, glue?) Also, where does the far outside vertical "wall" come into contact with this top surface assembly (what does the plywood/trim top surface "sit" on). i.e. is the plywood/trim half-on/half-off on that vertical piece?

If you can answer these it'd be swell, and if you want, you can mention any other details of its construction... You can sort of see what I'm getting at by these questions - I'm unfamiliar with the different methods of fastening/assembling.

Here is my future project:

Current equipment:
42" TV
Ascend Acoustics Center Channel
Dennon 789 AVR
To the sides are a PS3 Slim and my HTPC (In an Antec ISK300 case.

I also have some Blu Rays and networking boxes (modem and switch) which could take up extra space.

This is going to go in the corner of the living room. It's going to take up a fairly large amount of space but that is desired. Also, I'm renting my house so when I move it will still work on a flat wall. It also leaves plenty of room for future equipment and a larger or wall-mounted TV.

The current layout requires two 4'x8' sheets of plywood or MDF to build. I'm unsure if I want to veneer the edges or use hardwood. If I went the MDF route some sanding and thick paint should produce a good enough result.

I also could use some input on the following:
*Cabinet area: Does there seem to be enough breathing room for the Denon 789 AVR in the bottom middle? What should I do about the rear porting on my Ascend center channel?
*Cable management: I can't really cut holes in the back on the side compartments.
*Back material: I'm thinking it will have to be more plywood or MDF because of the very exposed sides
*Feet or wheels? I like the sturdiness and look of feet but the ease of moving on wheels.
*Doors for the sides: I think glass doors are right out for DIY with the rounded edges. What about speaker fabric over a curved frame. Any experience with that?

Can you cut holes in the vertical front to back dividers and run the cables from the components in the side partitions through those and out the back?