Build You Own (BYO) TV Stand - Page 26

Got the stand into the room. I am very pleased with the way it came out.

Pat it looks beautiful with your set...Nice job. Enjoy!!!!

Thanks for all of the ideas. This is my first attempt at making anything significant with wood. I believe that the stand is sturdy but I am unsure how to "trim" it out to look more like furniture than just a wooden box. Anybody have any suggestions. I hope the attachments come out below.

Here's a couple more pics:

We used oak molding on the bottom of ours, and small oak pieces for all the rest as you can see in our picture above. They sell it at Home Depot.

I want to build a TV stand using black laminate particle board. I have seen white melamine, white vinyl & woodgrain vinyl, but not black. It comes in 3/4" by about 23" deep by about 6' or 8' length. And the vertical side pieces come with holes pre-drilled for the shelf pegs. A friend bought some black a few years ago, but could not recall from which home improvement store. He said it was called furniture grade. He even bought what he called iron-on edging for the cut edges.

So far Home Depot, Lowes & Menards do not have black & said cannot order it. Has anyone ever seen the stuff I'm looking for? I have some tools, but not a woodworking shop as it appears some have. So I'm trying to keep it simple.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Mike

Yes, Black Melamine is available and can be had at the better hardwood lumber suppliers :0 here in Albuquerque.

Try Google, or call some cabinet shops in your area and ask where they get materials.

BTW, particle board is one of my two irrefutable proofs of the existence of Satan....

Is there any recommended technique to cutting melamine so that it does not chip? I presume a fine tooth, carbide tipped blade.

I've also put tape on it too.

There are also blades made specifically for cutting melamine.

They have a lot of teeth.

So I got my stand done (I'll post pics after work today) But am in need of some screwn in DVD holders for the pull-out shelf I have on the left hand side of my stand. Does anybody know where I can get these, a website or B&M store or anything? I just need those plastic guides that you can screw into the wood and make however wide you want? I would post a pic but can't find a website anywhere, everywhere just has full-on stands, or stupid CD wallets; not what I'm looking for.

What software do you use to reduce the size of a jpg so that it can be posted here. The picture right out of the camera is too big to post and I do not know how to reduce it.

Thanks

Like these?
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here are a couple of pics of the first draft of my stand. next step is to come up with a finish that fits the room, which has a knockdown sheetrock finish with lots of arches.

Microsoft's Image Resizer power toy:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx

After looking around for months, I finally decided to build a stand for my 50" Samsung. I think it came out great for just a few hours of build time (thanks to my cousin the carpenter/cabinet maker) and a couple of hours of finish time.

I went with the antique white/maple theme because that's what our side tables and coffee table look like. I didn't get the shade of white just right but most people that see it think it's part of the set.

Got the center channel in there pretty nice with a spot for the HD DVR and the XBox360. I store xbox accessories in one side and kids DVD's in the other. All the rest of the HT gear is on the other side of the room in the corner.

OK, so after much time off from my project this summer, I'm finally at the stage where it is no longer in the shop and is in use. The TV didn't come until early August, so I needed that to get motivated and finish this thing.

Here's the basics on my project. 80x 22x 24 made of oak ply with veneer edging for the shelves and oak trim for the edging on the unit.

5 sections -- 2 for DVD/ CD pullout drawers, 2 for components and the center which originally was going to have no doors has the center channel speaker and Sat receiver.

Doors are panel doors I made with a slot cutter on a router, and joined with small biscuits. I used 1/4 inch solid oak for the cd doors and 1/4 inch tempered smoked glass for the 2 component sections.

The center speaker cloths insert was an afterthough. I actually just used L brackets to hold together a 1 inch frame and then stapled the speaker cloth on. The frame is held in with insert/ roller brackets ( or whatever they are called).

Hope this inspires others who've never done woodworking before to take the plunge. I certainly made some mistakes along the way, and probably wasted more than $100 in wood, but the finished product is worth the effort.

Thanks much to Ron Stewart for helping with advice and links to sawguides and of course to Ironhorse and everyone else who has contributed so much to this thread.

Best --Chris

Nice...I like all the extra room.

Iron Horse,

What a great looking stand.

I previously posted a few questions here about materials & only looked at a few pictures, but never started at the beginning of the thread. Today I looked at Iron Horse's pictures & dimensions for the first time. Wow, mine looks like a twin! Mine is 63" wide, 18" deep and 21" high. Has 3 shelves across and a base just like his. Except mine is made of el cheapo laminated pine.

I wanted 3 shelves across so I could hold a center speaker. I used 20" wide shelves since my speaker is 19" wide. The factory Sony stand is 18" deep, which is also about the depth of my old equipment rack, so I used 18" pine. This was supposed to be a quick weekend project. Ha! I figured I'd use 36" long wood (2 pieces), cut in half & make a pair of vertical ends/dividers. And cut a bit off 72" long wood (2 pieces) in order to make the top & bottom pieces.

Sounded simple with only a few cuts. But some of the wood was not as square as I hoped. I don't have a table saw & used my 7" Skil saw and worked on my garage floor. So this took a lot more time than planned. But I'm coming down the home stretch. I have to cut the removable shelves & stain everything.

Which is what brought me back to this thread. I want a black stand, which is one reason I went with pine. I figured black would hide a lot of defects & knots. I figured the finish would hopefully look similar to black woodgrain speakers.

Anyone have suggestions or recommendations on which stain and finish to use?

I'll have to look into posting pictures, which I've never done.
Thanks in advance,
Mike

I went to a Woodcraft store & discussed my project with them. I explained I wanted black, and this should help hide any wood and/or construction defects. By the time we got done discussing all the steps & coats needed, he suggested paint. The salesperson said he's loosing a sale, but for my purposes that I might be better off just using a few cans of black spray paint. He felt aerosol spray paint was more durable than brushing on. I'm guessing I would need quite a few cans.

I do see what looks like some painted TV cabinets on this thread. But I'm presuming these were not done with spray cans of paint. Any suggestions on using a brush-on latex paint?

Spray cans can do a good job if you're careful...if you want to use black latex, make sure it's thin enough--use water or a product called "Floetrol"-- to make it spread smoothly, keep a wet edge, and not show brush marks. Also be sure to use a high quality brush, do two or three thin coats, and sand with 180 or 220 grit between coats.

Another option would be a black dye, but as your post suggests, anything other than paint becomes a multi step process.

Frankly, i would recommend spray cans, and I have been in the painting business for thirty plus years.

moonhawk,

Thanks for the reply. I stopped at a HD today & looked at their spray paints. They carry the Rustoleum brand. They had cheap ($.96), better ($1.98) and best ($3.19). The label recommended primer, which they have in gray. I figured gray followed by black would be good.

The $3.19 product covers 15 sq ft per can. I don't know if they figure on 2 thin coats or whatever it takes to completely cover. I have about 75 sq ft., which means 5 cans of primer & 5 cans of black minimum. Seems like a lot, but there is a lot of wood to cover.

Thanks again for the recommendation.

I would concur with the black spray paint recommendation. I built a small TV stand (for an old 25" TV) out of MDF some years back, and wanted to paint it black. At first I primed it with regular primer out of a can (bought a quart of white primer and the paint store tinted it dark gray for me), then brushed on one coat of black enamel, and it looked horrible with the brush marks and all. So I switched to spray paint for the finish coats, and ended up with the professional appearance I was going for.

Trick with spray paint is multiple thin coats. Two is too few; you'll probably want four or more. You want the coats to be thin enough so that they don't sag (big problem with spray paints, which are thin). Never start, stop, or reverse direction with the spray nozzle over your workpiece; that's guaranteed to give you a double coat in that area. Spray paints dry quickly; you get get in a whole bunch of coats done in the same time you could do a coupe of coats of brush-on paint.

By the way, you could get away with brushing on the primer. A good primer will be very, very flat with little in the way of brush marks. That should save you a few bucks.

Kenlex,

Thanks for your input. I'll have to check out the cost of brush on primer & see how much this saves.

OK people. I originally designed this for my Panny PT50lc13 which recently had it's demize. Happily the Samsung 61 which I replaced it with has about the same dimensions. The story was the wife said I can only buy a wide screen TV if she can hide it and it is not the focal point of the living room.

The cabinet has pocket doors with 18 and 16 inch doors which fold and then slide into the pocket. Room below for 4 drawers and a media PC.

Good job.

Stunning! Wish I knew how to create something like that!

Okay, you guys have motivated me to build a stand, since most of the ready-made stands I've seen are overpriced and cheaply made (e.g. particle board) or too expensive (costing more than my new Sony 50A2000).

A few questions -

How big of a center speaker compartment should I include? Right now, I'm using an Onkyo center speaker (6 1/2" h x 16" w), but may upgrade in the future and would like to make the compartment large enough to fit the majority of center speakers on the market. Would 7 1/2" x 18" provide enough of a margin?

Are doors important from a dust control aspect (to reduce the amount of dust that collects on and inside of AV components and might cause cooling or other issues? Or are doors just for cosmetic purposes?

Where do you get glass doors? Standard sizes only, or are they available in custom sizes for not too much more $? I don't think I've seen them at Home Depot.

Do remote signals pass through opaque glass doors without any problem? What about mesh door inserts?

I don't have the tools or expertise to do fancy joints (dadoe, mortise & tendon, bisquit). Are dowel joints strong enough if I use a back panel on the entire cabinet (with ventilation holes)? This would be my first carpentry project (my woodworking experience so far has been in highschool wood shop and refininshing old furniture). Does anyone know of a good carpentry site, preferably with plans and step-by-step instructions?

Thanks for any tips.

My center is 8.25x19.5
Doors are mostly cosmetic, but you should have 1 side open, or multiple sides vented for cooling. I wouldn't consider dust as a big factor when designing the stand.
Glass can be custom cut by auto glass stores (I go to speedy auto glass).
Remote signals go through glass or mesh doors.
The structure should be stable if you have enough vertical supports, use 3/4" wood, and have lateral support with the back panel.
I dont know of any specific web site with plans, but I havent looked. You might look at the pictures on this site and email the builder to see if they have plans.