Building Project: Side Table Completed!

February 12, 2023

The second part of the TV Lift Case project was to make a side table that matched the TV Lift Case and the rest of the furniture in the room. The table is meant to be a place for guests to set a drink and to have some drawers for storage. I had designed the side table, ordered all the stock, and rough cut the frame parts along with the TV Lift Case. After installing the previous project and cleaning up the shop, I was able to go ahead and finish up construction on the side table.

Like the previous project there was a lot of mortising and fitting tenons and then installation of panels. It was nice to be working on something a lot smaller because all of the work could be done directly on the bench.

Then there was the glue up of the top from the same five and half inch wide Walnut boards. The much smaller top was easy to glue up in my ROCKLER panel clamps, such a great tool.

Then I made the three drawers out of three quarter inch natural birch plywood. I used a new technique that I’d seen on a YouTube channel ( sorry I’m not sure which one ) that used a sort of lock joint at the front, it uses a groove in the front of the drawer and a tenon on the side of the drawer that interlock providing registration and alignment as well as a lot of glue surface. It’s a lot easier to fabricate than more complex box corners like dovetails or finger joints but it provides a lot of the benefits. I found that these were some of the strongest and most square drawers I’ve built to date. I’m definitely going to use this technique going forward.

I changed the way that I mounted the drawer slides, in the past I’d mortised in rails to screw the slides to, in this one I realized that I could just cut an eighth inch rabbet along a single piece of half inch plywood on each side and glue it on the inside of the frame to provide a continuous support top to bottom on each side. A lot less fiddly to fabricate and very strong. You can see this detail in the view up from the bottom in the gallery above.

I made the drawer fronts out of the same five and half inch boards as the top. I added a bevel detail to them to make the front less featureless. I was able to buy the same exact pulls that all the other furniture in my living room use from Pompanoosuc Mills the folks that built them. They were nice to sell me a set as a courtesy. If you like beautiful hand made furniture you should check them out, everything they make is stunning and I have owned many pieces for decades now.

I also cut a detail on the edge of the table top to echo the detail on the other furniture. Then it was on to sanding, again made faster and easier by this piece being smaller and working just in the heated part of the shop on the bench. I then glued everything up and installed the drawers and drawer fronts. Finally I finished it all with WATCO Dark Walnut Danish Oil followed three days later with WATCO Wipe on Polyurethane.

Finally I reinstalled all the hardware and we put the side table where it will live between the guest chairs in the living room.

I’m very happy with how it came out, I learned some new stuff and I think improved some technique on this project.

I think the next few projects will be much smaller and less “ambitious.”

Building Project: TV Lift Case Finished!

January 24, 2023

Whew! Twenty days since the last update and the TV Lift Case is finished and it is in our living room. Well, return with me now to twenty days ago…

After getting all the fabrication done and dry fitting everything I took it all apart again and began sanding. And sanding, and sanding. There are a lot of pieces, and it took about three days total to get everything sanded through three grits 120,220, and 320. I set up a work table so I could sit down while I was sanding. I can tell you my hands and forearms were sore after holding a running palm sander for three days.

Next came applying the finish. This time around I decided to do WATCO Danish Oil with a WATCO Wipe on Polyurethane top coat. I didn’t immediate know which shade of their Walnut Danish Oil I wanted to do so I made a couple of sample pieces with the full finish.

I tested the Medium Walnut (Left) and Dark Walnut (Right) and both me and my beautiful and talented wife liked the Dark Walnut. It seemed warmer and since I was trying to come close to a similar finish on furniture we already had in the living room it also matched better.

Then it was on to a couple of days of applying the finish. One challenging thing was finding space in the part of my basement shop that is warm enough this time of year. I managed to cram everything into the heated space to make sure that the finish would cure properly.

Then I went off to New York for New York City Winter Jazz Fest, three days of wonderful music, great performances, and just hanging out in New York. It also gave the Danish Oil time to completely cure before I started on the three coats of wipe on poly which took a couple of long days. With four hours between coats I caught up on house work and stuff in between.

Finally I assembled the doors and glued them up, a bit tricky because of the way I made the frames for the acrylic, instead of just framing them and installing them from the back the acrylic is actually in a groove inside the frame permanently. Not the way you’re supposed to do it but it’s how I did it. There was some juggling to get all the panels and mullions in place, but I managed to do it.

And then… some electrical work. All along I had wanted to have some kind of safety switch to prevent the lift from going down when the swing arm was extended. With some advice and moral support from my brother the electrical engineer I was able to come up with a circuit that used a micro-switch to disable the lift motor unless the swing arm was completely closed and pressing in the switch. It works great, the only addition after initial testing was a strong magnet on the swing arm bracket to hold the swing arm closed when it is folded up. Turns out the weight of the TV causes it to drift open without it.

I was able to get the same connectors that the manufacturer used to connect the motor to it’s power supply and controller. This meant that I could patch in without cutting any of their wiring. I got some small project boxes to house the micro-switch and the connector for the motor. I found a good place on the frame to bolt the case on so that the switch trigger would contact the swing arm only when it was completely closed.

Then it was finally installation day. With the help of my beautiful (and strong) and talented wife and a dolly and some rope and some ramps to get out the front door, we were able to move the old TV Cabinet out of it’s place. Before hand I had to extract all the cable and streaming and dvd gadgets and their cables. I also had to finally get rid of all of our old VCR tapes that were in the drawer and hadn’t been touched in decades ( yay de-cluttering! )

We also brought all the parts of the new case upstairs and staged them. I reassembled it in the living room and installed the lift, a power strip, cable box, roku box, dvd player, optical to analog audio adapter, and of course the TV. I put felt on the bottom front edge of the TV because it does droop on the swing arm a little and contact the top of the case, the felt lets it just glide across. Here’s a video of it installed and in operation.

Video of TV Lift Cabinet in action.

Finally, I installed the inside LED spot lighting and put some of our nice artifacts that we’ve collected inside. I think it looks nice with the TV deployed and without.

I’m very happy with how it came out and how it functions. Next up is moving on to the matching side table that is part two of this build.

Building Project: TV Lift Case More Progress

January 3, 2023

Another twelve days on the project and I’m done with major fabrication. After the last update I built the false back that divides the front of the case where things will be displayed from the back where the TV and the TV lift mechanism will live. I essentially built a floating frame for the removable plywood panel that forms the false back of the case. I cut a 1” by 3/8” rabbet around the inside of the frame and cut really nice miter joints for the corner. I glued it up and then for strength ( since it is a large frame ) I added a counter sunk screw at each corner. I had some nice hook and loop fastener and I cut eight squares and secured the plywood panel in the recess with them. It looks great like a very fancy cabinet back and yet it is removable in case I ever need to get at the lift or TV.

I made some small panels that will get glued to the inside of the cabinet on the sides to hide the back of the side panels making the interior look completely finished. The plywood I’m using is a bit under 1/4” so there’s even a bit of reveal next to the frame members which helps the illusion. I cut them a bit long so they slide behind the divider making a very nice look.

Next I made the electronics shelf for the cable box, dvd player, Roku etc… to sit on. The trick here was to make it removable so that the panel could be removed behind it. I remembered that I had some shelf pins left over from another project and they were just the thing. I cut the shelf out of 3/4” walnut plywood and set the pins to have it be flush with the top of the middle rail of the cabinet. It’s pretty easy to get in and out of the cabinet.

After this I built the top of the cabinet. I rough cut the 5 1/2” walnut boards to one inch over the final dimensions of the top. After some sorting and arranging to get the best general alignment of the boards I glued them up. I used my new Rockler Panel Clamps and one additional home made clamp made from some center tapered 2x4’s cut to the width of the panel and covered in masking tape. The Rockler clamps worked extremely well. The resulting panel was super flat with no twist in it over all and only some local issues at the seams. I didn’t clean up the glue thinking I could just snap it off with a panel scraper later… won’t do that again. It took scraping, planing, and sanding to get rid of it. I used my new jack plane for the rough smoothing then 80 grit sanding. All in all it looks flatter and better than my last panel glue up.

I cut the panel to final dimension on my table saw for the sides and with my circular saw with an edge guide for the end cuts. I used a coping saw to round the front corners of the top. I then routed the edge detail on with my small router and a 3/8” round over bit with a bearing. The top edge has a 1/8” shoulder before the round-over just like the other furniture in the living room. At this point I needed to do a full test installation of the TV Lift, swingarm, and TV in the case so I could figure out the brackets I’d need to make or modify and to plan where to cut the top into two pieces so one of them could rise up with the TV.

I created a couple of brackets to attach the lift to the bottom of the cabinet and I modified the top lift bracket to fit my setup. All I can say is my cheap RIKON 10” band saw keeps impressing me, I was able to saw through 1/8” steel to trim the bent sides of the top bracket off. It wasn’t comfortable, but with a little cutting oil and some smoky moments it worked. I got the lift mounted and attached to the top. I did all of this with the top in one piece because I realized I would get more precise positioning this way. I then cut the top that I’d just laboriously glued up into two pieces. It came out great and it turned out that my modified connecting plate could just stay on providing a perfect alignment guide for re-installation on the lift.

I installed the swing arm and the TV, I had to adjust the height of the TV’s adapter bracket but it just fit… I may actually have to rout out relief in the bottom of the lid so I can raise the TV another 3/8” of an inch because it is just clearing the top of the case when the swing arm is extended. We’ll see.

After confirming all of that would work and that the lift can handle it going up and down I drilled the wire port in the back with my 2” hole saw. I drilled another wire port in the false back on the right side of the electronics shelf. I got some 2” black grommets to dress up the wire ports and help control the wires.

Next it was on to build the doors. I cut all the frame members out of 2” x 3/4” stock and ripped some 1” x 3/4” stock for the mullions. I laid out all the mortises that I would need and cut all of the tenons that I required using my new mortising jig. I drilled out the rough mortises as before and cleaned them up with a chisel. I have 1/8” acrylic for the “glass” in the doors so I put in a 1/8” x 1/4” groove along the inside of the frames and mullions to receive it.

The doors came together quickly and my only mistake was cutting one of the acrylic panels 1/16” too small, I’ll have to remake it before final assembly.

I mocked up the doors and they fit perfectly and I also verified that the hinges will work, fit and look good.

The next step is going to be a lot of sanding and then finishing and then glue up. Some parts like the doors I am probably going to finish them before gluing them up to keep the finish off the acrylic.

I’ll post another update soon.

Building Project: TV Lift Case Progress

December 22, 2022

So I’m about twelve days into the build and things are going well. I started out cutting all the stock for the frame of the TV Lift Case and the Side Table to length. Then I used my new tenoning jig for the table saw to cut all of the tenons. Fortunately all of the tenons were identical and on the same thickness stock so it went very quickly. I really like the jig, once it is dialed in on a scrap piece of stock it is very consistent and repeatable.

Then I had to also process the skirt boards for the cases which have an arch detail on the bottom. I ended up having to run to Lowes to get a 48” metal ruler so I could use it to scribe the arch. I clamped two pencils at either end of the skirt board and then with the ruler pressed upward against them I pulled it’s center to the peak of the curve and then scribed a line along it. I did this on pairs of skirt boards of the same size that I had taped together. I cut the curve following the line just a bit on the outside with the band saw and then cleaned up curve with the sanding station and a sanding tube on the drill press. I also ripped about 1/2” off of the width of the skirt boards and adjusted the tenon to keep the 1/4” shoulder at the top because the stock I got was 3 1/2” and I needed 3” to have the inside of the case match the height of the TV Lift mechanism.

At this point I moved on to cutting all of the mortises. I used my new x-y vise on the drill press for this and it really helped both the speed and accuracy of removing the bulk of the material in the mortises using a 1/4” Forstner bit. There’s a little bit of slop in the ways on this Harbor Freight vise so I had to tweak the position and use a square reference to verify it vs. the layout but once it was set it stayed very true through each cut and there was a lot less clamping and re-clamping and less error in general. Also the tweaking was easy since the fine adjustments in x-y were trivial. I also invested some time in re-sharpening my 1/4” chisel and as anyone who has put off sharpening their chisel will say “What a difference!”

Then there was a lot of cleaning up mortises and tenons and dry-fitting them and dry-fitting them again. The front of the case has a flush face and the rest of the case is recessed so I had to be really careful with the layout. The skirt board distance to the top of the case was also critical because the lift needs to be mounted against the top of the case and so we need enough room for it.

Next, I wanted to confirm that the TV Lift was going to fit so I cut the bottom panel and got it fitted. I used some spacer blocks to hold it up flush with the top of the skirt boards. I test mounted the lift in the case and it fits just fine. I realized that I hadn’t ordered the right bracket for the top of the lift so I ordered that and it’s on it’s way. Also I’m going to have to make a lower bracket because I want to mount it to the floor of the case, not to the back as it was designed. This is why you test fit everything before you go too far.

After this I took a brief break to see if my idea to mount the TV on a swing arm on the lift was going to work. So I built a bench test rig in the shop so I could run the lift with everything attached. This went quite well, I was able to remove some of the original TV mounting hardware on the lift and bolt on the swing arm without having to drill any holes or modify any of the parts. Then the TV mounted up nicely to the swing arm and the lift seems to manage both of them easily. It is well within the 120 lb limit of the lift mechanism.

After confirming that was all good it was on to doing the side panels of case. I carefully marked where all the panel grooves would be on all of the frame parts. It really does make you nervous performing possibly destructive operations on parts that you’ve invested a lot of time into where you have limited replacement stock as well. Fortunately my new set of precision setup blocks made setting the blade height and distance on the table saw much easier and more accurate. I’ve also adopted the process of always performing cuts on a scrap first and confirming all of the dimensions before proceeding to final cuts. All the grooves went very well. I had to do some of the panel cuts with my hand held circular saw because the panel dimension was too big for my table saw. I developed a good method of clamping the panel to a table or two tables and using a nice straight piece of maple as a saw guide. Next time I order panels I’m going to have the supplier at least cut them in half, I had to have my lovely and talented brother come over and help me with the 3/4” thick panels which were just too unwieldy for me to even move around without bashing everything in the vicinity.

I also installed the cleats made from the off cuts of the skirt boards to hold up the floor of the case. I’m going to hold the floor in place with screws and clips on the bottom.

So, you’ll notice that the interior sides of the cabinet are the “bad side” of the one sided 1/4” walnut plywood. And since this is going to have glass doors, you’ll see them. I know, and I have a plan. The next step, now that I’ve confirmed the size of the whole TV assembly is to build the removable divider between the front and back of the cabinet. Once that is fitted where it’s going to go, I’ll cut inset panels for the interior of the cabinet sides which will get glued onto the back of outside panels and then finished. This will make the inside front that you’ll see look perfect.

That’s all for now, I’ll keep y’all posted with new updates as I go.

Building Project: TV Lift Case and Side Table

December 10, 2022

I’ve been wanting a larger TV for a while, we have a relatively small TV because it fits inside the old TV cabinet that we’ve had for quite a while. My beautiful and talented wife likes to be able to hide the TV when we’re not using it, so that is one constraint. Also, our house is relatively small and there is really only one spot in the living room where we can put the television. That space is limited in size. So, I came up with the idea of building a cabinet that was a nice display cabinet for some of our items we’ve collected in our travels while the rear part of the cabinet would hide a TV lift that would raise a 43 inch TV out of the back of the case and then it would swing forward on an armature to make viewing angle and distance very adjustable.

We also needed another side table in the living room with some storage, so I’m going to make that at the same time out of matching materials. Here’s the design I came up with:

Most of the furniture that is currently in the living room is a dark walnut finish so I’m going to make this furniture out of walnut as well. This is my first time using walnut and I’m excited to see how it comes out. The finish is probably going to be some combination of Danish Oil and Polyurethane… I think I’m going to have to experiment to see what color of Walnut Danish Oil I’m going to use. And I’m going to try the wipe on Polyurethane from WATCO to see if I can improve on my last effort.

The stock is in, sourced again from Boulter Plywood right in Medford, MA and it is lovely stuff…

There are some new tools on this build as well, I got some heavy duty panel clamps from Rockler which will help make the glue up for the tops of these cabinets flat and tight by clamping in four directions at once… ( I hope… )

Also, I got a table saw tenoning jig because apparently I’m going to be a mortise and tenon kind of person. I built one myself, but I didn’t provide for any fine adjustment in my design and it was just a little out of true and I realized I couldn’t afford tapered tenons… so I bought a machined cast iron one also from Rockler…

And finally I got a two axis vice for my drill press. It is like a miniature milling table which has a vice at the top and then sliding ways that allow whatever is in the vice to be moved in x or y very precisely and without having to unclamp it. I usually do my mortises by using a forstner bit to remove most of the material on the drill press, drilling multiple holes in a row. This will hopefully speed up the process because I was previously clamping and unclamping the piece every time and also make it more precise by avoiding the errors that might crop up in that repeated process. I picked this up at Harbor Freight.