Any ideas how?

[Casey Carr]

Been asked by a friend if I could recreate a dresser he found that he really liked, but couldn't get it in a different finish. Found this to be too dark. It's basically a rotating dresser with a mirror on the back. Anyone seen the hardware to do something like this? Have some ideas myself, but would like to hear other suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Hope the pictures pop up, first try here.

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[Randal Cobb]

Personally, I would build it like any other dresser but keep the base and dresser itself as two different units, and join them together using the best quality lazy-susan hardware I could find. Something with nylon bearings so it's quiet and doesn't have that "lazy-susan" sound while it's spinning.

[Mike SoRelle]

My suggestion is the same as Randal's, some of the really heavy duty models like the 12" model here http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=2273

That particular one is rated for 1000 lbs, I know I've seen higher rated ones, but haven't looked in a long time. I used a similar model once for a rotating TV stand for a 37" CRT TV back in the old days (TV itself weighed about 250 lbs)

Mike

[Bruce Page]

Personally, I would build it like any other dresser but keep the base and dresser itself as two different units, and join them together using the best quality lazy-susan hardware I could find. Something with nylon bearings so it's quiet and doesn't have that "lazy-susan" sound while it's spinning.
You would also need some sort of ball plunger / indexing setup to keep it from rotating every time you open a drawer.

[Mike SoRelle]

You would also need some sort of ball plunger / indexing setup to keep it from rotating every time you open a drawer.

Some of them have detent centering spots, but the usefulness of it is directly related to the amount of weight it's supporting, if it's lightly loaded, it doesn't work all that well as a positive stop.

Mike

[Doug Shepard]

This is probably pretty wacky, but what if the base and dresser had circular grooves (with a core-box bit) and bearings in the groove? So that the 2 pieces were their own lazy susan bearing?

[Mike SoRelle]

This is probably pretty wacky, but what if the base and dresser had circular grooves (with a core-box bit) and bearings in the groove? So that the 2 pieces were their own lazy susan bearing?


My only worry about that would be wear, maybe if the groove was lined with something?

[Tim Lesak]

Make a hard wood ring and cut so you would have two matched rings, router a v groove in each and you just made a bearing.

[Rick Gifford]

Thats a novel design for a dresser though. Full length dressing mirror all in one space.

[Mike SoRelle]

Thats a novel design for a dresser though. Full length dressing mirror all in one space.

I can think of some apartments I used to live in years ago where that would have come in handy.

Though it possibly might have been too classy unless I'd constructed it out of 'period' materials, and by that I mean milk crates with an aluminum foil mirror....


Mike

[Casey Carr]

Nice Mike! Classy indeed! :) Be about all the clarity I'd want to look at myself with anyways, that sheet of aluminum foil.

Been working drawing all this out, trying to make it easy as possible, drawers all the same size and what not. I'd like to make the bottom pieces out of cedar like the original, with a groove around the bottom parts of the drawer front and sides. I'd like to slide a 1/4 piece of cedar into this groove. I'm not sure how to get this panel of cedar though. Could try gluing widths of cedar together, but at 1/4" thick, not sure what the best way would be to do so. Hope this is clear enough. I'll try to get a couple pictures of my CAD model that will hopefully make sense.

The first picture is the drawer looking from the rear to the front, with the groove shown in green (rear piece removed for clarity). I'll probably move this groove up another 1/4" or so to better line up with the dovetails on front and also let me chamfer the cedar to get a thicker plank underneath to carry more weight.

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This second picture is just another picture with another perspective. One question about this, I've never done dovetails of any type and plan on getting some type of jig. Was planning on the Leigh D4 or new Superjigs. Can this type of dovetail be done with the leigh, or am I going to have to do more of a conventional dovetail spacing. I know the spacing is variable, but not sure how variable the size of the dovetails themselves are. You can see a bit of green in the bottom of the bottom dovetail, which means I'm either going to have to move that groove, or adjust my dovetails accordingly. Still in the design process!

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I'll get another picture posted on what I'd like to do with this bottom panel, but still not sure how to get a plank of cedar this big. Thanks again for all the ideas.

[Carl Fox]

I would use melamine on the bottom of the rotating part, and pieces of teflon arranged in a circle on the base. A large bolt would act as the axle. This is what they use for Dobsonian telescopes and they are very strong and stable with no slop. Quiet and cheap, too.

[Casey Carr]

Okay, here's a picture of what I would like to do for the bottom. This is a picture looking straight at the back of the drawer, with the rear piece shown. The gray piece is the bottom.

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Bottom of the drawer is 1/2" thick overall, that might be enough where I could throw a biscuit in (another needed tool!), or even a finger joint on the router table. 1/2" thick gives me quite a few options, guess I was only worried about 1/4" thickness.

I'll get a picture posted of the final model sometime either today or tomorrow to see what everyone thinks about overall design.

[Casey Carr]

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Don't know where this post went to, figure I'll post again, see where this one goes.

This is what I was thinking for my drawers. Bottom is 1/2" thick. Was worried about jointing a bunch of 1/4" pieces together, but 1/2" thick gives me a few options. I'll post a picture of it all when I get it put together. Hopefully today or tomorrow.