A Case for the Party Stands (A Work-in-Progress Thread)

[Mike Henderson]

I put in the magnets to hold the lower doors closed. I wanted to do it invisibly so my only choice was to cut a mortise for each magnet from below. The problem is that the magnet must be very close to the surface or there won't be enough pull to hold the doors closed. So the mortise must be cut with one very thin side.

To support the side, I put a caul against the "thin side" to keep from breaking the wood there.
TrayBox205.jpg

Then, I chopped the mortise using a 1/8" chisel. The mortises had to be 5/8" deep. The magnets are 1/2" so that's the length of the mortises. This picture shows the mortise finished with a magnet in it. The magnet on the outside is just there to hold the magnet in the mortise forward.
TrayBox201.jpg

I used epoxy to glue the magnet in place, and put a plug in the end of the mortise to support the lower part of the mortise (so it didn't break later, in use).
TrayBox202.jpg

After the epoxy was cured, I planed the plug down. Since this is the bottom of the door, you won't be able to see the plug.
TrayBox203.jpg

I did the same thing on the bottom of the cabinet. This picture just shows the mortises. I plugged them when I did the glue up.
TrayBox204.jpg

With that much wood between the magnets, the pull is a lot less than if two magnets were placed face-to-face but it's more than enough to keep the doors closed.

The only thing left is some knobs for the lower doors. I ordered some finger pulls and will install them when I receive them.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

I received the pulls and installed them today. Here's a picture front on to the cabinet. Hard to see the pulls, isn't it?

I decided not to put a pull on the upper door. It can be easily opened by placing the hands on the outside edges and pulling forward. That will minimize the amount of hardware on the front of the cabinet.
TrayBox206.jpg

Here's a close up of the pulls.
TrayBox207.jpg

And here's a view from the side of the door, showing how the pulls are attached.
TrayBox208.jpg

Except for a bit of cleanup, this completes the project. Thank you for looking.

Mike

[Gary Muto]

Nice selection and placement of the pulls Mike. A great project overall.

[Mel Fulks]

After this thread was started I tried to find something currently made of the same sort. There's not much out there and what does exist is pretty clunky . TV trays came in with frozen dinners and the fact that most people only had one tv and it was in the "living room". So ,besides being high quality work it is also pretty creative in form. I can even imagine it being used in a tv commercial....frozen pizza,Salisbury steak ,or whatever , is so good couple ditches old metal stands for Mikes creation . Hope to see it in Super Bowl .

[Mike Henderson]

Thanks for the kind words, Mel. I avoided calling them TV trays because that fad passed. I really built them for when we have a party and people have drinks and hor d'oeuvers, but no where to put them. So that's when I'd pull them out for use. One could be put between two chairs and shared by two people.

But when it came time to figure out how to store them, we were in a quandary. Originally, I wanted to make a sofa end table where the trays slipped in lengthwise but my wife was not excited about it because there would have to be room to pull them out (couldn't put a chair where the trays slid out).

So this is the best idea we could come up with, which sort of made them into TV trays since it also holds the TV electronics.

Mike