Stereo Components and Vinyl Album Cabinets

[John TenEyck]

A few weeks ago I showed some shop sawn walnut veneer.



I used it to veneer the shelves of some vinyl album and stereo components cabinets I designed for a local guy who likes his music in analog format. The cabinets sides are made of ash. I joined the stiles and rails with loose tenons using my horizontal router mortiser, easy peazy. To connect the shelves and stretchers to the sides I used my CNC to cut the required mortises, and the horizontal router mortiser to cut the corresponding mortises in the ends of shelves and stretchers. These album cabinets only have a few mortises, but the components rack has 25 in each side, not something I wanted to do my hand. Fortunately, the CNC did them all w/o complaint.




The album cabinets glued up very easily as there are only 9 joints on each side. But the components cabinet, with 25 on each side, had me wondering if I should use liquid hide glue or epoxy rather than TB. Eventually, I decided to go ahead with TB II. The first side went together w/o issue because I could glue the stretchers and shelves one at a time, but the second side had to be done in one shot. It went together but not w/o a bit of a struggle. I got all the tenons started in the mortises and started to push and bang them into place using my hand, no mallet because everything was prefinished, but a few wouldn't close all the way with hand pressure only. I put some padded clamps on those joints and was amazed at how frozen a couple seemed to be. Oh boy, panic was setting in. I screwed the clamps up tighter, and tighter, to the point I was about out of hand strength, when, finally, BANG, it broke loose and closed. Whew! Gotta order some liquid hide glue.

Here are all five cabinets when I delivered them today.


The finish is GF's Black WB stain, two coats on the ash, followed by Enduro Clear Poly. The GF WB stain is really nice stuff, I'll try another color when the opportunity presents itself. It doesn't show in this photo, but the grain of the ash shows through the stain, exactly as I wanted. The walnut was finished with Osmo PolyOx, two coats. It's stupid easy to apply and has a little higher sheen compared to Rubio Monocoat, but its resistance even to just water was very poor. Fortunately, that shouldn't be an issue for these cabinets.

John

[Jim Becker]

That looks outstanding, John!!

And I'm really glad to see you embracing the CNC as "just another tool" in the toolbox, which it really is.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Thanks to contributors on SMC I have started using Titebond III. The last of my gallon of Titebond extend is too old to trust. Those units really do look excellent. I like your design.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks Jim. I'm not sure I'd say the cnc is just another tool but I agree that it's not a solution for every machining need. I'm still amazed and impressed with the things it's capable of and sometimes frustrated with how difficult it is to do even simple things.

John

[John TenEyck]

Thanks Maurice. You know, I completely forgot about Extend. It's too bad neither Extend nor liquid hide glue is available to me locally. I didn't have any TB 3 either, but I'm not a fan of it other than the longer working time.

Jon

John

[Jim Becker]

Thanks Jim. I'm not sure I'd say the cnc is just another tool but I agree that it's not a solution for every machining need. I'm still amazed and impressed with the things it's capable of and sometimes frustrated with how difficult it is to do even simple things.

What you will find over time is that some of those things you find difficult now will get a lot easier and automatic as experience and habit building take form. You'll start thinking more and more "like the machine" which helps you create the toolpaths faster and easier. My comment about "just another tool" merely refers to it becoming an automatic choice for some things and an optional or opportunistic choice for other things just like all the other tools we have and use to create stuff.

[William Fretwell]

That is very cool, like that a lot. Shape, colour scheme, excellent.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

The open design will be great for air-flow to keep the components cool. Ya, those are cool.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks for the kind words, all. Here's a photo the owner sent me after everything was installed.



Look like I need to build him some more album racks.

John

[Mike Allen1010]

Very nice! The Macintosh electronics are classic!

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I just want to pull up a chair, put on my shades and hang on to my glass of wine!

I have been helping my nephew with his studio. He has been gifted a Macintosh outfit. The OEM cabling was not included. He has a bit of a wiring challenge on his hands.