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The entertainment center for the den is done! 

I was able to salvage a majority of the top of an abandoned-by-the-side-of-the-road (1940’s-era according to my neighbor) dining room table and, using nothing more than a scrap two-by-four, create a TV stand for my den.  Total cost: $1.99 for a new paintbrush.  Well, that really oversimplifies things, doesn’t it.  I mean, obviously nails, screws, and glue were used.  And paint and stain.  And tools, of course.  It’s not like I drilled one-and-one-quarter inch diameter holes into the supports with my mind and the surfaces didn’t plane and sand themselves.   And let’s not forget the cost of labor.

So I guess what I mean to say is that I built a hundred-dollar entertainment center using nothing more than 30 hours labor, a drill press, a set of spade bits, a set of drill bits, a radial arm saw, a cordless drill, a belt sander, an orbital sander, nails, paint, stain, furniture clamps, wood glue, two different types of t-squares, three types of sandpaper, a Dremmel and bit set, a hammer, and an electric hand planer.  Total adjusted cost: well over $2,000.   Less romantic of a story, but more honest, I feel.

This was a fun project with the exception of the removal of the table-top’s veneer.  That was a real hassle but the electric planer really helped out, there.  It also helped remove the heavily stained surfaces  below where the veneer had peeled up and let in water and mildew for God knows how long.  Unfortunately, the blade is a little tilted which resulted in slightly uneven smoothing passes.  The resulting gouges needed to be sanded out with a belt sander.  “Isn’t the blade adjustable?”, you may ask.  “Yep,” I answer, “but look at  this:”

This scan of the instructions from my Hitachi P20SB planer shows my problem with adjusting the blades.  “There must be something I’m missing,” I thought.  I felt like I was in a dentist’s office looking at a Highlights magazine, trying - and failing - to find “which clown is different from the others”, or whatever.  I stared at that diagram for a very long time…  Once something like that is wrong, nothing else written (by the same authors) about a device that has razor-sharp cutting surfaces spinning at hundreds of RPM can be trusted.  I dealt with the gouges and belt-sanded out what I could.  Inelegant, but safe.

A Dremmel was used to get the old varnish off the curvy edge bits without completely destroying them (thanks for the advice, Agmorion).  The supports were made from scrap two-by-four.  I drilled one-and-a-quarter inch diameter holes in them and painted them gloss black.  This made them look less like scrap two-by-fours and made them look more like gloss black scrap two-by-fours with holes in them.  Hey, I don’t have a wood lathe.  What do you want me to do, whittle me up some some nice elegant fussy tea-table legs with my hunting knife?  Get off my back, man.

Scrap trim pieces were glued and screwed to the underside of the shelves to prevent the maple surfaces from splitting along the joints over time.  The legs are four square two-by-four hunks, also painted gloss black.  The unpainted surfaces were stained using that combination poly/stain I spoke about in the past.  Like I mentioned, I don’t like using it because I don’t get the control from doing the two steps separately, but I still have plenty of the stuff left over from other projects and I want to use it up.

Final assembly was easy.  The top is held on with only five finishing nails and the piece is very solid.  It looks great in my den and I am looking forward to putting together the dining-room table from the remaining parts still in my garage.  I will sell the table on craigslist to get some cash to keep the site running.  Stay tuned.