Entertainment Unit

I forgot to ask all to please comment, as I am new to this stuff and hope to absorb all the collective knowledge I can get.

-- Dan Chiappetta, NYC, http://www.9x7woodworks.com

Nice piece how did you stain it ? You did a good job.Alistair

-- excuse my typing as I have a form of parkinsons disease

Very nice piece of work!
Visited your site, very nice workshop.

-- masrol, kuala lumpur, MY.

Hey Dan
Nice design a cool open design. The only thing about the design is with as much weight is on it could be prone to racking (folding side ways).

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop, custom furniture ,maker, woodworking school, heirloomwoodshop.com

Nicely done with BORG pine.

How stable is your piece relative to tipping forward? I’d be a little worried about stability since the ratio of height to base depth seems large, but with a two year old who likes to climb on things, I have to take that into consideration in any furniture build. If it is unstable, you could either anchor to the wall or add some “feet” to keep the piece from tipping forward/back.

-- A bad craftsmen blames his cheap #$%ing tools

Thank you all for the comments.

SCOTSMAN – The stain is just a couple coats of Minwax oil-based, which I am lucky did not blotch too much, with a couple layers of polyurethane on top, sanding in between coats with one final wet sanding with 600-grit. This is really the first finish I have learned and used, but I have since investigated others that I look forward to using. Since I will most likely be doing hand finishes for some time, I bought the Jeff Jewitt guide to hand finishing, which I have just started to look over, and have already found a number of ideas I would like to try.

JIM – In regards to the racking, since there is only glue holding most of the construction together in the routed sections of the uprights (my inspiration came from childhood Link-n-Logs) you are right that this could jeopardize some strength. I tried to hide some corner brackets behind the routed face (under the TV section and in all top corners) to give some added resistance to movement. Also, the unit is corned in the room, resting against two walls that limit movement, though I must say that in moving it from the work room to the living room it did seem quite stable.

WOOD – I’m glad you enjoyed the website. I purchased the domain name on a whim (only $10 a year from godaddy), but it has since served well in documenting my work and sharing it with friends and family. The workshop is still a work in progress itself, but I suppose it will never be finished.

JOE – You are right that the unit is tall considering the total depth is about 15’’. Undisturbed, the unit is quite stable ( I did consider this, and put a 1’’ lip on the front bottom that is well secured to the base for some help), though I too would be concerened if I had children, as the unit does have a certain “ladder” look to it. Should children be around it in the future (still a ways away for me most likely) I would secure it the the wall to be safe.

-- Dan Chiappetta, NYC, http://www.9x7woodworks.com