Entertainment Center

General Layout 

The entertainment center was something that I started designing well over 2 years ago after I finished remodeling my basement.  Now that the basement has been done for over 5yrs I figured it might be time to get the A/V equipment up off of the floor.  Up until very recent the entertainment center was not but a pile of wood in my garage.  Before I start to share the details of this project I must first tell you quick and simple Google Sketch Up was to create a 3D model to visualize how this would look.  I started with just wanting to create a wire frame drawing for reference in the shop but I quickly got lost in the computer program and began adding all the details.

Exploded Design View

Working from the left to the right I am going to be stacking my surround sound receiver and cable box.  Just to the right of the cable box I have created some slide out drawers to hold the Wii and video games.  In the middle I made room to hold the center channel speaker with a fully extenable drawer beneath for some blankets or more of the kids stuff.  To the right of this I created a few more small pull out drawers for movies and remotes.  On the far right I created another location for electronics such as blu-ray, DVD, Laser Disc, etc.

Schematic Drawing

If you visit entertainment center page you can see some other details on how I integrated a PVP tube for some conduit from end to end to help with the cable management..

2yrs later......finally some progress........

This project is made from some gorgeous spalted maple that matches all the woodwork in my basement.  For my basement I made all the 5" wood trim and 6 panel doors on my shaper and just could not resist building this entertainment center from the same material.  The top is constructed of random width spalted maple and sides are constructed of spalted maple raised panels.  The interior dividers are made from maple plywood.

Door Construction

I began door construction using 2.5" maple stiles and rails.  This is my first project using my Kreg Pocket Jig http://www.kregtool.com/ and I must say that I am impressed with the speed of assembly, strength and accuracy of the joints.  With the door frames fully assembled (without glue) I took a 3/8 rabbit bit in my router set to a depth of 3/8 for the first cut to accept door panel.  The door panel from these doors is going to be speaker fabric so I then took a second cut with the frames disassembled to cut the grove that will accept the spline.  

Speaker Fabric Installed

The 1/8" window spline installed like a dream.  I still have to cut the excess frabric and cut a filer strip to create a nice finished edge.

                        

Final Sanding

The construction is now complete.  I have just finished sanding the final cabinet and began preparing the shop to apply lacquer.  I started sanding using 150grit which quickly changed to 220 for finish sanding.  During the construction I completed most of the sanding prior to assembly to make it easier on me.  I also got to test out the new downdraft table and shop exhaust which worked great to pull the dust from the air! 

The finishing details...