Scott Francis - Contemporary Furniture : 17 Elegant Projects You Can Build

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by David Radtke

Your state-of-the-art TV deserves something better than a flimsy flat-pack shelving unit from the big box store. This handsome display stand features sturdy construction, storage for CDs and plenty of room for cable, gaming and sound-system components. Its even designed to hide the cord clutter thats inevitable when you connect everything together. You can build it in a couple weekends using basic shop tools and a single sheet of plywood. If you use birch plywood from the home center, as we did, you can build this cabinet for less than most flat-packs will cost.

The finishing touch is a wipe-on finish that makes birch plywood even budget-priced birch plywood look rich and sumptuous.

Home center birch plywood isnt likely to win any awards, because its a lower grade product than the birch plywood sold at hardwood lumberyards. The face veneers on home center plywood are usually very thin and they almost always contain both light-colored sapwood and dark-colored heartwood. Grain patterns and figure can vary widely, even on the same sheet. Try to avoid sheets with significant color contrasts, wild grain or pronounced figure.

Some sheets may contain substrate materials that arent flat. Eyeball each sheet at a low angle and avoid sheets with divots or depressions in the surface or areas where the birch veneer appears to be sanded thin. You only need one sheet of 34" birch plywood for this project, so if you cant find a sheet you like, try another store or come back another day.

As far as purchasing solid birch for edge banding the plywood, its a puzzle why home centers that stock birch plywood dont always stock birch boards. I didnt want to use iron-on edge banding, so I had to go to a hardwood lumberyard to buy the birch.

The veneer on home center plywood is prone to chipping, so before you cut the sheet, its a good idea to install a zero-clearance throat plate in your table saw along with an 80-tooth alternate top bevel (ATB) blade designed for cutting plywood.

Lay out the parts on the plywood according to the cutting list and cutting diagram (). (Note: Oversize the parts by 12" in both dimensions when you lay them out.)

Break down the plywood sheet into manageable pieces. First, use a jigsaw to rough-cut the back panel (A, ). Then either rip the sheet to separate the 1812" wide section that includes the top (B), or crosscut the sheet to separate the two 23" long leg blanks (C). Note that each blank contains two legs. Once these preliminary cuts are made its much easier to cut all the pieces to final size.

Cut two tapered legs at once using a sled with cleats attached to hold the blank at an angle. Runners attached to the bottom of the sled ride in the saws miter gauge slots.

Plane the edge banding nearly flush with a block plane. Then finish the job by hand sanding with a block. Power sanding is risky because the veneer is so thin.

FIG. A EXPLODED VIEW

FIG. B PLYWOOD CUTTING DIAGRAM

FIG. C LEG DETAILS