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Home Theater Entertainment Center © 1996 By: Dennis Slabaugh
At 91 inches tall and 86 inches wide, the unit becomes a significant part of any room. The video unit will house up to a 35" television with ease. There are spaces for up to 4 video accessories such as VCR's, cable boxes, or video game devices The audio unit incorporates fan ventilation for cooling while allowing the back panels to remain intact. Depending upon the configuration of the audio components, you could remove portions of the back panel for access.
Flipper door slides are used for both the video cabinet and the speaker cabinets. The speaker units have front mounted gills for listening while the speakers are out of sight. But for serious listening, the grill covered doors conveniently flip up and slide into the speaker units to allow un-restricted listening. The stand-alone speakers were designed with a speaker design program on the computer. I wanted quality speakers that fit this specific space. To provide the best possible audio sound quality, I designed and constructed a free-standing Sub-woofer.
Each of the dovetailed drawers include cassette, video tape, and compact disc organizers. Inside of the lower units pull-out shelves also have video organizers. The audio unit shelves are adjustable via shelf pins to accommodate any size components.
CONSTRUCTION
The unit is constructed of six parts; the two audio units, the three speaker units and the center video unit. The cases are built from seven sheets of 3/4 inch white oak plywood. The case joinery employs biscuits and glue. The face frames, door frames, shelf edging, and drawer fronts are constructed of 40 board feet of quarter sawn white oak. All frames are built with mortise and tenon joinery. The panels are 1/4 inch plywood faced on both sides with quarter sawn white oak veneer. The back panels are 1/4 inch plywood rabbited into the cases. The drawer sides are 5/8 inch poplar, dovetailed. The drawer fronts are held in place with mounting cams. The door and drawer pulls are reproductions of Gustav Stickley. The audio unit doors are glass, held into rabbits in the door frames with small plastic clips. Cross mullions are half-lapped into the door frame. Three no-mortise hinges mount each of the glass doors, and two hold each of the lower video cabinet doors to the case. Heavy, double bullet catches are used to latch all of the doors. Multi-outlet strips are mounted in the video unit and the audio unit to power the components.
The unit is finished with Minwax Provincial stain. Four coats of 2 lb-cut orange shellac are rubbed out with dark wax and 000 synthetic wool pads.
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