Last Christmas I was given a nice set of drinks glasses.
In order to keep them safe, I keep them in their original
cardboard box, which keeps them safe, but isn’t aesthetically great
and keeps them hidden, so this was a quick project to create storage
for them that is better looking and more permanent, and would fit in
with the display stand I created earlier.
The
box itself is made from iroko scrap. The outer walls are simple butt
joints, and the dividers interlock each other as shown in the
animation below.
For a finish, the wood was treated with danish oil.
read on for a description of the build (and me practising my 3D skills in Blender!)
Thin foam was cut to squares as a base in each of the six segments.
Thin strips of foam were then wrapped around the glasses and they were placed into the box, where the edges of the box act to hold the circle of foam in place, and finally small triangular segments were cut and placed around the circle to pad the corners. This creates a suitable fit, and the foam has an almost velcro-like quality that holds all the bits together without needing adhesive.
This is a continuation of my build of an oak and glass desk with a 32" TV & computer built into it. The first part of the build is here.
Step 3: Routing the back to fit the TV
Even with the plastic bezel removed from around the front of the TV, there's still a metal frame supporting the screen, which can't be removed.
Just sitting the TV against the back of the desktop would leave a gap of 28mm between the glass and the screen, which is enough to look a bit weird.
I routed the back of the desk to allow the TV to be positioned closer to the glass. This meant removing another 10mm from the desktop thickness, leaving the 'ledge' that the glass sits of at 18mm.
Step 4: Creating the legs
It made sense to use the section that had been removed from the middle of the desktop for the legs. However, I didn't want to just use the flat board, as it would just look lazy and reminiscent of flat-pack furniture, even when cut into 4 for the legs.
I also needed to give consideration to the cabling for the screen, which
led me to the idea of splitting the wood into 8 pieces, and pairing
them together to create the four legs. This would allow for the cabling
to be integrated, and give a more solid leg aesthetic which better
suited the style I was aiming for.
To allow for the cable to be run, before joining the last leg, I routed a groove in the joining sides. a hole was drilled through to the outer corner of the leg. This will be tidied up later to incorporate the hole in part of the design so it doesn't look too out of place.
I've been after a new desk for a while, but never really been able to find one that fits the right combination of size, style and budget.
So I decided to build one myself, taking inspiration from a few videogames, where desks with built-in screens are commonplace:
In Splinter Cell: Blacklist (2013), the 'SMI' as it was known, was interactive and and provided a means of displaying menu systems to the player.
More recently, in Doom (2016), the desk is merely part of the scenery.
The plan
As much as I like the look of the tables in the games, I decided to go with a more traditional look.
The TV (red) will be sunk into the table, with the electronics hidden by the apron (grey) part.
When the glass (blue) is added, it will line up with the table surface, creating a flush finish.
The underside - I envisage a frame, possibly a re-purposed wall mount (yellow/gray), supporting the TV. The pink block indicates where I will mount the computer.
I started with a block of oak kitchen counter top. The aim was to put the TV into the desk, then protect it with a glass worktop sunk into the wood.
The counter-top is 38mm thick, and has substantial weight to it. The plan was to route 10mm deep into it so that the glass would sit flush with the rest of the wood.
The glass was centered on the table and marked up. I'd only be routing
the ledge, I'd be cutting the middle part out entirely, to make room for
the screen, so it didn't make sense to rout all that.
I also left the corners - once the middle was removed I'd use a forstner drill to do those, to ensure a nice round corner.
It would be a shame to waste the large chunk of wood from the middle, so I thought I'd use it to create the legs which meant I had to remove it intact.
I did this by using a circular saw to plunge-cut on each side, using the routed ledge as a guide, then using a jigsaw to finish the cuts on each side, allowing the middle to drop out (which of course had to be controlled, leaving it unsupported would likely have caused the wood to split when the majority of support was gone).
With the middle removed, I could finish the corners of the ledge using the forstner drill.
