Thread: First TV unit project for beginner

I'd suggest hit your local library and read the last 3-5 years worth of Fine Woodworking magazine and Wood Magazine and Woodsmith Magazine.

If you prefer a more hands on approach, also buy a few sheets of cheap plywood ($35 for 2400x1200x12mm at bunnies) and start building something that looks like it, and work out the problems as you go.

When you've done that, you're in a better position to splash out the $3-400 or so for timber needed to build a decent one. (not to mention the tools required).

but I'd suggest you play at half scale using 19mm laminated pine panels

a bit more expensive than ply but real wood

Hi Ben and welcome to the forum.

As mentioned above, there's a lot to learn but you have to start somewhere. I think it's good to start with a project in mind and learn from that as you go. But be prepared to do a lot of thinking and research between steps (and make a lot of mistakes).

To start with, a thing like that is made up of several wide flat boards. The top, the sides, the base, shelves etc. We know the top is solid timber, but the sides and shelves etc, may be (probably are) made of something which comes in large sheets such as MDF or plywood.

To produce the top, in solid timber, you probably aren't going to buy a slab of oak that wide in one piece so you would use several boards at say 100 or 150mm wide and join them together to make up 450mm in width. Each board is machined or planed square and flat before joining, so the end product is as flat as possible. To produce a wide flat panel like this is beautiful, but also expensive and takes a lot of work, so the option of using MDF or plywood becomes very attractive and cost effective.

The thing with MDF is it doesn't look that great, especially against a beautiful oak top. So the visible surfaces are made to look like solid oak. This is commonly done with veneer. You can buy veneered plywood or MDF, or veneer it yourself. The front edges of the shelves also have to be made to look like oak. Assuming those middle shelves are veneered MDF, say 18mm thick, the front edge could be a piece of solid oak of say 40mm thick, which makes the whole shelf look like it's 40mm thick.

I assume those things either side of the nooks are drawers. You could make the drawers out of anything as their unseen, and just fit a nice drawer front, preferably solid oak. Use some good quality metal drawer runners. The back panel could be as simple as 3mm MDF or plywood.

Hope that helps, and enjoy the journey

Oops, sorry, just read over your original post and realised they are doors, not drawers. So doors like that would probably need to be solid timber. Just gluing thick and thinner pieces together, with the back flat, would be one way of doing it. Then some hinges are needed. Kitchen cabinet type hinges would be suitable.

Here's a video series of an entertainment centre build similar to the one your looking at.

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/vide...&menu=projects