Project #6: Turntable Stand
EXISTING TURNTABLE
My existing turntable stand was a very basic nightstand from IKEA 12 years ago:
While I like the natural wood, I had four issues with it:
I had no place to house my vinyl records, so they occupied my bookcase across the room.
There’s unnecessarily large space above the receiver.
The router and modem are residing on the ground and attracts dust. Placing them on the receiver would block the receiver’s airflow.
The overall height of the stand is too short. Feels weird to change a record at knee-height.
These combined items all just screamed unintentional, childish interior design.
GETTING STARTED
So, I wanted to build my own. It’s not that I wanted something fancy or luxurious looking, just something more practical and that addressed all four issues above.
Going into this project, I only owned a miter saw and random orbital sander. No table saw, which means I cannot shorten the width of any board, nor can I even/make level any of the edges. I can only trim the length of a board. In fact, the widest board that I bought was 8”, and my miter saw could barely cut it because the blade is 10” — its operating movement limits the range such that less than half of the blade is fully submerged when cutting.
I bought the following hardwood lumber (Heart Pine) from my local reclaimed lumber yard, Longleaf Lumber. I think the cost was somewhere around $150-$190. The slab was from a separate place, and it was roughly $80. So, about $250 in total.
For the most part, the boards were nice and not irregular. However, there was definitely some warping and cupping. This will significantly impact how well everything fits together, and any slight misalignments will become exacerbated with subsequent boards.
DESIGN
The boards are all 0.75” thick. I know that I want the stand’s sides to be thicker than that. I think 0.75” would look puny and fragile. The only way I can make a board thicker is to simply adhere multiple boards together. I figure (2) boards would be thick enough (aka two layers). I think having having a shelf 1.5” thick would look unnecessarily clunky, so I want to leave the shelves at 0.75”.
GEOMETRY GETTING CRAZY
The boards are all of different widths, though. And, remember, I can’t adjust the widths, only the lengths. This is problematic because I only have a finite amount of lumber for any particular width. In fact, for no ideal width do I actually have a sufficient amount of lumber. So, I’ll need to get crafty. I somehow have to cut and arrange these pieces in a way that multiple boards of differing widths stack on top of other multiple boards that have their own differences in widths, too — and that the 1st “layer’s” total width is the same as the 2nd layer’s.
More difficult is the fact that I sometimes have to compensate by orienting multiple boards in the perpendicular direction. For example, for one part of the design, I would need a 5” x 13.5” board. But, I didn’t have 13.5” of board length on my only remaining 5” wide lumber. So, instead of having (1) board that is 5” width and cut to be 13.5”, I will combine 3 of my boards whose collective widths add up to 13.5” (e.g., 5.5”, 4”, and 4”), and I will cut them all to be just 5” in length. Luckily, I could rely on this approach as a solution, when necessary, while designing it exactly like I want, and not quite run out of lumber! I was very lucky that I bought just enough lumber that this was possible.
Below is my sketch. It took me over an hour to figure out the geometry of how it could all fit together. It became an optimization problem, and I would try several paths when searching for the answer.
All dimensions should be based on the length of the stand’s top (the wooden slab). I wanted to make the stand’s sides flush with the top. The top wasn’t perfectly rectangular, though. In fact, it has some funky, wild edges at times. I don’t have any tool to straighten this out. I’d need a planar and possibly a jointer. Pushing the stand’s sides to the maximum length that the slab would allow, the sides would be apart by a total distance of 35.5”.
The top shelf was designed to hold vinyl records, while allowing 1.5” of space for one’s fingers.
The bottom shelf was design to hold the receiver, modem, and router, while allowing 2” of space for airflow.
BUILDING THE SIDES
Let the cutting begin! I tried hard not to mis-cut anything, as I had no room for errors (i.e., a single error could cause me to need more lumber than I had remaining).
I usually do all woodworking right outside the basement doors. However, it was snowing or sleeting during most of the days, so I did it in the basement. Saw dust everywhere.
I glued the first three pieces together. You’ll notice the boards are slightly different lengths. That’s my mistake for cutting them about 2mm different I’ll have to use my sander to make this flush. More disastrous is the fact that the widths do not perfectly align consistently throughout the board. This is because the boards had tiny cups and bows.
Before sanding the edge:
After sanding the edge:
So smooth!
I glued together the outer layer and inner layer for the top portion of a side. The shelves, in the photo below, would extend vertically.
I did this for both sides of the table, and then combined them flat (not glued) so that I could compress them together simultaneously — and perhaps this could slightly correct any warping?
Sanded the newly glued side. You can see the slight bow in the top (inner) layer of wood, by looking at the adjoining edge.
BUILDING THE SHELVES
Ugh, the boards for the shelves are bowed and not perfectly planed. The middle section looks pretty significant. I’ll have to sand it out.
Another pre-sanded photo:
Sanded and assembled. It’s so fun to try to optimally arrange the clamps and weights. The top (bottom of photo) is not assembled; they’re just resting against one another.
SAND EVERYTHING
The slab of wood has some serious irregularities. Again, I don’t have any tool for this, such as a router or circular saw or bandsaw. I’ll need to rely on a sander. This is getting a bit ridiculous for my random orbital sander. So, I purchased a Makita 9403 4" x 24" Belt Sander for $265.61, and 20 belts for $27.12. A total of $292.73.
Oh no. Look how misaligned the two layers are on the bottom of the stand (roughly 3/16”). Because I don’t have a table saw, I can’t trim the bottoms at all. A miter saw can’t be used for something like this. So, I needed to rely on my new belt sander.
This is the top of the shelf, and you can see the edge is not perfectly flat. I’d need to rely on the belt sander to carve it out properly. Also, the shelf isn’t as wide as the sides. I knew this when I designed it, but this combination of wood was the closest I could get to having a perfectly flushed corner. I want to fill those 4 notches with a piece of wood. This is less than 1” cubic inch, and I only have a miter saw. So, it was a bit tricky to do safely. The pieces weren’t perfect, but they were good enough.
The front facing side of the shelves are flushed, though, as that’s the important angle to have nicely aligned.
This is the top shelf and doesn’t yet have a top. Look at the warped edge. This is because the 3 pieces that comprised the shelf were slightly bowed, so sanding them out caused miniature hills. If I started to use the belt sander on this, I feel it could be a slippery slope and I’d have to sand the entire shelf, all perfectly uniform — which I imagine is very difficult. So, I opted to not worry about this wonky edge.
If I rest the top on the shelf, as it would be when assembled, we see that both the top edge of the shelf and the top itself are both warped. I will sand both with my belt sander.
Sanded them so they go together despite their mutual irregularities.
This will be the top facing side, and it’s oriented as if you are facing its front side.
This is the underside. It has slightly more contrast and color, but the knot looks a bit off-putting. Plus, there are some deep black streaks that I can’t sand out. I don’t understand how the marks won’t come out, but they persist.
FINISHED PROJECT
Here it is fully assembled with the top, sanded again, and stained! I wanted to try a highly-acclaimed stain called Rubio Monocoat. I purchased some of it, along with the company’s raw wood cleaner, for a total of $82.85. I used roughly 40% of the Rubio product on this project.
I got a bit lucky that the corner of the top and side are so flush. If I had made the shelves even 1mm wider, it would protrude beyond the top surface. I didn’t intend to make it that close, so I’m glad it worked out.
Front corners fit together well.
The bottom side of the stand. A tribute to my dad, who was a fine-furniture woodworker.
In its new home! It replaced the nightstand that was here (1st photo of this webpage).
Or, with the speaker grill and turntable case off.
Top view.
Needle view of the turntable, which has a walnut base (purchased from U-Turn Audio. Acrylic platter with Ortofon 2M Red cartridge, and cue. No preamp.).
Super top view.
With some books.
Its placement in the room.
CONCLUSIONS
In total, I’m really happy with how it turned out. I wish the back notches and other corners were more flushed. It makes me realize how much I would benefit from having a planer.
Total time: I don’t want to track this, as I think it would take the fun out of the hobby. Over the span of 2 months, I think it took me about 6-9 days of working on it for 1 - 3 hours each. Something like that. Sanding out the imperfections was by far the biggest time sink. I don’t want to discuss how much sandpaper I went through.
Total Cost: $625.58 (wood = $250. new tools = $292.73. stain + cleaner = $82.85). So, if I already had the tools and stain, it would only have cost $250.
Lessons Learned:
Belt sanders are incredibly useful.
I need a planar and table saw, or at least a circular saw.
Don’t make hills with sanding. Planer would prevent this.
Make sure you experiment with the fit of pieces before you stain them (e.g., shelves with the top).
Stain before joining together significant pieces, especially in spots where the alignment might not be perfect or would have the possibility of such.
Be sure not to overcoat with Monocoat. It really is impossible to wipe off once it dries with a layer. I had to sand it down w/ 80 grit then 120 grit, then reapply raw wood cleaner and Monocoat. Had to do this for a few spots.
Be sure you sand everywhere before applying stain. I think one of two spots on the rear and front edges of the stand, I didn’t sand fully. It left pale, raw-ish color with no stain. I had to sand the region. Maybe it had glue on it, and that’s what prevented it? Glue and saw dust. I definitely wiped everything down for saw dust, though, so it must have been glue.
What I’d love to make next:
Whiskey stand or shelves
Kitchen table or coffee table
Bed frame
Bookcase
Kitchen Island