A long time ago, Diane and I were having a discussion about our work and how we're continually making decisions on how to complete the project. This holds true whether you're creating a painting or building a piece of furniture. Rather than allow it to frustrate us she said: "I just work until I get to a problem, solve it, and continue working until the next problem arrives!". Really makes sense and I too have adopted that philosophy.
One of the things required for the TV lift cabinet is that the top comes up out of the center of the cabinet and needs to have the smallest reveal possible. Even though this piece is being painted I still want the grain of the wood to be continuous. The piece that is movable must match the rest of the top exactly. Here's how I solved this problem:
By using a plunge router with an up spiral cutter, I was able to make successive passes to remove the center. First, on a practice piece, I clamped a straight edge to guide the router by an made the cut. I discovered that the bottom of the cut was the smoothest so what you're looking at here is the underside of the top. I measured the distance from the cut to the straight edge, it was about 2 3/4". I was able to use brads to temporarily nail the straight edges all around the required opening and cut out the center. Then it was simply a matter of making successive cuts of about 1/8"+ until they separated. To avoid any possibility of the piece shifting when the final cut was made I screwed a couple of temporary cleats to the bottom.
All went well and now I'm just waiting for the glue to set on the pieces so they can be installed into the cabinet. Hopefully the composition ornamentation will arrive early next week and I can get it applied and the cabinet to the finisher.
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