The end is in sight ?

With a few evenings here and there I have been making progress on the TV stand.  Checking things off the list always feels good.

Most of my time lately has been putting finish on parts and beginning to glue up sub-assemblies.  So far I am really happy with how much easier it is to finish the individual parts.

Blue tape does a good job keeping the shellac off of the tenons.  I have been applying the shellac with a brush and then wet sanding with 320 and progressively finer scotch brite pads.  I have found that the pads resist clogging much better than sand paper does, but the 320 does the initial leveling a bit faster. As long as I keep the 320 grit lubricated with mineral spirits its seems to work ok. 

The end assemblies are finished and glued up. I am pleased with the overall look.

The back frame is glued up and I am in the process of getting finish on that.  Luckily, 4 of the 5 panels can be removed for that process.

I finally got around to buying a spoke shave.  Found one on Ebay for $20.  A few minutes of tuning on a diamond plate and it was ready to go.  The XX Coarse DMT Dia-Sharp plate is awesome.  It cuts much faster than the X Coarse Duo-Sharp.

I have also made and fitted the drawer guides into the shelf assemblies. I ended up just cutting the mortises for those by hand with a chisel and router plane. It was probably faster than setting up a jig for the router and I had a lot more control over the results.

Dry fit and ready to go.  I am thinking about just attaching them with two screws so that they could be removed/replaced in the future if needed.

Now that the TV stand is really starting to come together and most of the details have been worked out, I have been starting to think about the next project... next furniture project anyway.  There are a few house projects that are higher on the list.  The pictures above are of a Birdseye maple dresser that my wife would like a matching side table for.  I don't plan on trying to duplicate the carved details but I think that the leg profile and some of the trim details will be included.  I need to get a good picture of the top, it has pretty heavy figure that looks terrific.  Whenever I get far enough along on this design to need lumber I think I will probably be calling the guys at Bell Forest Products as they seem to know there way around Birdseye maple.