LP Album Cabinet

Furnished content.
(from WoodNet.net)

guy I have built some other stereo related cabinets for asked if I could build something like this, but make the style similar to the cabinets I had made before. Here's the image he sent me.

This is one of the cabinets I made for him before:

So I used the same type of end frames and exposed plywood edges for this cabinet. The basic box is 5/8" Baltic birch plywood with 1/16" shop sawn walnut vacuum bagged on both sides. I had a single 14" wide 8/4 walnut plank that I got all the veneer from for the cabinet. The widest parts on the cabinet are 12". The cabinet and the end frames both are joined with biscuits and glue. I thought about adding pocket screws underneath but decided there was plenty of glue area. I do wish I had used splines cut with a router instead of biscuits to install the partitions in the cabinet simply because keeping the orientation correct for the biscuit joiner wasn't easy; in fact, I got it wrong and one of the partitions isn't quite square in the vertical axis.

Getting the biscuit slots cut properly for the end frames was a challenge, too, but a couple of spacers to position the joiner correctly did the trick. Curiously, I had used the same idea to cut the slots for the partitions but must have gotten the L/R orientation backwards on one of them. Anyway, the end frames lined up perfectly.

The end frames are 3/4" Baltic birch plywood joined with loose tenons.

Getting the angled parts to align perfectly was another adventure, but I finally succeeded. Thinking about it afterwards, if I do something like this again, I'll leave the angled ends long, glue it up minus the top rail, and then cut the tops of the angles on the TS using a wedgeto get the correct angle.

The cabinet looks like this once it's all glued up.

The step in between the upper and lower sections is 5". Unfortunately, the wire legs he wanted to use to support the cabinet only come in 2" increments for ones in this length range. To accommodate the 1" difference, I installed the rears legs directly to the cabinet bottom using brass inserts and 1/4 - 20 machine screws (to make it easy to transport).

To install the front legs, I made a 1" spacer block out of ash and put T-nuts on the back side for the machine screws. They are glued and screwed to the cabinet.

The cabinet is finished with Osmo Polyox. It holds up better than a film finish to albums being slid over it and is far easier to repair should it get damaged. FWI, the streaks ofwax from installingthe brass insertscompletely disappeared when I applied the Osmo.

Here's what it looks like in the guy's house.

He has an eclectic taste in music, from Dylan, to the GooGoo Dolls (started in Buffalo), to John Coltran and Janis Joplin. He's far younger than me, so some of those would not be obvious choices.

He also asked me to make some album display brackets to go on the wall. I had a nice piece of genuine mahogany that I could get the 6 brackets out of. They're about 12-1/2" wide x 2" deep and 1-1/2" high. They are held to the wall with a French cleat. On one of them I cut "Now Playing" on my CNC. Here's how one looks like from the end, showing the French cleat that will be screwed to the wall.

And here's the one with the CNC machining.

I finished themwith a single coat of Danish Oil. He hasn't installed them yet, so no photos of how they look on the wall.

John

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The Woodshop Shed 31 03 2026

LP Album Cabinet