thoughts on construction of a record cabinet

[reck123]

Hello

I am building record cabinet from plywood with oak veneer for a friend and wanted to run a few questions by the forum.

size: 200cm long x 90 high x 50 wide

I plan to either glue solid oak on to the exposed ply edges and flush trim or use the iron on edge banding stuff you get.

What do you think would be the best route to go. Apply solid wood edging before assembling or build a face frame for the whole cabinet and flush trim.

construction wise

I think I am going to go for biscuit joinery to assemble the whole carcuss and shelves,

The ply will be 21mm and joined with biscuits.

i may reinforce the top and bottom edges with a few oak Dowels or screws and plug the screw with a oak plug.

Do you think this is necessary for strength or will the biscuits suffice.

Would you attack the glue up in stages or go at it all at once.

Any thoughts on my construction method would be perfect and alternative suggestions welcome.

At the moment I am mostly building projects for friends and charging materials and a little bit more until my confidence and ability improves.

But just as a ball park what would you guys charge for something of this size?

Thank you and looking forward to hearing your input

 

[MikeG.]

...........Do you think this is necessary for strength or will the biscuits suffice........

If you make the horizontal pieces as a solid board (ie each of them is the full length of the cabinet), and the same with the vertical end pieces, then biscuits alone will be more than enough. Don't get involved with iron on edging. It's a piece of plastic, and you can always see the glue-line. It looks shoddy. Make proper solid-timber lippings.

Have you sourced your veneered ply? Because my experience is that it is very hard to find ply with a veneer on both sides these days, and obviously that's what you need.

Your first drawing......no. Just no.

Your second drawing would look much better if the intermediate verticals finished on top of the bottom shelf instead of continuing to the floor.

 

[reck123]

thank you very much for a reply. thats very helpful. I have never tried the iron edge banding stuff and was afraid it could look naff so will go with solid wood lipping

I actually live in Berlin (although a brit) there seems to be quite a variety of sheet material here double sided oak veered plywood aswell.

just out of interest what about the first drawing offends you?

with the drawing below how would you suggest providng support below the cabinet.

 

[AndyT]

I think Mike's right and wrong on the edging. You can buy "oak effect" plastic edging which would look wrong. But I have used real wood iron on edging on bedroom shelves where the somewhat bland veneer was actually a good match for veneered boards. It also changed colour from UV light in the same way so it continued to match as the shelves aged. Possibly a better match than solid wood.

I would question the measurements though. With an LP measuring about 305mm, you'll have a lot of spare height above the records. (If you could go just a little higher you could get three rows in instead of two.)

And the depth is very generous - you'd probably need strips near the back to stop the records all being pushed back out of sight. But maybe that's part of the plan - people say LPs are just for display these days, while music comes from a streaming service.

 

[reck123]

Thanks Andy,

il continue to explore the range of iron on a stuff and maybe try a sample.
I think your very right about the depth and think I will reduce it to 40cm.

the internal height of each cube is 360mm. I chose this as I thought it would be nice to have a bit of air above the record to get your fingers in. but still not sure if this is too much.

thanks for the input thats very helpful.

 

[MikeG.]

......just out of interest what about the first drawing offends you?

The plinth/ kickboard. It looks weak and unbalanced with the ends of the unit overhanging like that.

with the drawing below how would you suggest providng support below the cabinet.

Any old thing on the underside of the bottom shelf taking the load down to floor level. It could be a long member running the length of the back (like the kickboard), or it could be a series of short cross members, roughly underneath the vertical shelf dividers.

 

[Racers]

The IKEA Expedit is the go-to thing for record storage, I have a 5x5 one, it's the only piece of furniture in my lounge I haven't made.
I would have a look at one to get the dimensions.

Have a look at these pictures to see what happens when you build it the wrong way round.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ikea+ex ... &prmd=sinv

Pete

 

[sunnybob]

As an ex record collection owner... :lol: I have a couple points for you to consider.

Theres no point in having lots of space above the LP, it will be pulled forward from the front top corner, not lifted.
Theres no point having lots of space behind the records. Its just a dust haven and it allows some records to slide back further than others and make the whole thing look untidy (most LP collectors have an OCD streak) If the LP's are pushed to the back and there is about an inch of space at the front, its good.

If there are enough LP's to fill that rack, theres an awful lot of weight there and it can all fall sideways. Will the cabinet have a back for bracing? Say yes, please say yes =D>

If its a growing collection, LP's need to be kept vertical at all times, you wouldn't want a half shelf full leaning across that space, you'd have flower pots in no time. So if you can provide some form of movable bracing that would be good. Mine had small round holes and metal hoops that could be moved as the spaces filled up. A very solid bookend type thing would work as well.
Nothing to add on construction, I dont do internal furniture 8) 8)

 

[Artiglio]

I went for a sort of random mix, based on solid timbers available. (Elm and ash so far)

 

[Artiglio]

 

[u38cg]

Nice to see a real turntable in the wild

I just want to emphasise the point alluded to by a couple of other posters - vinyl records are astonishingly heavy in bulk and should be treated with respect.

 

[owen]

I would build it as per your 3rd picture but with rebates for the shelves to sit in. Then make a faceframe for the whole thing, without lips above the top and bottom shelf so you can slide the records out. Also, with extra supports underneath the plinth area as Mike suggests, could just be offcuts of ply under each vertical piece but you'll want to check the floor it's sitting on is nice and flat first otherwise it could rock.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Baize is a good choice for the surface of the shelves, as it won't wear the sleeves as much as a solid wood surface or Melamine veneer will. The gramophone libraries in the BBC used to have that, but I am not sure if it was a mat or stuck to the surface.

And you really do need extreme rigidity too. As Bob and others have said, vinyl LPs and 78s (worse!) are very dense. I would put the shelves in housings at least and consider putting the vertical dividers closer together.

Regarding turntables in the wild, here's one of mine:

Sorry for the quality - the camera on this tablet isn't brilliant. The only way I get to keep this monster in the dining room is to let the DC put a plant pot on it when it's not being used.

 

[sunnybob]

Way beck when I had a record collection, I had a Garrard 401 deck with an SME 3009 arm holding a Shure V15E cartridge
Just how old does that make me? :roll: :lol: 8)

 

[Eric The Viking]

Not that old. If you had said Garrard 301, for example...

The Garrards were good turntables, but we had very few 401s. The 301s got little proper maintenance, and used to rumble terribly. They had a BBC drop-start design, with an aluminium platter, around 13" diameter, on which the record sat, which was lowered onto an already turning 301 underneath.

The Technics SP10 series have massive motors, and come up to stable speed in around 1/8 - 1/6 revolution. Because the Garrard-based ones had taken longer to stabilise, the BBC maintained the new ones could only be trusted after 1/4 rev, and set the muting circuits on the first Technics models to 1/4 turn at 33RPM. But you could switch the muting off. and so start on tighter cues. IIRC, on the RP2/10 (the one in the picture, which was the final Technics model the BBC made as "coded equipment"), the audio circuits get a 'speed stable' signal from the turntable, so the muting only lasts as long as it's needed. There's a LED you can see through the panel covering the electronics cards, which flashes when the muting operates.

The main reason I have that particular Gram desk is for 78s. The Sure SC35C cartridge will accept a 78 stylus, as well as microgroove, which is handy as you get a "stereo" output (useful in audio restoration).

The BBC arm in the picture is rather "agricultural", intended to survive being used by people in a hurry (and back cueing). I have another BBC Technics-based design that is slightly later (and about which I can find no technical information), but which has an SME Series 2 arm. Its audio performance is much better, and its varispeed will go from about 10 RPM continuously up to 85.

If you want the ultimate, it's the EMT 940 series - superb in every respect (except for the scorching on the illuminated pushbuttons). EMT is/was the professional brand of Thorens. It didn't do the records much good, but they would cue themselves up by reversing direction (and the counter ran backwards). And that was actually pretty accurate too. Lightweight composite plastic platter, with "electronic mass" that really worked. Speed stable in the blink of an eye too. The BBC did a few mods, but not elegantly (I think EMT did them to BBC spec.), but still a superb turntable:

They are definitely not designer furniture however. The pic above isn't mine - it's the BBC general purpose version of the 950. I wish I had one, but not the divorce that would come with it!

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Baize is a good choice for the surface of the shelves, as it won't wear the sleeves as much as a solid wood surface or Melamine veneer will. The gramophone libraries in the BBC used to have that

Gramophone, green baize ... my word, that takes me back. My mum had this "radiogram" thing, that had a green baize lined record cabinet on one side and a cabinet that opened to reveal a turntable on the other, with a glowing radio tuning dial under it. The whole thing was finished in a shiny wood effect melamine or something, and had the aroma of scorching dust. If you were lucky, it would occasionally produce sound in stereo, though usually only one speaker at a time chose to work.

No useful advice to add to what's been said except another vote of NO for iron on edging. It will get torn off where the records slide in and out over it.

 

[Eric The Viking]

If you were lucky, it would occasionally produce sound in stereo, though usually only one speaker at a time chose to work.

The BBC had studios like that. In a training studio in around 1978, an EMI TR90 tape machine caught fire under my hand ("they all do that, sir"), and we had a studio in Bristol where you could set the faders, but not actually use them during a recording as the contacts were too dodgy.

There was also a huge recording machine for film dubbing (a "Keller"), which lifted the mechanics for maintenance, out of the cabinet on hydraulics (it was a bit heavy), but jammed when you pushed the switch. The only solution was to sit on one end of it (or lean heavily on your hands), and ride up with it as it lifted. We made Attenborough's "Life on Earth"series on that one...

 

[xy mosian]

By all this talk of Garrards etc. takes me back.
Not long into my first job, my boss walked in with a Garrard, or was it Thorens deck, this was an autochanger. Now later on, into the seventies auotchangers, autochangers worked with a stack, as most will know. These stacks moved the arm out of the way to drop another disc onto the one just played and then brought the arm back to play the fresh disc. As the 'played' stack got deeper there was some slippage of the disc being played and of course the needle angle in the groove changed.
Now this Thorens, or was it Garrard, deck had an off platter stack. When the arm came to the end of the disc, it moved out of the way, another arm came over and picked up the played disc by using a gripping arrangement in the centre hole, the spindle was sprung loaded to allow this. The disc was swung out of the way and placed in a 'played' stack. Said arm moved aside and selected the next disc from the un-played stack and placed it on the turntable for playing. A fine sort of horizontal JukeBox really.
Sadly this turntable did not work as it should and played discs were removed from the deck picked up, and thrown across the room in a manner between a mechanical Frisbee and a Clay Pidgeon launcher. Fortunately the repair was relatively easy, un hooked spring or similar, anyway within my abilities. Still the lab lads, me included, had fun having fielding practise.
Later on I had the job of mounting a 12" sme arm to a deck so that we could play a direct cut 12" aluminium disc of Leon Goosens, Oboe player I think. That disc was produced for a loudspeaker comparison test which took place in the late 40's. Several manufacturers took part, and Briggs won. He said it was because his speaker was the only one to match the amplifier. I suppose the disc could be regarded as a master, sadly I cannot recall whether the test was a live versus recorded sound test. No I wsn't there but read of it in company histories.
All part of an irrelavant history now of course.
xy

 

[Eric The Viking]

IIRC, the family were woodwind players: Leon, and Sidonie (daughter) also. She might have been Clarinet though.

 

[sunnybob]

Eric, have you been to Washford near Minehead?
I expect so when it was a broadcasting station. Its a theme park and has a BBC museum among many other attractions. I expect you would feel right at home :shock: :lol: :lol: