Hooray for amateur carpentry

Post by **Clay** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 7:42 pm

I turned an IKEA bookshelf into a proper display case!

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f303/ ... net006.jpg
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Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 8:06 pm

You're like Jesus. (The best bit of the Mel Gibson film is when he invents the table).

It's amazing how manly actually building something, even flatpack, can make you feel.

Post by **Denyer** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:42 pm

Definitely the nice thing about flat-pack furniture... no guilt about customising.

Post by **Clay** » Fri Mar 29, 2013 7:38 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:It's amazing how manly actually building something, even flatpack, can make you feel.

Yes! I've noticed that I've generally gotten handier as I've gotten older. I can change the oil and brake pads on my car, build/restore furniture, do data recovery on PCs, cook banana bread, publish scholarly articles, do custom toy work, stay out of debt, and earn a BA with honors. But I still have to shovel cat poop daily. So it goes...

Post by **Denyer** » Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:26 pm

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it...

Post by **Clay** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:11 am

Had a friend that wanted a display case for his fossils but didn't know where to begin to make one. I had a decent idea of what he wanted and built one from scratch as a surprise for his birthday. The actual layout is based on the display cases found in the houses in Skyrim. So I made the furniture from a video game. It's definitely what I would call a rough draft of a case, but it does its job well enough.

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:14 pm

It displays the cat quite nicely!

That's really cool. Building something from scratch, especially from an idea in your head, is so satisfying when it works. It's horribly frustrating when it doesn't, but it's great when it works. I made a simply little DVD rack a couple years ago and still marvel that it went from concept to reality all in my basement.

Post by **Clay** » Sun May 25, 2014 11:52 pm

Repurposed a book case into a display case. Only one shelf is actually screwed into the sides while the rest are adjustable. So I went to a local glass shop and had two pieces custom cut to fit it. Then I cut the adjustable shelves by an inch to recess them enough to allow for the glass, and added some wooden beams under the non-adjustable shelve (the bottom, middle, and top, basically) to help stabilize it. Then I added toys!

It's basically going to be the third party case. I don't know if the original Predacons will fit on the shelf with Feral Rex, but that's the kind of setup I'm going for. I find it... tasteful? considerate? to have the originals next to the new versions where applicable.

For the next case, I'm going to try framed glass, perhaps with a decorative trim.

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Mon May 26, 2014 12:30 am

Nice work man. Not something I'd be likely to try, I'd probably screw-up the clearances on the door and it'd get stuck or something.

This reminds me, I really should get around to doing some pics of the bookcase I built and have most of my stuff in.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon May 26, 2014 1:45 am

Neat.

You going to go for 3P dinos?

Post by **Clay** » Mon May 26, 2014 2:29 am

Unicron wrote:Nice work man. Not something I'd be likely to try, I'd probably screw-up the clearances on the door and it'd get stuck or something.

I anticipated that, so I actually carted the bookcase without the backing and adjustable shelves to the glass store and let them do the final measurements. Now I can just use those same measurements for my other bookcases that I want to convert.

Denyer wrote:Neat.

You going to go for 3P dinos?

Abstaining for the moment in favor of completing Feral Rex and Warbotron. Also waiting for more of the dinos to come out... would rather hold back and see if a single group can produce a unified ensemble (hopefully Fanstoys), or if it'll just be a scatter-shot mix from different companies. Which is a long way of saying... maybe.

Knightdramon · Post by **Knightdramon** » Mon May 26, 2014 5:08 pm

Funniest damn thing with almost any display cases---each shelf's contents are usually more expensive than the entire thing!

Post by **Clay** » Mon May 26, 2014 6:55 pm

I wish! A similarly sized, mostly glass display case I looked at had a price of $400. The smaller curio that I have cost $200, but it obviously doesn't hold as much. One of the local flea markets has an antique storefront display case (some eight feet tall and six or seven feet wide), and it has an asking price of $2000.

I've taken to retrofitting existing shelves like this for reasons of cost as much as I have for the fun of the project. Need to add up receipts for the hinges and all, but I think altogether it came in at under $150. Obviously it's not glass on three sides, but it functions just the same.

The catalyst for all this was collecting the Hercules (Devastator) figures. I really wanted something nice to put these things in that would keep dust to a minimum. Keeps the cats out, too.

Knightdramon · Post by **Knightdramon** » Sat Aug 23, 2014 6:20 pm

Amateur Carpentry---the UK series

Dodgy photos---but get the point across.

Black glass table and black bookcase were assembled by me and now stand proudly. Table went without a fight, bookcase I managed to chip off a fixed shelf while hammering nails on the backside---with a honey jar and a screwdriver. You never realize you need a hammer until that one time you really do.

Other bookcase is where my "talent" really shines---it was the previous tenant's, and she abandoned it here---at first glance, you could tell why. It was wobbly to the point of falling apart, it had liquid candle solidify all over the place, the backside had come off and was FULL of wax, doors were uneven and shaky...

Spoke with the landlord about getting it out, and he said that it's not his so technically now it's mine to do as I please.

Set down, took the doors out, scrapped all the candlewax with corn can lids, tightened every available screw, cleaned the backside, took it out, flipped it the correct way in, hammered it on with my honey jar+ screwdriver combo...

And now it's better than new.

So yes. With screwdrivers and creative use of other household tools, you can create magic out of pieces of crap.

Post by **Denyer** » Sat Aug 23, 2014 7:19 pm

Neat. Have recently been converted to the joys of bookshelves for things other than books myself.