Make a TV Cabinet Fit Its Electronics

This is the only TV cabinet my wife could find to match the other furniture in our living room. She wants all of the electronics components behind the doors on the front, but the DISH receiver is too wide for the shelves inside. This Instructable will show how I moved the center divider to one side and changed the sizes of the shelves.

This photo further illustrates the problem. The shelves are a bit less than 16 inches in width. The DVD player in this photo is almost 17 inches in width.

Materials

• 3/4 inch oak veneer plywood 2 feet x 4 feet
• solid oak sliced thin for a finished edge treatment
• yellow wood glue
• drywall screws
• stain and varnish
• masking tape
• old newspaper

Tools

• Phillips screwdrivers
• a block of wood for hammering on finished surfaces
• hammer
• chisel
• table saw
• electric drill
• 7 1/4 inch circular saw
• straightedge
• "C" clamps
• squares
• lead pencil
• tape measure
• masking tape
• hole saw
• hot glue gun
• router and veneer trim bit
• workmate
• belt sander
• sandpaper

I began by laying the cabinet on its back. I wanted to open the two doors completely, but the pulls on the DVD storage drawers would press against the glass in the doors and could break it. Remove the drawer pulls and set them aside.

The shelving support hardware has a post 5mm in diameter, which is just a few thousandths of an inch larger than 3/16 of an inch. These have a couple of ridges, which make them difficult to remove. I had to run a screwdriver shank through the screw hole and pull with both hands. I needed more shelving hardware, so I bought more conventional 5mm hardware.

The photo shows a view inside the cabinet looking at the underside of the cabinet top. The center divider is attached to a cleat by three short drywall screws. I removed them, but left the cleat in place.

The photo shows the bottom of the cabinet under the center divider. There are three drywall screws that go through the bottom and up into the center divider. They are also short. 

I removed the left side magnetic door catch and its mounting block. A chisel knocked the block loose. See the green arrow. Compare to the right side magnetic catch mount. Hold a wooden block against the finished surface on the side where the wooden cleat is located. The divider is glued to the top of the cabinet, so I had to strike the block fairly hard to break it loose. 

I discovered later that there are two 5/16 inch dowels that keep the bottom of the divider in place. It is also glued. When it did not respond to my hammer blows, I decided to tip the upper end of the divider to the left to break it loose. 

The center divider is MDF (medium density fiberboard) covered in oak veneer. It fit quite tightly and cracks appeared in the top end when I forced it to the left. I worked glue into the cracks and clamped them to repair the MDF as much as possible. This is a blemish, but the cabinet is rustic and has a number of blemishes, so this is not a big problem. Plus, we hope to keep the doors on the front of the cabinet closed as much as possible. I did use my circular saw and a straightedge clamped to the divider to trim less than 1/16 inch from both ends. Not only did that make for a better fit later, but it also cleaned up the old glue and fragments of MDF for better mating of surfaces. (The two dowels in the bottom of the divider were not glued and pulled out fairly easily before I trimmed with my circular saw.)

I decided the optimum amount to move the divider to one side is 1 1/16 inch. I used a square and a pencil to mark the new location for the center divider.

I ripped some 3/4 inch pine to 1 1/16 inch and cut it to length. Here you see it clamped and glued to the original cleat that had supported the center divider. I also drilled and added drywall screws 1 1/2 inch long from the left (through the spacer and into the cleat) to hold it securely.

I very carefully measured 1 1/16 inch laterally from the centers of the old dowel holes and drilled new holes for the dowels. Dry fitting the center divider gives a clue to any adjustments that might need to be made so the dowels slide into their holes.

In this photo the bottom of the divider is anchored in the new dowel holes. The top of the divider is pushed firmly against the cleat and spacer. The square indicates everything is close enough to be good.

We recently moved and my radial arm saw is still not assembled and ready to use, but an improvised bench saw based on a wood lathe is ready to use. I decided to cut thin strips from solid oak and use them to make a finished edge on the new veneer plywood shelves I am making, as well as to cover a damaged area on the cabinet's bottom interior. 

To set my saw's fence, I used my framing square as a shim between my sawblade and the fence I am using. A couple of pieces of scrap from the thin strips I cut can be seen in the photo.

The bench saw attachment for my lathe can be seen in detail here. It was nostalgic in a good way to do real work with this tool again. I was very careful and did it very safely.

The first strip I cut included a finished face that matches the wood in the cabinet quite well, so I utilized it. The surface below the strip was quite rough because bits of MDF and veneer tore away when I removed the divider. I decided to use hot glue to fill in the gaps and to attach the oak strip without needing to clamp it in place.

I used a holesaw to make an extra set of holes in the back for routing cables and for allowing heat to escape. 

The orange arrows point to two retainers for the glass and fabric cover. The new position for the center divider means these bump into the divider and need to be moved to the positions shown by the green arrows.

In this photo you can also see that I have cut the original shelves to fit the narrower left half of the cabinet. Where there was one shelf there now are two.

The location of the magnetic catch on each door is not critical, only that the plate aligns with the magnet. I did need to install the wood block again that is part of the support for the magnet assembly. I decided I needed only two screws to hold the magnet assembly, even though there were originally four.

In step 12 I described making thin strips of oak for the edge treatment on the plywood. Here you can see how I glued the strips to the front edge of the new plywood shelves with a yellow or white wood glue. I used strips of masking tape to hold the glued strips in place. Then I put down newspaper and placed the glued end down over carpet to provide an even pressure on the strips. The shelf pieces stood vertically while the glue dried so their own weight would assist in clamping during the time the glue dried.

A veneer trim bit in a router will make the edge treatment strip flush with the shelf surface so that only a little sanding is needed to give the shelf a nice finished look.

I used some golden oak stain to match the new shelves to the rest of the cabinet. Here you see all of the electronics components in place. If heat builds up too much inside the cabinet, I will cut some circular holes in the shelves to facilitate the movement of air from below upward and out the holes in the back of the cabinet. Time will tell.

My wife has a good eye for decorating. She was very disappointed after the DISH installer left us with a piece of electronics too wide to fit the only cabinet she could find. But, now her TV cabinet again has the uncluttered look she wanted to achieve.

We did a little experiment and found the signal from our remotes passes through both the glass and the fabric in the doors. We can use our equipment with the cabinet doors closed.

Your TV cabinet may be much be much different from ours, but the inner construction may very similar and that means you could modify a cabinet that does not quite fit your electronics, too. The only remaining problem: we can receive 120 channels, but often there still is nothing we want to watch.

Ghost images on the glass are reflections from the rest of the room.