T.V. / Computer Table

Background:

This was the first project I got inspired with, a T.V. / Computer table.

Before I dive into the details of the construction, a little background on the beginnings.

The project started when I was in my teens as a bachelor, you can imagine laziness and frugality were the norm back then. I used to have an old PC (P-III , 512 MB RAM !!) which was considered Hi-End back then :D Being the bum I was back then, fitted a second hand TV tuner card to watch TV in the PC. The Monitor was placed on the PC - Casing/Box to save buying a TV stand. Yep, frugality to the core.

As months passed, I decided to buy an LCD TV and was really excited about it. The feeling after purchasing your first TV with your money was beyond words in those times. Anyway, to cut short the long story, quickly the lack of a table was realized and I thought I'll buy a table for the TV.

Having busted my budget on the TV, searched for frugal means to buy a table however everything was beyond reach or didn't satisfy the utility I hoped for. Then out of the blue it struct to me why not attempt to build one from plywood. Curiously went to the nearby hardware/plywood shop across the road and asked the price for a sheet of plywood. "1250 Rs for 8x4 sheet saab" was the answer.

This blew out my mind as the tables I inquired where all quoting 5k and decided to buy the sheet and make the table in DIY mode.

Challenges:

Buying plywood was only begiinning of the problem but then came transportation. An auto obliged to carry it on the rooftop after accepting a nominal fee of 150 Rs :D. All neighbours, watchman in the society starred at me while I carried it to my room. I replied that it was for supporting my bed :)

Now came the major challenge, "how to cut the sheet ?" I ran down to the hardware shop and bought myself a hand saw and thought to myself "yea, i's a piece of cake, will cut it in no time". The gruesome reality came later when it took nearly a week to cut through all the pieces I wanted to make the box !!! The cuts were jagged and had splinters coming off the sides which made it appear quite dangerous as well.

Read up online on how to remove splinters and went to buy a "file" to shave off the splinters and make it smooth edged.

Assembly:

Once all the pieces were cut, edge trimmed and sanded out, the next part was assembly. For this bought some long iron nails and hammer and joined each pieces one by one to arrive at the final box shape. This phase was time consuming and required multiple hands to hold at perfect angles and hammer nails through.

Wrapping it up:

Once the table was ready, it was really gratifying to bear witness to the fruit of labor. The only problem was that it was not painted not laminated (did not know how to do it back then), so bought a white table cloth and covered the table making it look neat.

Lessons Learnt:

Though it was first attempt, the following lessons were learnt as a result of the experiment:

• Never use hand saw to chop off a large sheet of plywood. It consumes lot of energy and time
• Hand sawing without a guide leads to jagged edges and splinters on the sides
• Plywood has 2 varieties, "block board" and "wood ply. The former has blocks of wood sand witched in 2 layers of plywood. The latter has layers of plywood sand witched together. 
• Block board was used in this project and it proved to be a bad choice as its tough to join the pieces together with nails. Instead plywood should have been used.
• Plywood has specific thickness to be careful off, 3mm to 12 mm thickness range are there. More thickness, the more rigid the wood will be. The thinner the more it will bend.
• In this project 6 mm ply was used but it was not the ideal choice as later it was susceptible to bending and sagging.
• Based on the thickness, type, and material of wood used the price of plywood sheet varies.
• Sheets are available in 8x4 or 6x4 or sometimes shops may sell cut pieces that are left overs
• The frame of the box should be in thick plywood where as the back panel should be only 3 mm board.
• Instead of putting a cloth over it, painting or lamination should have been done.
• Instead of nailing the pieces, screws or nut-n-bolt joint should have been used.

• Instead of hammering holes with nails, a drilling machine should have been used
• Instead of hand saw, an electric  jig saw or round saw should have been used

Ok, that's all about the first project. hope you have fun reading about it.
Feel free to post your comments about it.