Hey all, I just wanted to share my center channel work. Next weekend I will be beginning the veneering and inlaying of the mains. I will be inlaying an edge of black walnut on all visible edges. It is slightly darker than mahogany for the mains which I am seasoning right now to darken them slightly. But the center is done (except for the grill, but that is very simple and non-descript). Here are the first pics... Here are a couple edge pics. I will be laying a black bead on the edges when I do the grilles, but for now I want to display them so you can see what is possible when veneering.
I still like that wood, nice looking stuff. Good job on the edges, very clean. Good thing your TV is flat on the top to hold it up there. I hate when TVs aren't flat on the top.
I would build a shelf to level off the TV top if that were a concern. In fact, I would build the shelf to the proper angle if I had to do that. The reason I used spikes (they are adjustable) on the center was so I could angle the center to eliminate the issues with the speaker hieght. The speaker rests about a 1/2 a foot over the listening positions head, so angleing it is critical.
I never looked. I have a good friend locally who is a crazy talented woodworker. I will be driving the cabinets out to his shop this weekend as we are going to be doing some delicate inlay work on them. I'll take a few shots of a grandfather clock he built completely from raw (yes, unfinished rough board) mahogany. He even builds his own works for clocks and has been doing clock repairs for 15 years or so. He is even in the process of building another right now (I will take a few shots of that too), and building his first guitar. He showed me a few methods to do it. Maybe I will build a tutorial on how to do it when I do the mains next weekend. For the mains I will be using contact cement, which is difficult as it sets immediately when the 2 surfaces contact. While it is the most difficult and least forgiving, it also provides immediate results that allow you to begin working fast enough to blend the edges like I did in the cabinets above. I'll incorporate them and another quick example of the second method I like, which involves wood glue and an old dry clothing iron.