Season 14 nightstand

[warmcanofcoke]

So if I did put in two belt drawers on this console I'd have to think of a good way of securing them.


I suppose I could add two sets of reinforcing wood or metal slats to secure the structure of the polygon sides where the drawers are.


... it could work.

*edit
So I found some wooden wheels to augment the black push buttons. I've purchased some green felt to line the drawers with. - Not canon, but I recently saw a jewelry box with some green felt on the inside of the drawers and thought it would be a nice touch.

And something came in the mail:
.
is it me or does one of these look a little off?

[galacticprobe]

Why does that last photo remind me of some 'Sesame Street' song?

Anyway, on lining the drawers with the green felt: who's to say that it's not canon? We never really got to see inside those drawers, so with all of the other little details that were on this console (the little lion's heads, the grooves in the "corner posts" between the upper and lower lion's heads, the ball-and-claw feet, etc.), who's to say that the bottoms of those drawers weren't lined with green felt? (It's perfectly plausible, and until someone finds out for certain what the bottom of the drawers looked like, I say it would be a perfect fit.)

Dino.

[meantimebob]

The colour of the felt should really match the colour of the leather writing pad, shouldn't it? Having different colours for those things would drive me crazy.

[warmcanofcoke]

Why does that last photo remind me of some 'Sesame Street' song?

I was singing "one of these things is not like the others" earlier. 

[warmcanofcoke]

The colour of the felt should really match the colour of the leather writing pad, shouldn't it? Having different colours for those things would drive me crazy.

We shall see - Personally I think the pads on the desk flaps are designed to blend in with the wood. I think the colour of the  inside lining is a different matter. ... We shall see if it works or not. I can always remove it if it clashes.

[galacticprobe]

Personally I think the pads on the desk flaps are designed to blend in with the wood. I think the colour of the inside lining is a different matter.

That's how I've always seen it done on every writing desk I've come across, whether Victorian, Edwardian, Modern, etc. The leather writing surface matches the wood's finish, and the lining of the drawers is any of several colors: dark blue, black, green, red (usually a dark shade, but not quite burgundy), and occasionally brown: always some subdued color, never anything bright. And I've never seen a drawer lining that's clashed with its desk or the leather surface.

Just my 2p worth.

Dino.

[meantimebob]

My own writing desk has green leather and if you do a quick google search you'll see there are black and even blue surfaces that aren't supposed to match the wood finish at all. But it's all down to personal taste in the end, if you're building it then you can make it however you want.

[mccoy master]

So far it's really coming together good! Really excited to see this thing completed!

[warmcanofcoke]

Mercury must be turning retrograde! I'm having so many miscommunications lately. Back to the build.

First off I was looking at the Centre rail post I had ordered, and I think the circular base might be too wide.  I was curious what the other common design looked like, so I ordered a set.


I like the height of the original set of rail brackets better than the second set I ordered. But I have extras of both to experiment with conjoining the two. I might cut off the bottoms of both and swap them. I just need to get some thin long screws to see if I can make this work. (I wish I could find the rail supports Crispin had.)

I looked at the price of curtain rods at my local hardware store and decided that 4' copper pipping was less expensive.

I'm trying to track down a product called Brasso. Brasso is a copper pipe cleaner that I've seen deliver a brassy shine. I'm going to try that before trying Brass spay paint.

I picked up some more attractive hinges and a couple of extra drawer pulls.


The 25 Push Buttons I ordered were smaller than I would have liked....


They might be right for a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book circa 1981. I'm sure I'll find a use for them.
so I ordered a larger set of 20 from a different dealer. The new ones are : Momentary Black Push Button Switch 2A/5A 3pin


My 10k rotary potentiometers arrived and I married them to my black knobs.


I made some tracing templates to lay on the wood to make the upper (8.5 x 11.5 x 18) and lower (8.5 x 12 x 18) wooden hex panels.


Someone threw out a pine entertainment center cabinet so I thought I'd make some test cuts for the project.



I was trying to put 30° angles on the sides of the panels and 45° angles on the tops and bottoms...... however, the position slipped on my miter saw and some of those 30° angles became 45°. ....... So I have more cabinet, I will try again. Found wood never really works as well as freshly purchased store bought wood.

If only I had access to Axonite the copying molecule ...

(I photographed this from the Franklin New Jersey Mineral Museum) So close ........

In other news I had to order an additional rectangle button. I was trying to trim the black guides on the top and bottom of the buttons to make the lens display better.

So ... I'm not going to do that again.

We have been delayed, not defeated. The Daleks are never defeated!

Back to doing the thing I was doing.

[warmcanofcoke]

I have cut 18 trapezoids.

Here is a closer look at the front and backside of the panel --





I still have to work out the inner dim's for the moment, but once I have them I will do the writing desk area first and then I will look at the other panels --

Enjoy

I am going to sandwich three traps each to make the upper panels that cover the controls. I hope to use Oslm's images as a template to cut the center boards to look like the wood panel inlay on the console. I'm just going to check a few episodes just to be safe, I'm hoping the design is very close to the original.

[galacticprobe]

Looks like great progress, Nate. On the Brasso: I've used it too many times when I cared not to. (The Coast Guard likes to keep its brass shined, and battling salt air when you're at sea doesn't keep the brass shined for long. Even as a Master Chief I shined brass with my guys: lead by example, and my guys would polish brass even without me saying anything because of that.)

Which brings be to that note... once you've polished those copper pipes, you'll want to wipe them down extremely well to clean off all the Brasso resigoo(sic), and then coat the tubes with some sort of lacquer/varnish to protect them from both contaminants in the air and finger oil. (Wearing cotton cloves while handling them until they're protected is a good idea.)

The Brasso will strip off any protective coating on the copper (or any metal for that matter) so once you've got the shine at a lever you like, you'll have to protect the copper or you could find yourself polishing the tubes more often than you care to. (And don't get the Brasso on those brass stanchions (a.k.a. rail supports; it will take the lacquer protection off of them as well. Yes, Brasso will put a shine like gold on just about any alloy metal, including copper, but the downside is that removal of the protective coating. Oh... just don't use it on silver or sliver plate; it's too abrasive.)

Your "Frankenstein" idea for those stanchions sounds like a lot of work, especially when you see how the post of the round ones flares out as it joins the base, and how the rectangular ones have stanchions that taper inward slightly to the middle. Marrying those together will be very interesting to see. (And here you'll definitely be breaking through that protective lacquer on them.) But I do agree with you on the heights; the round-base ones are at a better height when compared to the originals than those with the rectangular base. I've looked through Crispin's build diary on his console, and I found where I'd asked him where he found his stanchions for that railing, but I couldn't find any of his posts with an answer. Maybe if you shoot him an e-mail he'll answer you. Or I could ask him since I'm still in contact with him.

Dino.

[warmcanofcoke]

In the process of making a template for cutting the diamond pattern.

[galacticprobe]

Looks like you're having fun with the scribbles. I tried looking back through your Diary, but couldn't find it (because I was looking, of course), but are you using lespaceplie's new measurements for the panels, and entire console?

Dino.

[warmcanofcoke]

I am using those very measurements - however the width of the trim on the panel wasn't mentioned - so I've had a couple of attempts to try and make it look right. I keep running out of room. I wish this thing were bigger.

[tony farrell]

I thought the whole point of you building the 'nightstand' is that it's small!