My goal in this project is to create a record player table using the .2" sheets of plywood. The challenge in this is creating a structure strong enough to function as a small table using such thin material. I built a record player table for myself early last year, and found the results to be functional, but far from what I desired. The previous design relied on wood joinery made by hand tools which was not suitable for the cheap pine I used as a tabletop. Another issue was the size. Usually, I make projects larger than the items they are meant to hold, however, this one was a bit too big, and looked ridiculous. So in this project, I wanted to make something that was adequately sized for the record player, and had better joinery.
1. The Design
The design I came up with is sort of frame-like, with a hole cut out in the middle. The purpose of the frame design is to evenly distribute the weight. The hole in the middle acts as a compartment for the record storage. This design is optimized to use the plywood as efficiently as possible, with each center cut-out serving another purpose as being apart of the support beams that would connect everything. This meant minimal waste, and assurance that all the pieces would fit perfectly.
2. Construction
One of difficulties in the construction came about while doing the test cuts out of cardboard. To test this properly, I made carboard sheets that were the same size as the plywood sheets. While cutting the pieces out, I realized the design was a little larger than the actual size of the plywood sheets. So I had to go back to fusion and modify the original sketches, and repeat the entire process of putting the design onto drawings, and then translating those drawings into Illustrator, and then modifying them to work on the laser printer. Once I had done all of this, the cardboard test came out perfectly as expected, with the consideration that the cardboard is thinner than the plywood, thus not exactly suited for the design. I then moved into cutting it out of the plywood, and assembled it, where I ran into another problem: the kerf of the laser made the table wobbly. Each piece was designed to the .01", which is the distance of the lasers kerf. This meant there was a slight gap between the wood, and the joint. This was solved by printing out a bunch of extremely thin wedges that would fit into the gap. I used these while gluing, and the wobbling was solved.
3. Cost Estimate
5 x $1/Sheet of Plywood
3.5 x $30/hour on the zing
4 x $10/hour personal time: designing and putting together the table
Prototype Cost = $150
Production Cost = $77.5
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