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Heywood Helper

MPicciotto

Practically Family
Messages
771
Location
Eastern Shore, MD
Pardon the tool talk at the bottom, I originally posted this on a web forum for "Old Woodworking Machinery" hence OWWM.

So here is the situation. Our living room has been progressively becoming more Mid-Century with Heywood-Wakefield pieces. Currently a couch, two arm chairs and a surfboard end table in Ash Craft. Another end table in the wishbone Champaign. Not long ago I found a sideboard/buffet and a china hutch (upper cabinet) in Wheat. The China Hutch didn't match the buffet, it was a couple of feet narrower, so we set it by the front door as a place to deposit mail, keys etc. The buffet became our TV stand when I bought one of those stupidly large flat screen TV's. We put all our video cassettes, DVD's and CD's into the buffet and the TV on top. But there was no place for the DVD/VCR it sat here:

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As you can see a substantial piece of real estate was being occupied by one electronic device. The solution? A piece Heywood-Wakefield never dreamed of building. A TV riser to on top of one of their buffets:

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A few pics from the build process:

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OWWM used were a DeWalt 925 Powershop RAS, Craftsman 113. Shaper, Craftsman 103.0404 Scroll Saw. It was my first time using a shaper. Pretty exciting stuff. The scroll saw was used literally for a few seconds to round the top corners of the rear piece of 1/4 plywood. The only modern tool used was my battery drill gun to run the screws and put three holes in the back panel to route cords. Real Heywood-Wakefield is made from solid Birch pieces. As this was my first furniture project and I was building it more as a proof of concept then anything else I opted for some scrap birch plywood I had available. The sides are cheaper plywood of unknown composition. The finish is just an eggshell base acrylic computer matched to an original Heywood-Wakefield piece. I painted it on somewhat thin so the wood grain shows through slightly a lot like original pieces and followed with some spray acrylic clear coat. A LOT cheaper then $45.00 a quart to use a replica of the original finish. Although it's not an exact match to what was originally done for the price it's a nice compromise and achieves the same general appearance.

Matt
 

MPicciotto

Practically Family
Messages
771
Location
Eastern Shore, MD
Thanks. For my next project I'm going to take some hairpin legs and screw them to a piece of plywood to conceal under the china hutch. That will elevate it somewhat, along with some replacement glass doors will turn what is essentially a hall table now into a display case. I'm also getting some 28" hairpin legs and I'll cut a piece of plywood to a decent size for a hall table, route the edges and paint it to match. I hope to do all that next month.

Matt
 

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