The panels were actually very tricky to cut since most of them had to be cut on an angle due to the somewhat odd shape of my cabinet's profile. The first thing I did was cut one of my plywood sheets into two equal halves. I don't have enough room in my workshop (the garage) to use the tablesaw for something like this so I ended up using the jigsaw to rough cut it and my router with a pattern bit installed to remove the extra material making it precise. Each "strip" was 23.5" wide and I will be cutting all of the interior panels out of these two pieces. With the exterior side panels, the total width of the cabinet is going to be 25" wide.
The next step was to cut each of the 5 interior panels using measurements from the actual side panel I had already cut. Each of the interior panels gets installed 1/2" from the edge of the side panel all the way around so I had to measure in 1/2" from all sides and take my measurements off of those lines. Then I had to calculate the proper angles to set the blade of my tablesaw at in order for all of the joints to be flush. No magic here - I use my reference lines and a protractor to figure out each angle.
Once the dimensions were worked out it was time to get some extensive practice on my tablesaw (it's about time). I am having a tough time making perfectly square cuts for panels of plywood. I think I need to make a cross cut sled or something like that to run the panels though the saw without using the fence... also my fence seems to drift about 1/16" away from the blade and no amount of tinkering seems to fix it... I just need more practice, I think. Setting the tablesaw blade at an angle was no problem but running the piece through cleanly and perfectly straight was tricky. I'm just not comfortable using the push stick, the featherboard and the proper amount of pressure on the board. Also, I don't want to lose any fingers. Norm makes it look so easy!
Anyway, enough rambling - in this first picture you can kind of see the angle on the edge of the speaker panel - plus the two sweet holes I cut for the speaker grills. I used a holesaw to make those cutouts.
In this second picture you can clearly see the 45 degree angle I cut for the kickplate panel.
Finally, the third picture gives a sneak peak at the assembled cabinet as well as shows off how I had to angle the edges of the top panel and speaker panel so the edges would be perpendicular to the floor in order to accept the marquee properly. Fun stuff!
I'll be posting the results of the glue-up soon!
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