English, Wood Working

Violin shaped plywood shelf

I’m describing a ongoing wood working project that I’m fond of. Here’s how the whole thing started.

I have the AC unit mounted in the middle of the wall – and the tubes that run out of it have a weird bend somewhere along the way (click images to get a larger view):

wall photo

I was looking at it a few days ago, and realized that the shape of the tubes look like a side of a violin / guitar. Since the guitar is not that long, I decided to go with a violin. Here’s the initial drawing I did:

I took a photo of a violin, displayed it, and then, with a math paper layed on top of the LCD – I draw some angles that match the violin 🙂

This was starting to look perfect. I fired up Google Sketch Pad – and came up with this drawing:

This very nice render really got me going. I needed to build it for real!
Here’s how it may look in the end (a ‘skillful’ combination of Gimp and MS Paint 😀 ):

Now since everything looks sweet – off I was to the plywood shop where I got the wood cut and some nice sides for visual contrast. I have choose Wenge color (all my furniture looks similar):

The bad thing is that the guys didn’t want to also cut the angles (22.5 degrees and 45 degrees) as they don’t want their master wood cutting device decalibrated :(. Oh well… still, I bought the plywood – and I have to really find somebody to to cut the angles properly! As you can see below, my hand cutting mastery is not impressive:

Anyway, please check back soon for an update 🙂 I found an angle wood cutter device, but costs around 250euros and I’m not willing to pay that much just to own it. Still looking for a shop where to get it done. Meanwhile, I’ve also bought some decor for the upcoming shelf:

What do you think 🙂 ?

Updates are available:

Part 2: http://hex.ro/wp/blog/violin-shaped-plywood-shelf-part-2/

Part 3: http://hex.ro/wp/blog/violin-shaped-plywood-shelf-part-3/

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