Credenza / Record Cabinet

In this article I will go over the process of building a mid century modern credenza/cabinet for a record player and records, with a sliding door. If you'd like plans for this credenza, you can find them here.

I started by cutting 3/4" cherry plywood down to size, then cut the ends at 45° on the table saw.

I cut dados for the door to slide in and the divider to sit in.

I then drilled holes for the shelf pins. I did this before gluing the shell together so it's easier and more accurate.

Gluing it up, I used ratchet straps to keep everything tight. I put small blocks behind the actual ratcheting part to prevent marring the surface; I should have also put something around the corners, as there was a little deformation on some of the corners where the straps tightened.

After the glue dried, I measured and cut the back panel out of 1/2" cherry plywood. You could attach the back during glue-up, but I prefer after.

With the back glued in, I measured and cut for the vertical divider and installed that.

I then moved on to the legs. Cut from 4/4 rough cherry, I hand planed one side flat and then passed them through my electric planer to get the other side flat and to the correct thickness.

I used a scrap piece of plywood to make a template for the legs and transferred that to all the pieces. I made an effort to find pieces with the straightest grain to use for the legs.

I cut out the pieces using my table saw and cross-cut sled. I found using the template scraps (not the actual template) to position the work piece helped with the cut.

Clamping the legs to the template, I sanded all the legs flush on my belt/disc sander.

I then cut the stretchers that connect the legs together and cut half-laps in both the stretchers and legs to join them.

I cut the curved bit left over from the tablesaw with a hand saw, then I glued up both sets of legs and clamped them together, putting tape between them to keep them from sticking to each other.

I then cut down another cherry board for edge banding on the exposed plywood edges.

After the edge banding has been planed, it's then glued and clamped to the plywood edges.

I cut them over sized to start and then flush cut them once the glue had dried. Then sanded and planed them flush.

I made the door handle by just cutting a square piece of cherry and rounding the edges over on my belt sander.

It was attached to the back with two screws, the holes were predrilled.

Last step is finishing with shellac. I thinned the shellac down with a bit of denatured alcohol.