About 15 years ago I built a small center to set my 35" Tube type TV on, and
it weighed at least 200#'s.
The cabinet is about 35" tall, 35" wide, and 24" deep. Below the TV is a
grilled area to house the "Center Channel Speaker", below that is an area
that houses an amplifier/tuner, carousel CD/DVD player, DVD burner, and
HDDVR. Half of those components set on an adjustable shelf and hide behind
smoked glass doors. Below the components is a full width and full depth
drawer with full extension slides to house CD's and DVD's.

The center channel speaker grill frame helps to support the weight on the
front side of the top that the TV sets/sat on, a 40" LCD TV lives there now.
The top is "2" pieces of 3/4" thick Oak plywood and is banded with 1.5" x
3/4" solid Oak. I strongly suggest that you use a thicker material and at
least 1.5" thick for the top. After about 2 years I stopped being
concerned if the cabinet would hold the TV with out collapsing.

I can post on a.b.p.w or e-mail pictures of the cabinet if you need some
ideas or would like to see what mine looks like.





"Puckdropper" puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote in message
...
I'm working on building a simple entertainment center, and would like
some advice. The sides and back are to be 1/2" red oak plywood, and
there will be three shelves the width and depth of the entertainment
center (minus the sides).

I plan on putting a large screen TV that's about 100-200 lbs on the
second shelf, and was wondering if the 1/2" plywood sides would be
sufficiently strong. The shelves themselves will be 1/2" plywood
supported by a 1x2 poplar frame with 1x4 red oak as a border. The top
shelf will carry some wonderfully heavy equipment, too. It'll be less
than 200 lbs, I think.

Any suggestions on attaching the shelves to the plywood sides? 1/2"
isn't very much material for a screw to grab in to from the inside, and
if a screw was inserted from the outside it'd show.

On a related note, this project marks my first real venture into
hardwoods. I had a good experience with the hardwood store, but learned
that 10' long boards just won't fit in a Prius. Next time, I'll peruse
the shorter boards /first/ and save myself a trip back in the truck.

Puckdropper
--
"The potential difference between the top and bottom of a tree is the
reason why all trees have to be grounded..." -- Bored Borg on
rec.woodworking

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm