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The "I just made..." thread.

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What's the end game with all of this stuff? Going to blow something up or cure cancer? Maybe something in between those two?
Strangely enough, copper salicylate is being looked into for killing tumors, but I just like the process. It's kind of my zen garden. I've found that working with my hands, doing chemistry, woodworking, glasswork, etc. gives me a peaceful focus. When I'm doing those things, I'm there, in the moment. It's a nice counter to sitting in front of a computer or being in meetings all day.
 
Strangely enough, copper salicylate is being looked into for killing tumors, but I just like the process. It's kind of my zen garden. I've found that working with my hands, doing chemistry, woodworking, glasswork, etc. gives me a peaceful focus. When I'm doing those things, I'm there, in the moment. It's a nice counter to sitting in front of a computer or being in meetings all day.
Got it. I spent most of a lifetime building things, and now I find it a little difficult to dive into a new project. I still do it because the wife always has a new project in mind. That said, sometimes I do enjoy sitting on my expanding ass all day.
 
Finally finished my entertainment center. I'll eventually make drawers for the two lower left/right compartments. I can post a picture once I have my TV and game consoles all set up.

It all went together well, but I was sweating a bit while gluing up each section. After everything was set, I went back and "caulked" all dado seams with glue, then painted over it. I'm glad I decided to round over all of the edges rather than apply trim/edge banding. Saved me a lot of work I think.

The second picture shows the two left/right sections. I didn't want to lift up the upper base section just to take a picture of the two base sections, but it basically detaches in the middle.

Not shown:
While doing a dry fit I dropped the right section and cracked some of the edging on the top and blew out the front of the top dado. I glued it back together, put in some Ready Patch, painted over it, and you can't tell anything happened unless you get right up to it. Phew...


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Turned out great! I like the color. It's not one I would have chosen, but seeing it in-place, it really looks nice. I'd buy it.
 
So I tried a new salicylate, this time iron. I really overshot adding in acid, which meant I had to try and recover. This yielded a really wild mix of three things - rust, table salt, and iron salicylate. I let the mix dry on a very wide silicone mat and this is the weird result
 
Pyramids are table salt, and snowflakes are iron salicylate?
Yep, should be. The white is salt, red is rust, and purple is the salicylate. I just broke it up and heated it in isopropyl alcohol, which left a lot of cruft. Only the salicylate should come through.
 
Finally finished my entertainment center. I'll eventually make drawers for the two lower left/right compartments. I can post a picture once I have my TV and game consoles all set up.

It all went together well, but I was sweating a bit while gluing up each section. After everything was set, I went back and "caulked" all dado seams with glue, then painted over it. I'm glad I decided to round over all of the edges rather than apply trim/edge banding. Saved me a lot of work I think.

The second picture shows the two left/right sections. I didn't want to lift up the upper base section just to take a picture of the two base sections, but it basically detaches in the middle.

Not shown:
While doing a dry fit I dropped the right section and cracked some of the edging on the top and blew out the front of the top dado. I glued it back together, put in some Ready Patch, painted over it, and you can't tell anything happened unless you get right up to it. Phew...


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View attachment 135137
You know, something I just noticed is that the tv niche doesn't look doesn't look very big. What is the maximum diagonal dimension it can handle?
 
You know, something I just noticed is that the tv niche doesn't look doesn't look very big. What is the maximum diagonal dimension it can handle?

It's ~31.75" wide, so most 32" CRTs without side speakers will fit. I'll probably never be able to carry one of those upstairs though.

Here are a couple of pictures with my 27" Trinitron. I'm busy with work so I haven't had time to set everything up.

Not sure if I want to keep the speakers there. If they don't sound great, I'll probably build some smaller ones. That dang air return vent...

I have an Emotiva TA-100 amp coming on Monday, which will live on top of the Extron AV switcher (bottom left).

The N64 compartment is so big is because nothing else really fits there, and it might give me a reason to buy a 64DD one day. Well, after thinking about it maybe the X-Box.

The Sega Tower of Power cubby is just large enough to fit a cart, but I have to slide the whole thing out to remove/insert carts. A project on my list (of many projects related to this whole thing) is to turn my Model 1 Genesis into a Neptune (stuffing the 32X components into it), so that'll be a help there.

Turned out great! I like the color. It's not one I would have chosen, but seeing it in-place, it really looks nice. I'd buy it.

Thanks. I originally wanted go with a light beige or cream color, but then I was leaning towards a really dark blue, almost black. Then I realized I could just use the same color as my wall, but just go a couple of shades darker. I'm pretty happy with it.

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Nice! I so want to do a retro game setup some day. That's a classic TV too, it seems everyone had that TV in the early 2000's lol.
 
@snoopy7548 - It never even occurred to me that you would be using a CRT. But if you're into classic games, it does make sense.

I had an old Nanao monitor that was incredibly sharp. The gf at the time was quite impressed.
 
While I was messing with the green, this was filming. It's a eutectic mixture of thymol and menthol. When they touch, they form a mixture with a melting point below room temperature. Sodium and potassium do this (NaK) as do indium, gallium, and tin (galinstan, which I think is what the liquid metal thermal compound is).

 
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