Grandpa’s Cabinets gets requests often for cabinets and display cases that are not in the norm for what we do. This isn’t a problem most times and this was no exception to that. A very good customer commissioned me to build a custom display case in my kit format to house a very large, very old antique sail ship for his condo in southern Florida. After learning the dimensions needed, I realized it was probably going to be the largest ever ordered. Once we confirmed the dimensions needed, I got to work on his order and completed it in two weeks and as agreed, I even delivered it personally to St. Augustine because it was too large when packed to be shipped by UPS or any conventional means.
About two weeks later, I received a phone call stating that he needed a cabinet to place this on because he had no furniture large enough with a big enough footprint to comfortably hold the cabinet! He even had an architect friend design a cabinet with storage to do just that and here I go with another challenge and project to fix a situation.
I began construction in solid oak per his request of a simple cabinet. Here you can see the design starting to take shape. The base has a toe kick at the very bottom with wheels mounted just inside and just high enough to allow movement but not be seen from a distance. The sides and divider inside are of furniture grade oak plywood secured with glue and dadoes for strength and support. The top was made to look like it is about 2″ thick by inserting plywood into the middle of a framed cover of solid oak.
Here is the cabinet completed in the rough without the doors inserted yet. You can see the thickness of the top and the front framing of solid oak which gives this a truly furniture quality look.
After mounting the doors and hardware and application of 4 topcoats of oil based polyurethane this cabinet took shape very nicely. The finish I choose is satin in gloss for cabinets like this because I feel it looks more appealing to the eye and doesn’t show dust as fast as a gloss would. I never choose flat because I just don’t think it brings out the grains in oak well. Now it was on to delivery time for this piece of furniture and a look at how it will all be once assembled. I rarely get to see completed work so this was much anticipated.
I delivered the cabinet to the customer and realized he hadn’t assembled the display kit as of yet so I got to do it all for him. He wanted to use this as a sort of room divider in his condo and I feel it worked well for it’s intended purpose. After moving the cabinet into position, I proceeded to assemble and clean the display kit base and acrylic panels and get the ship mounted and set. This case and cabinet overall is about 48″ long by 29″ wide and sits about 7 feet high together just to give some idea of size. I’m very proud of how the entire project came out and the customer was overwhelmingly pleased as well. If you have any need for a custom display case to display your works of art or models, never hesitate to contact me. Ron Baluch, www.grandpascabinets.com or give a call with questions at (586)506-2222 and for a fast quote, go to the “request a quote” spot on my website.
