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Custom Chip Display & Storage Cabinet – Design & Build thread (2 Viewers)

My son took a few days to work on some other projects, but today he was back on the display cabinet. He worked on the top with some beautiful figured mahogany, installed the door, and assembled some drawers.

Day 4.jpg
 
Here are some photos from days 5 & 6. We're in the home stretch now. A few small details to wrap up, and applying a finish to the wood is about all that's left.

Some final constructions photos:
Day 5-6.jpg


The case with a bit of light stain and some sanding:
case light stain.jpeg



And the piece de resistance - the beautiful drawers to hold the chips! I chose to show off four different woods on mine. From top to bottom we have flame maple with a dark stain, sapele a type of mahogany, walnut and curly cherry!
Drawers four woods.jpeg


Stay tuned as my son puts on the finishing touches and we will soon have a finished display cabinet to show off.
 
Beautiful work! Major kudos to your son! Also, my sincerest condolences to him regarding his lay-off. I was let go from my job of three years due to COVID, so I know it’s tough. On the other hand, it looks like he has a bright future in front of him!
 
Dunno how I've missed this thread to date, very cool build! Good engineers that can physically work with their hands are invaluable, he won't be out of work for long. I've long toyed with the idea of getting out of "professional" engineering to open a wood shop as I love woodworking and building things in general, but always feared that once it was a "job" it would lose it's appeal and not be as fun, so I've just kept it to a hobby to stay my sanity lol.
 
I've finally made the time to get myself onto this great forum. Really happy that y'all are liking what I've built. I had to take a break from finishing up the final details on this to work on another commission, but that one is almost to the applying finish stage, which will leave me some downtime to wrap up this guy. Hoping to have some nice reveal photos here in the next day or two.

@chipsncoffee sorry to hear about your layoff as well. Crazy times right now. Fortunately, my wife has been working from home for years and it's business as usual for her. Hope you land back on your feet soon.

@Irish Honestly, this whole woodworking business has been a plan for a while for me, COVID just pushed it up by about 10 years... I fully plan to go back to engineering at some point, but I'm not willing to take just any job. This business gives me something to do for a year or so while the world figures out what the new normal is. Just trying to make the best of things, and incredibly fortunate to be in the position that I am. Also, great work on your basement bar build!
 
alecnetwoodworks said:
I've finally made the time to get myself onto this great forum. Really happy that y'all are liking what I've built. I had to take a break from finishing up the final details on this to work on another commission, but that one is almost to the applying finish stage, which will leave me some downtime to wrap up this guy. Hoping to have some nice reveal photos here in the next day or two.

@chipsncoffee sorry to hear about your layoff as well. Crazy times right now. Fortunately, my wife has been working from home for years and it's business as usual for her. Hope you land back on your feet soon.

@Irish Honestly, this whole woodworking business has been a plan for a while for me, COVID just pushed it up by about 10 years... I fully plan to go back to engineering at some point, but I'm not willing to take just any job. This business gives me something to do for a year or so while the world figures out what the new normal is. Just trying to make the best of things, and incredibly fortunate to be in the position that I am. Also, great work on your basement bar build!
Click to expand...

Thank you. Honestly, I’ve been very fortunate to have had a bankroll in progress when the pandemic hit, and I’ve been even more fortunate to be able to grow it.
 
Finally got the cabinet about 95% wrapped up and pulled it outside to take some beauty shots. Still need to borrow a set of chips to show it off loaded up, but until then figured y'all will still want to see the finished product. For reference, the case is build of solid white oak with the top and side panels made of African mahogany. Each of the trays are made of white oak sides, with the front and back highlighting a different wood as well. In these photos those woods are (from top to bottom) figured black cherry, walnut, sapele, brown-dyed figured maple. The last bit I need to figure out is the internal lighting. I got some LED strip lighting in, but needed some additional wiring parts. I also need to determine if I'm just running lights along the top, or also down the sides, inside the case.

And now I'll just blast you with photos... All credit for photography goes to my lovely wife.

This is my favorite shot.
A1E49249-C71D-4587-99F0-B32B91EEA138_1_105_c.jpeg


Here is the case all closed up.
034DC524-BF47-4320-BBBD-300D2FE4E39B_1_105_c.jpeg


And now all opened up. Upper compartment dimensions are 18.5in wide 18.75in along the side and 5.75in deep.
7178C50B-8406-4DF7-B856-4FC22D5815D7_1_105_c.jpeg


Here are a few more thumbnails of the case from various angles.
98B1E518-E2F9-4101-B954-D4CA31BF37AD_1_105_c.jpeg 885D46EE-BD11-4DF7-8C08-F16BEDE128F8_1_105_c.jpeg 09388549-8B50-43B3-9CA7-F5E4A81FF075_1_105_c.jpeg E7D90127-460E-4391-9835-59B4795E255B_1_105_c.jpeg

As mentioned previously in this thread the whole cabinet was designed around the 1000 chip trays from Spinettis Gaming:

www.spinettisgaming.com/collections/chip-dealer-trays/products/1000-chip-inventory-tray

I'll be looking at trying to figure out some inserts for a few other options as well. I know that @TX_Golf_N_Poker is working on a solution for 43mm chips.

Let me know what you think! Lot of work in getting this prototype all figured out, but learned some lessons along the way and I have a few ideas for improvements on any future builds.

Will start a vendor thread here shortly, if anyone is interested in some fine furniture to show off your chip collections.
 

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That one lonely chip... :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

And when you say I'm working on a 43mm solution, we should say Ben (@One Eyed Dollar ) at 3D3P is working on it. We have a rough design for a 3 piece, 9 row wide insert that will fit perfectly within these drawers.
 
50Geez said:
Great design!!! Do the lights allow color changes? If not i think that would be a great idea. Also line the trays so the chip holder can be removed for plaques.
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I'm hoping he will have some new photos with LEDs in by the end of this week.
 
I'm working on a lighting solution today. I've got an LED strip that does colors and natural white light to test out.

I think lining the tray bottoms with felt, flocking, or some other covering is certainly an option if someone wanted that.
 
My beautiful display cabinet was delivered today by my talented son, @alecnetwoodworks Here is a little tease. There are more photos at THIS LINK.


Front Open.jpg

Drawer 8V.jpg


Y'all go to his page and order one for yourselves! Remember, these are CUSTOM. You pick the wood, the color, the features. If you can imagine it, Alec can build it! Mine has four different finishes on the drawer fronts so you can see a few of the options. Let me know if you want close up photos of anything. Go to the link and see ALL the photos. Video of the light show coming soon!
 
TX_Golf_N_Poker said:
My beautiful display cabinet was delivered today by my talented son, @alecnetwoodworks Here is a little tease. There are more photos at THIS LINK.


View attachment 496234
View attachment 496235

Y'all go to his page and order one for yourselves! Remember, these are CUSTOM. You pick the wood, the color, the features. If you can imagine it, Alec can build it! Mine has four different finishes on the drawer fronts so you can see a few of the options. Let me know if you want close up photos of anything. Go to the link and see ALL the photos. Video of the light show coming soon!
Click to expand...

your son? I need something! I’ll reach out to him.
 
philhut said:
Looks great. Seeing builds like these make me consider having a son too.


How old do they have to be before they can build poker cases?
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The only credit I can take is giving him a few good genes. And maybe not giving him some of my bad ones???
 
TX_Golf_N_Poker said:
I recently called upon my son to help me come up with a beautiful and functional chip storage and display cabinet. Gonna brag a little, my son is extremely talented with his hands. By education he is a mechanical engineer, and his hobbies for many years have included building and maintaining sports cars and motorcycles, including rebuilding engines, and rehabbing his own home as well as a rental property that he owns. Several years ago he started doing woodworking and cabinet building, and as someone with his knowledge and skill does, he has progressed very quickly. He has really fallen in love with building furniture, so much so that he is planning to one day make a second career of it. And then… earlier this month (May 2020) he was laid off from the oilfield services company where he has worked for over 10 years.

So he is taking full advantage of this time between jobs to kickstart his furniture crafting business. He and I have been going back and forth with quite a few different ideas for a poker chip display and storage cabinet. We are far enough down the road that we are ready to share some of our ideas, but not so far that we can’t make changes, or correct any critical errors we may have made. And that is where all of YOU come in!

I’m pretty new to the chipping hobby. Because of that, I may not have foreseen all of the features that I might one day want in a chip storage cabinet. Additionally, we are designing this with the thought that other PCF members might also want to commission the building of a similar cabinet of their own someday. My needs are probably not as great as many of yours are, so our design can easily be adapted. I only want room for 4000 chips, on 4 custom drawer/trays that each hold about 1000 standard 39mm chips. Mine is a tabletop chest. I plan to keep it on top of a matching custom wood file cabinet in my study that my son is also going to build for me. But it could easily be adapted to have legs, be placed on top of a custom bookshelf unit or drawer unit for more poker or other hobby storage or expanded to have many more drawer/trays and be a free-standing unit.

The dimensions of this example will be approximately 21 inches square at the base, including the trim, and about 28 inches high. The interior of the upper storage compartment will be about 18 ½ - 18 ¾ inches square and 6 ½ inches tall. These dimensions were used so that it would hold a few Bud Jones 43mm storage boxes two wide (end to end) and two high.

The following renderings are for the cabinet I’m having built for me. The top swings open for additional storage of decks of cards, oversized chips and other various poker paraphernalia. If others would prefer, that space could also become a drawer. Or it could be eliminated and replaced with more display trays. The glass door swings up, and then slides back into the cabinet. Although not shown in these mock-up drawings, both the top and the glass door will have keyed locks. The four trays slide all the way out so they can be taken to the poker table using the carved handles. The chip trays are the 1000 count trays sold by Spinetti’s. These seem to be a nice quality, heavy duty plastic that should last for many years. The trays will probably rest on the drawer bottoms, which will be constructed to securely support the heavy weight of 1000 poker chips.

View attachment 463742

View attachment 463744

View attachment 463748

This cabinet is currently being designed with ¾ inch solid oak and walnut. Future pieces can be designed with any wood the buyer chooses. And yes, you are seeing interior LED lighting! We’re still working out exactly what that will look like, but it’s definitely one of the “cool” factors in this design.

These next pics are an initial mock-up build for the chip drawer. The front and back are walnut and the sides are white oak. The chip tray fits snuggly in the drawer with the top of the chip tray just below the top of the drawer sides. The sides will have grooves cut in them to slide into and out of the cabinet. We are working on a solution to also display 43mm poker chips. This will probably involve cutting out all or part of 6 rows of the plastic storage tray to make room for acrylic 43mm chip trays. I’m thinking that mine will have two sections in one drawer cut out to make room for two chip trays. I don’t anticipate a need for a lot of 43mm storage, but we’re happy to entertain suggestions on how others might want this to look.

View attachment 463751

View attachment 463752


That’s it for now. If you’re still with me, thanks for reading to the end of this long post, and please feel free to contribute any thoughts about this design, especially anything that might be missing, or anything that you think may not work the way we’re expecting with this design.
Click to expand...
This is absolutely phenomenal!!!!!! Just seeing this thread.
 

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