So I have been trying to find a large gun safe or something to put all my guns in. I also really wanted something very large to put all of my gun and hunting related stuff in. I have been searching the internet for a while, missed out on some good deals naturally, but I finally scored on one.
I found a guy who had a entertainment center for sale, one of the things I had been looking for, seen a few, that I thought might be good idea for gun storage. The entertainment center he was advertising, said it was made of teak, then 14.5 ft. long and around 7.5 ft. tall center and 6.5 ft. tall for the side piece. That sounded like what I wanted. But looking at it, I was sure, it was not teak, like he listed. Naturally someone else beat me and contacted the guy first. I was sure I missed out on the deal. But then the day, the other guy was supposed to pick it up, I got a call, saying the other guy had backed out on buying the entertainment center. So we went home got as many blankets as we could find, bought some more ratchet straps and took off, to go get it.
I was still sure it was not teak even after we got there to look at it, the coloring looks like a dark cherry stain. Turns out that's what matches the closest. Turns out it had been stained. The story we got, is the guy used to work in US embassies all over the world, at one point he was working in the US embassy in Indonesia. While there, he had this piece custom built, out of teak. He said his wife designed it. The story seemed believable, but I was still sure it was not teak, by the coloring. Then I walked up to it and opened some of the doors, at that point, the smell of teak was very strong, no questioning it is teak.
So we helped unload all of the stuff they had in it and then started working on getting the six pieces out of his house, then figured out quickly, my long bed truck was not going to haul all of this thing with one trip. I had to make two trips. The guy had it advertised for $300, so I gave him $300 for it.
I took one of the pieces to my cabinet maker buddy, had him look at it. He looked up the price of teak, then did a calculation of how many board feet it would take to build it and concluded it would cost about $10,000 in just lumber to build this thing. He told me it would cost about $20,000 for him to build one like this. In the search for info on teak, we found out that Indonesia, is one of the biggest exporters of teak.
I did not even come close to telling the old couple what I had planned for this piece. I am not done, but I don't have much left to finish it.
Ever part of this piece, that has glass, the glass is beveled, and each of the pieces that have glass, have lighting in them.
I had to figure out how they put it together and take it partially apart, one piece was too big to fit in my gun room, so I took it apart. kind of interesting the various techniques they used to build it. It was not built, with typical US cabinet shop techniques.
So getting to my changes. First off, the two end display cabinets, with the glass doors. If I were to put them on the ends like it was originally, it would have been almost as long as the wall in the room, I put it in. So you would not have been able to easily see what is in the end display cases. So one of the end display cases went in the living room as a corner displace case. The other stayed in my gun room as a corner display case.
Then the next changes, I made, were to the dividers in the drawers. It came with a lot of shallow dividers, that are removeable. The dividers make probably 5"X5" compartments, I did not measure them, just a guess. The dividers are only half the depth of the drawers. I removed a bunch of the dividers, from some of the drawers, then stacked the dividers two high and screwed them together, in one drawer, that I put brass in. I also knocked out every other piece of wood, to double the size of each divider. Then one, I knocked out all but one of the divider boards. The put AR buffer springs and other pieces in that one.
Then I got into the bigger changes. I removed some shelves from the center piece, where a TV was supposed to go. I carefully removed all of the screws and took all of the wood supports and the lower stand out without breaking anything. Then I reused that wood and made my gun racks. So all of the wood is still teak. I need to stain the pieces I cut up, then glue some velvet on the insides of the gun racks.
Once I am done with that, I am going to try and come up with a idea, to hang at least one, hopefully two bows from the inside top, above the guns, using left over wood. Then make some arrow racks, that won't be hard. I will also store my one piece cleaning rods, in the same rack as the arrows.
Here are the before and after pictures.
I found a guy who had a entertainment center for sale, one of the things I had been looking for, seen a few, that I thought might be good idea for gun storage. The entertainment center he was advertising, said it was made of teak, then 14.5 ft. long and around 7.5 ft. tall center and 6.5 ft. tall for the side piece. That sounded like what I wanted. But looking at it, I was sure, it was not teak, like he listed. Naturally someone else beat me and contacted the guy first. I was sure I missed out on the deal. But then the day, the other guy was supposed to pick it up, I got a call, saying the other guy had backed out on buying the entertainment center. So we went home got as many blankets as we could find, bought some more ratchet straps and took off, to go get it.
I was still sure it was not teak even after we got there to look at it, the coloring looks like a dark cherry stain. Turns out that's what matches the closest. Turns out it had been stained. The story we got, is the guy used to work in US embassies all over the world, at one point he was working in the US embassy in Indonesia. While there, he had this piece custom built, out of teak. He said his wife designed it. The story seemed believable, but I was still sure it was not teak, by the coloring. Then I walked up to it and opened some of the doors, at that point, the smell of teak was very strong, no questioning it is teak.
So we helped unload all of the stuff they had in it and then started working on getting the six pieces out of his house, then figured out quickly, my long bed truck was not going to haul all of this thing with one trip. I had to make two trips. The guy had it advertised for $300, so I gave him $300 for it.
I took one of the pieces to my cabinet maker buddy, had him look at it. He looked up the price of teak, then did a calculation of how many board feet it would take to build it and concluded it would cost about $10,000 in just lumber to build this thing. He told me it would cost about $20,000 for him to build one like this. In the search for info on teak, we found out that Indonesia, is one of the biggest exporters of teak.
I did not even come close to telling the old couple what I had planned for this piece. I am not done, but I don't have much left to finish it.
Ever part of this piece, that has glass, the glass is beveled, and each of the pieces that have glass, have lighting in them.
I had to figure out how they put it together and take it partially apart, one piece was too big to fit in my gun room, so I took it apart. kind of interesting the various techniques they used to build it. It was not built, with typical US cabinet shop techniques.
So getting to my changes. First off, the two end display cabinets, with the glass doors. If I were to put them on the ends like it was originally, it would have been almost as long as the wall in the room, I put it in. So you would not have been able to easily see what is in the end display cases. So one of the end display cases went in the living room as a corner displace case. The other stayed in my gun room as a corner display case.
Then the next changes, I made, were to the dividers in the drawers. It came with a lot of shallow dividers, that are removeable. The dividers make probably 5"X5" compartments, I did not measure them, just a guess. The dividers are only half the depth of the drawers. I removed a bunch of the dividers, from some of the drawers, then stacked the dividers two high and screwed them together, in one drawer, that I put brass in. I also knocked out every other piece of wood, to double the size of each divider. Then one, I knocked out all but one of the divider boards. The put AR buffer springs and other pieces in that one.
Then I got into the bigger changes. I removed some shelves from the center piece, where a TV was supposed to go. I carefully removed all of the screws and took all of the wood supports and the lower stand out without breaking anything. Then I reused that wood and made my gun racks. So all of the wood is still teak. I need to stain the pieces I cut up, then glue some velvet on the insides of the gun racks.
Once I am done with that, I am going to try and come up with a idea, to hang at least one, hopefully two bows from the inside top, above the guns, using left over wood. Then make some arrow racks, that won't be hard. I will also store my one piece cleaning rods, in the same rack as the arrows.
Here are the before and after pictures.
Comment