I put all three pieces on dollys so that I could easily move them to and from the finish room and the assembly area. In the next picture you can see the grommets I used to route the cables into the unit. They worked out really nice.
I got the finish put on the entertainment center and delivered it this past weekend. After putting the stain on the piece, I used Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. It dries fairly quickly, so two coats can be put on per day. Another advantage: no brush marks. Between coats I started with 220 grit sandpaper, then went to 320, 400, and then 600 grit before the final coat of finish. I ended up putting a total of six coats on the exterior, touchable parts of the unit, and four coats on all the other parts.
Everything went together well at the customer's house. I had a little trouble aligning the bookcases with the main unit, but I built the unit in perfect alignment, so I knew everything would like up eventually. I used "knock-down" fasteners to connect the bookcases to the main unit and they worked very well. The glass shelves, from McGrane glass, fit the bookcases nicely too. Here are a couple pictures of the unit installed at the customer site:
[Too funny! I just got off the phone with my son. Turns out he just accepted a new position with Lincoln Financial, the company with Lincoln's head as their trademark! It was just a coincidence that I caught their ad on Patrick's new TV!]
Nice TV too! It's a Sharp Aquos LED unit.
