01 / Overview
A practical console with a flying-saucer silhouette.
Chuck is a one-off listening console inspired by Googie architecture, The Jetsons, and the optimistic shapes of mid-century futurism. I designed, modeled, prototyped, CNC fabricated, assembled, and finished it independently in roughly two and a half weeks of spare-time work, using mostly reclaimed or scrap material.
02 / Problem
Bending the rules with flexible plywood.
I wanted a console for my house that could hold my turntable and part of my record collection, with room for game consoles, audio equipment, a power strip, and the miscellaneous things that gather around them. I also wanted an unusual shape. After sketching thumbnails of different silhouettes, I settled on an ellipse.
I needed a stand to make the cabinet freestanding, and doors that could work with the curved form. I sketched front-mounted doors and considered lift-up kitchen hardware and sliding partitions before asking: why not make the sides into tambours? Just like that, I had created a design problem for myself.
The ellipse complicated the CAD work, too. Some pieces were difficult to constrain, and sketch projections based on the elliptical geometry could easily break as the model changed.
The tambour design also limited where the stand could support the cabinet. A flexible-plywood false bottom conceals the doors as they slide beneath it, but offers little structural support. The stand needed to carry the cabinet through its sturdier parts instead.
03 / Process
One stationary fixture, two locating positions, mirrored legs.
One of the more difficult machining operations was making the base and legs. The cabinet’s three-quarter-inch plywood front and back faces project slightly beyond its perimeter. I designed the legs to catch those edges, supporting and steadying the cabinet without relying on the flexible false bottom.
Each leg had to meet the elliptical edge across its inch-and-a-half thickness. That meant rough-cutting the leg blanks, then machining the angled faces that meet the cabinet’s front and back. The awkward angle and position called for a fixture that would let me route those faces on the CNC table.
I designed the fixture and toolpaths in Vectorworks, placing the leg geometry into the fixture drawings and using 2D drafting tools to simulate the cuts. Working through the cut on each mirrored leg helped me resolve the fixture’s geometry. One stationary fixture served both sides, with a separate locating position and program for each leg and multipurpose clamping blocks I machined for the setup.
This avoided 3D carving toolpaths, which would have been especially difficult at this scale. I needed a clean, precise bevel, and the fixture let me achieve it with 2D toolpaths.
I also tested flexible plywood for the doors, starting with three-eighths-inch material that proved too thick for the cabinet’s curves. Quarter-inch flexible ply was next, with laminate as a backup if it could not bend around the ellipse. The quarter-inch ply was flexible enough, and a homemade orange shellac tint matched my inspiration drawings perfectly.
04 / Solution
Construction details reinforce the form.
Laminating three-quarter-inch plywood created sculptural but solid legs an inch and a half thick. I concealed the recessed glue-up screw holes with matching, shop-cut plugs—a trick from my stair carpentry days. I rounded over the exposed plywood edges by hand and hand-sanded them for finishing.
A removable false back in the record shelf and cable openings through the side compartments keep the electronics accessible. Clear shellac protects the front face and plywood edges; custom orange-tinted shellac makes the flexible doors atomic orange while keeping the wood grain visible.
05 / Outcome
A finished piece as full of character as it is manufacturing tricks.
The completed console stores records and equipment while keeping the original retrofuturist idea intact. Its unusual form and curved doors move beyond a familiar mid-century cabinet, while the exposed plywood edges and layered glue-ups reveal how it was built. It’s a warm partner for listening and a playful companion for entertaining guests.