A furniture to humidor retrofit - complete project

[Scubasteve20]

I felt like documenting and sharing this project. Posting this all after the fact. It may get a little out of order but all of the actual stuff I did will be covered. Let me know if you want any details I missed.

 

I decided I wanted to turn some used furniture pieces into relatively large cabinet humidors for dad & myself on a modest budget and would be suitable for the amount we smoke & store. He has a birthday coming up and he's that guy you can't really buy anything for because he goes & gets exactly what he wants when he wants/needs it. He won't be expecting this! His poor little end table cabinet was packed full since I discovered 24:24 and started doing most of his CC buying for him. I looked at many gun, china & curio cabinets. Gleaned a lot of info from the internet (here mostly). Had a few busts which were claimed to be all solid hardwood until I got there to purchase and left disappointed, cheap thin particle board with wood trim & door frames. I had to pick something quick and get started...... so I found this little gem which was solid wood except the side panels which were full 3/4” thick American-made heavy particle board faced with high quality vinyl, no blemishes and structurally very sound except the back panels which were getting replaced anyway. 24"wide x 24"deep  x 75" tall. It is a HEAVY piece, not Walmart stuff. Actually it was Broyhill brand which is fairly respectable quality. $100... Sold.

[Scubasteve20]

First thing that needed to go were the cardboard back panels, can't even move the thing around safely until we shore it up. I chose 3/4” luan/mahogany ply inset about 3/4” deep into the body and attached via wood glue, [too many] pocket hole screws, and silicone. This wood has the benefit of matching the wood for the rest of the interior lining. It also looks like/is closely related to Spanish cedar, and is available locally.

[Scubasteve20]

The finish and style was dated a bit. I knew I would have to re-style the face, re-cover/veneer the outer cab panels, and all of the other expected changes to make it a functional humidor. Ok, so I mentioned a budget, I'm pretty frugal with this kind of stuff. No real plan in place to accommodate said budget but I didn't want to go crazy with anything.

I decided the way forward would be a re-finish of the exterior, lining the interior panels with a suitable wood, making Spanish cedar shelves and a separate interior door-sealing frame.

Spanish cedar was a point of great distress. I searched for weeks online and finally realized I would have to put some phone calls out. One shot/one kill, which never happens to me. I found a supplier willing to answer any questions I had and cut every piece to my exact dimensions, or multiples thereof and at a very fair price. PM me if you want the details, I recommend them wholeheartedly. This guy manages his own tropical hardwood groves in South America. In 2 days I had a 76 lb box of primo humidor lumber shipped to my door, about 20 board-feet.

 

[Scubasteve20]

I set out to remove the subjectively ugly scalloped front design pieces. The upper insert parts came out easily in individual segments with a hammer and chisel. The drawer made itself clear that it wanted to go in the dumpster and have a replacement of itself built from scratch, in Spanish cedar and mahogany ply of course. Some of the front frame needed to be cut out and replaced as well to accommodate the higher quality soft-close drawer slides.

[Scubasteve20]

Finishing was done with a discount store HVLP gun delivering satin espresso tinted polyurethane. No need to strip the old finish, just scuff & spray.

 

[Scubasteve20]

Back to that big box of fancy lumber. This stuff is a joy to work with and the most beautiful SC I've seen ever, anywhere. Spent a whole day on the table saw ripping down the 4/4 x 3-6” wide boards into strips to make ventilated shelves. Made a jig for quick and accurate assembly. Used glue and ¾” stainless steel 18ga brad nails to assemble the upper shelves, plus the slightly larger one for the bottom cabinet section.

Somewhere in here my buddy needed his table saw back so I had to finally go buy one. There goes the budget! But we all knew that was going to happen anyway.... right?!

(Disclaimer: Spanish cedar saw/sanding dust can be a respiratory system irritant. Use proper precautions)

[Scubasteve20]

Getting the new drawer as square as possible & adding strips to make the bottom. I even managed to cut my own cedar edge-banding veneer for the top edges of the plywood frame. Surprised that actually worked on a table saw.

[Scubasteve20]

On to electronics. I wanted the whole thing to be modular and serviceable. The humidification will be handled by a Cigar Oasis Magna 3.0. I've had good luck with their smaller units in the past. I'm pretty certain the extra $100 or so or an equal capacity Avallo or Aristocrat unit would be well spent but The reviews left me confident the Cigar Oasis would be fine. Perhaps I'll go fancier when I do my own. I didn't want to deal with cooling and its new home barely gets outside of 70-72 degrees F so I'm going humidification only on this. I wanted no wall-warts and only a single electrical plug for the whole thing. The electrical heart is a 120vac to 12vdc/5a power supply, about $8. This feeds 3 things:

A 12vdc to 5vdc USB converter to power the humidifier. This eliminates the separate wall-wart which comes with the unit.

2 PC fans fed directly from the 12vdc rail. These are Noctua brand, best I could find. They are quiet, move enough air and have 150,000 MTBF rate. Good enough for me.

Lights. There is a segmented LED strip behind the left & right side of each door frame. The bottom section is powered directly through a door-activated micro switch, full on or full off when door is open/closed. The top section is the same setup but paralleled with a pulse-width-modulated LED dimmer. The lights behind the glass upper portion can be dimmed anywhere between full off/on, then when the door opens you get full on.

All connections were solder/heat-shrink or screw terminals except for the PC fan connections. I ordered a PC fan splitter harness, cut off the 2 receiving end pigtails and tied them into the main 12vdc wiring. If a fan dies its simply a matter of 4 screws and a quick-disconnect electrical plug. Easy, safe, cheap.

The 2 PC fans are mounted in opposite directions on the panel separating the upper and lower chambers . The humidifier will live in the lower chamber so these 2 fans are needed to circulate between it and the larger upper chamber. One is pushing, one is pulling and they should be able to keep the humidity stable enough even if one dies, for a time anyway. They are also concealed behind the drawer, that is unless one crawls around on the floor with their head in the lower chamber looking for them... Ain't nobody doing that where we're going! Simple cheap fan grilles protect the tops.

[Scubasteve20]

Now to figure out the side covering, I looked into about 100 different things. Veneer, paint, leather/synthetic leather, copper ceiling tiles, …. I don't know. We're both avid fishermen so when I came upon this real cork fabric I couldn't resist (a la cork fishing rod handle for you non fishers). At this point I planned on doing a dark face frame/doors and staining the cork fabric a natural wood color for contrast. I was forced to adapt my expectations, it looked better as I kept adding darker coats and wound up nearly black. This works better decor-wise as you'll see in the final photos and still has the pitted texture of natural cork which looks nice. Attaching the fabric threw me for a loop a couple times. Tried various adhesives and settled on a low V.O.C. Latex/water-based carpet tile adhesive.

Covered the upper frame insert and the new drawer face where the weird scalloped wood strips once resided with the same cork fabric used on the sides & stained them to match.

 

[Scubasteve20]

Shelf brackets finally received and installed. This was a bit of a cluster f***. I received the adjustable shelf brackets but the vertical standards into which they attach were supposedly delivered on a Friday, to my office, at 7:30 PM. Yes, left outside in front of the door, at 7:30 PM ON A FRIDAY, IN AN OFFICE COMPLEX!?!?! I managed to annoy the retailer enough to do an insurance claim or just replace them. They never would send be a tracking number for either shipment. The original shipment never crossed my path. I bet whoever it was thought they were swiping something really neat or valuable

Anyway, rant over. The shelving system worked out perfectly. The brackets are easily adjustable from flat to 4 different angles so the 4 upper shelves can be set in any configuration from stacked box storage to open box display. One end of each shelf has a lip to keep boxes from sliding off when angled or turn the whole shelf around so the lip is in the back when flat. This also prevents boxes from being pushed all the way to the back wall, thus keeping an air channel open back there.

We're just about finished now. A few touch-ups to all the parts where I goofed, accidentally banged a corner with a tool, etc...

Final tweaks to drawer/door alignment and attaching the drawer front.....

 

AND......

 

WE'RE DONE!!!!!

 

A special thanks to my wife, who is an absolute saint. She did the majority of caring for our newborn son the last 2 months while I was spending long weeknights after work in the garage. Now I owe her a project...

[Scubasteve20]

The best part is that I bought these cabinets as a pair so at the time of posting this I'm already working on my own. I bought double everything and cut doubles of all lumber pieces I needed. Made 2 whole sets of shelves in case you didn't notice earlier. I'd love to hear suggestions on what to do differently on mine. Maybe an exotic wood veneer on the side panels and upgraded humidifier system as mentioned before.

[Scubasteve20]

We gave it to him yesterday. Presented a little cigar box I made with a few special sticks in there. Photos of the whole build were hidden behind the smokes. I even started migrating his stash once I set everything up.

 

[Chefalan86]

Well done man, well done! perfect gift giver!

[Scubasteve20]

On 5/11/2021 at 7:40 PM, Chefalan86 said:

Well done man, well done! perfect gift giver!

Thank you!

 

Update: Everything's working perfectly. At 65% RH it looks like the Magna 3.0 will need a refill every 6-8 weeks by my estimate. I like that. Although I plan to go fancier on my own, I wouldn't hesitate to use the same humidifier based on my experience with this one. 

[StogieSteve23]

Excellent build!! These are beautiful pieces. One any father would be PROUD to own.  Great job 👍

[Timothy556]

 Nice work. It looks great. 

[Woody Hayes]

Beautiful piece.  I have the upmost admiration for people like you who have the patience and expertise to accomplish something like this.

[stringmeout]

I echo the comments made above. I’m in awe of the skills required to pull off such an achievement.

Bravo

[01Vert]

Just a question on an old post.  With both fans at the bottom of the upper cabinet I would think most of the circulating air would bounce off of the lowest shelf and then go directly across to the discharge fan.  Have you checked humidity levels at the bottom and top of the upper area to see if there is a difference?   I was thinking a duct so the discharge goes to the top and then cascades down to the lower fan and that draws it out may be more efficient but I am probably overthinking it like I do pretty much everything. 

[etout00]

Stellar build