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Category Archives: Recreations

Progress Report for the Garden Benches

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Dry fit the leg brace (left) and the seat brace (right).

We’ve finished all of the required lamination.   Whoo Hoo!

After marveling at Michelangelo’s statue of Goliath-vanquishing David, the Pope asked the sculptor, “How do you know what to cut away?”  Michelangelo replied, “I just remove everything that doesn’t look like David.”   Obviously we’re not nearly good enough to free hand our seat and leg braces.   Therefore we created templates out of plywood and used a good ole #2 pencil to trace the templates on to laminated blocks of Mahogany.  Using the template lines, we proceeded to remove everything that didn’t look like a brace.

Then we started to assemble the ends of the Garden Benches.  The last picture you see is the leg on its side and the seat and leg braces are sticking up.

We’ve got all the mortises cut and will do the glue ups for the leg assemblies in the very near future.

Frames Delivered

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Close Up of Frame Profile before Stain

Our customer has a wonderful gallery wall of her family over the years.  The frames she’s been using are no longer being made.  She asked us to create some frames that would be close, but didn’t have to be dead on.

We used some left over Mahogany, stain, glaze and several codes of  hand rubbed polyurethane to arrive at a finished project.  Our customer was pleased, which makes us very happy.

 

Sideboard Recreation Delivered!

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Finished Sideboard

We were able to complete and deliver the sideboard.   We were thrilled to have another happy customer.   It was a pleasure working with you, DRG!

 

 

 

 

Staining Completed

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The stain has been applied and the entire shop draped in prep for the Polyurethane.  The first coats of Poly have been applied to the underside of the shelves and drawers.  Because of the low temperatures at night, we have to go a bit slowly in applying the poly coats to be sure each one properly cures.

 

Closer Still …

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Shelves with Profiles

More progress has been made on knocking out the punch list.   We’ve added shelf pin recesses to the underside of the shelves (so the shelves cannot easily slide off the pins even if a little one pulls on them) and a decorative edge profile to each shelf.   No plain Jane shelves for our customers!

The hardware needs to test fit and the Mahogany distressed (at our customer’s request).  We’ll take our time with finish sanding, remove the test fix hardware, and protect the drawer runners and drawer stops.   This is an important step that cannot be rushed.  Any thing missed in these pre-finish step will show like a sore thumb in the finished product.

Then I think we’ll be ready to begin the finishing process.   During the finish process, updates will slow a bit as there is quite a bit of “watching the paint” dry time.  However, rest assured… we’re hard at work.

 

In the Home Stretch

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The punch list (the list of items yet to complete) is getting shorter and shorter.  The vast majority of the building is complete.  Pictured you will see the sideboard top with routed profile and the glued up center shelf.   Since the center shelf is fairly long, we have made it eight time stronger by laminating 2 pieces of mahogany.  This will insure the shelf will not sag over time and will hold those heirloom art pieces securely.

Next on the list is to route the adjustable shelf pin holes for the center shelf, install the hardware, attach the top via extra strong figure eight holders and a few more odds and ends.   Then comes the finishing.

Our weather right now is in the 70s and 80s during the day and then drops into the 30s-40s at night.  This yo-yo’ing makes finishing a bit difficult in that it takes a lot longer to complete.  We cannot rush the drying process in between coats or we risk not having a proper finish.

 

Sideboard Top Check In

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3 Mahogany boards were joined using extra long floating tenons and high quality adhesive.  Because of the ups and downs in the weather over the weekend, we left newly created top in the clamps for a few days.  Today the shop monkeys are working on final dimensions, creating and setting up the required templates for final shaping etc.

 

Carcass is Drying

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Mortises

The main carcass of the sideboard is glued and drying.  We’ve used some high performance glue and since this is such a critical part of the build and the weather has been a little strange (large temperature swings, some rain and humidity yo-yoing)  we’re letting it sit and cure for a good while to be absolutely positive everything is permanently set and attached.  At this point, this piece is well over one hundred pounds, so we do not want to rush things unduly.

Crest Rail & Floor Rail Completed

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Floor Rail dry fit (with clamp)

The construction of both of the crest and floor rails are now completed and dry fit.   There is an on going joke in the woodworking world that says “He who dies with the most clamps wins” …  we can see why  in the picture of the glue up for the floor rail.