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JKM Woodworking
Cherry Hall Table 2: Aprons & All the Rest
Having marked the apron lengths in the previous step, I added about one inch to each side for tenons. For this project I wanted to try making integral tenons on the bandsaw.
I had to decide if I would try to make all the cuts on the bandsaw, or only the less visible ones and use a handsaw for the show cuts. I tried making all cuts on the bandsaw. I wanted the tenons to end up 8mm thick so they would fit in an 8mm domino mortise.
The tenons came out close to size but needed cleaning up. I tried a file and then switched to a shoulder plane.
For the front apron I made a curve on the bottom using the same curved bow I used for the front edge of the tabletop. This curve is concave, so a handplane can’t be used to clean the edges. I used a file and sandpaper wrapped around the offcut. The two short aprons were so short I didn’t bother putting a curve on them.
I wanted to drawbore these tenons. I like the look of pinned tenons on shaker furniture and wanted to practice. And I suspected my joinery would be sloppy and benefit from tightening up.
For the legs I drilled the drawbore holes before making the mortises. This way I wouldn’t have to clean up blowout inside the mortises. I drill a starter hole with a 1/4 forstner bit, switch to a 1/4 augur bit and drill until the tip pokes through, then drill in the backside with the forstner bit. The forstner bit helps to have clean entry and exit holes, but it’s not so good for drilling all the way through.
This time I was smart enough not to have the holes intersecting, but I still had a couple collide with the aprons on the exit side. I will scoop out an exit path with gouges.
I made overlapping mortises with an 8mm domino bit and rounded the tenons with a file. The peg holes in the tenons are 1/16 closer to the shoulder, a measurement I did not test but borrowed from my previous project in ash.
Prior to assembly I decided to scrape and sand all of the pieces. Each face of each leg was scraped with a card scraper or cabinet scraper, then hand sanded at 220 and 320 grit. This was the most time consuming part of the whole project. For the aprons I only cleaned the visible outer face.
I drilled some pocket holes in the aprons for the tabletop. I wallered out the top holes to leave the screws loose for movement. The distance from front-back apron is only 8-9″, so I don’t think I have much to worry about.
I glued up the short sides first and later added the long aprons to complete the assembly. I used liquid hide glue on the tenon, shoulders, and drawbore peg. Some of the pegs crumpled, which I blame on using sawn stock rather than split or rived.
Back to the tabletop, I marked the underside where the legs would sit and drew a chamfer about 1″ wide and half the thickness. 95% of this material was removed with a #5 plane, with a block plane, #7 plane, and card scraper taking care of the rest.
For the topside I scraped the glue line as promised. After 1,000 passes or so it was flush. Then I scraped the rest of the top 3-4 times to blend in. I hand sanded the top, the edges, and the fondleable parts on the bottom with the same regimen as the legs.
I also drilled pilot holes for the pocket screws on the underside. I wouldn’t drill pilot holes for pine or plywood, but it seemed like a good idea for hardwood. First I drilled the pocket screws in 1/4″ or so to establish the angle, then backed them out and drilled the rest of the pilot hole by hand.
I read too much about finishing cherry and got analysis paralysis. A lot of what I read was about minimizing blotching, which doesn’t seem desirable for curly cherry. After all, the curls are blotches, right? Anyhow, I don’t have any polyurethane or ‘varnish’ and don’t plan on getting any, so my options included boiled linseed oil, shellac, and lacquer. I made samples of blonde shellac and garnet shellac with and without sanding back the first coats to accentuate the curls and decided to use garnet shellac without sanding back.
The last cleaning up before finishing was to scrape all of the pegs and scrub the glue squeeze-out with hot water. Then I sanded those areas with 220 and 320 again. I also took the table inside to its future home and marked and leveled the feet.
The finish is garnet shellac with 5 coats wiped on the top and 3-4 coats on the legs and aprons. After that I put it in the sun for a few hours.
All put together and in the spot it was made for:
I’m happy with it. A relatively quick project for me. And I practiced making tenons and pinning them.
Cherry Hall Table 1: Top & Legs
This project shuffled to the front of the line because I had all the pieces and it seemed simple. It is a small table without drawers or stretchers or a lower shelf. Just four legs, aprons, and a top.
I previously made some legs about 30″ long from 7/4 stock. Later I bought a nice piece of cherry about 8 1/2″ x 72″ for the top.
Crosscutting the piece in half would allow a top about 17 x 36″. Seventeen inches was too wide for my needs, so I decided to rip 2 1/2″ from each long side. The top would end up around 12″ wide/deep and the offcuts would make three of the four aprons.
After the two top pieces were cut to size I flipped and rearranged the two boards to try to find a pleasing orientation. Then I jointed the long edges and glued them.
This picture is trying to show the glue joint is not flush. On a good day with well behaved wood that is a problem for me to flatten. For figured wood like this I imagine it will be a real pain. My plan is to scrape it, even if it takes a long time.
I wanted the front edge of the tabletop to have a slight curve. I made a bow out of a thin strip of pine and some twine and used it to trace a curve. I cut the curve on the bandsaw and cleaned the edges with a handplane.
The four legs I had ripped by hand. They are tapered on one face. I picked which of the remaining faces to taper, making two square sides and two tapered. These were cut on the bandsaw and cleaned with handplanes.
The way I initially cut these legs, they tapered all the way up. I had to square up the top 3″ so they would be square where they meet the aprons.
With the legs shaped, I placed them on the underside of the tabletop to determine how long the aprons would be. I used a square to set the legs 1 1/2″ in from the sides and 1″ from the front and back. With the legs in position I could mark the leg-to-leg lengths of the aprons exactly.
Next I will make the aprons and the apron-leg assembly.
Underbed Box
I thought a couple underbed boxes might help with the junk. Searching for underbed boxes I found a lot that match the bedframe and are meant to be visible. That’s not what I was after. I just wanted a step up from the plastic containers with plastic wheels. I found Matthias Wandel’s Under-Bed Drawer post where I took the idea to make recesses inside the box for the wheels, rather than have them on the outside or bottom of the box.
I measured the space under a twin bed and decided about 30″ long, 20″ wide and 6″ high would be a good fit. At 6″ it is low enough to slide under the metal bed frame rails, and at 20″ wide it isn’t too large to manage. If it works well there’s enough room for another.
So I started with a 1×6 (5.5″ wide) with the idea it could be elevated up to 1/2″ off the ground. I found some old plywood and measured its thickness for a rabbet around the bottom edges of the box. This 3/8″ deep and wide rabbet was made with a plow plane.
After rabbeting, the pieces were crosscut to roughly 30 and 20 inches long. The two long pieces had 3/8″ deep x 3/4″ wide rabbets added to the ends to receive the short sides. These rabbets were made with saw, chisel, and router plane. Before gluing I drilled tiny pilot holes for future nails.
The box was glued with liquid hide glue and clamped overnight. I thought it was square when I left it, but it was not square the next day. I cut the grungy plywood to size and shoved it into place, hoping to pull things square. It didn’t work. I thought about steaming the corners to help bend it into shape, but ended up just working with it.
I used scrap white pine to make the interior dividers. They are arranged to make square wheel wells in the corners. I ran a divider piece across the 20″ dimension, than added shorter pieces to wall off a square in each corner. I set the pieces in place on the plywood bottom and traced everything. The plywood corners were cut out, and pilot holes drilled for the nails.
The swivel casters I’m using are the lowest height swivel casters that harbor freight sells (item 41519). I measured they would need a 3.5″ square to rotate. They are also mounted about two inches above the bottom. So these cubbies are created by the long supports, short supports, and toppers. The math on these works out to create a 3.5″ open space using 3/4″ material.
I used tremont ‘clout’ cut nails. I think the diamond head nails look better, but these will work for a less visible project. I drilled pilot holes for all the nails, taking care to not have two intersect in the wood. Surprisingly I left enough room to use the drill and swing a hammer without boxing myself in.
The plywood bottom was a little too grungy for my liking so I primed it before attaching. I left strips unprimed for glue. I didn’t want to use nails on the bottom, worried there wasn’t enough room on the edges. And pneumatic nails sometimes blow out the side and are impossible to remove. So I used glue and screws.
I thought I was done but one corner scraped on the floor. The wheels were too recessed. The casters were not mounted 2″ above the bottom as planned, but 2″ above the rabbet (2 3/8″ above the bottom). So I made some spacers out of thin plywood and added them under the casters. This also required swapping to longer mounting screws. After this the box rolled nicely.
You could add smaller dividers or organizers to this, like a silverware drawer. Or you could add a sliding till on top, like a toolbox. Not knowing what will be put in it, I’ll just leave it open.
In a hurry to finish things, I forgot to install handles. I had planned to make handles out of wood, just screwed into the sides. I also have a box of random cabinet pulls that could be used. For now the handle doesn’t seem necessary, so I won’t install any until the need arises.
If I make more I’ll try to make squarer joints and maybe not use nails for everything. The biggest thing was to practice making wheel wells, which worked out. It was a good project that only took two days.
Sliding Lid Box 2: Carved Butternut Lid & Finishing
For the lid I am using a piece of butternut. I held it up to the box to mark the needed width. After planing to width, I made rabbets so it would fit into the box’s groove. Rabbets were made with a shoulder plane and a batten.
I saved the offcut from the front end of the box. Sliding this around I could confirm that the edge of the lid would fit into the groove.
For the carving I am using a project from Twenty Decorative Carving Projects in Period Styles by Steve Bisco. I taped the printout to the wood and traced the lines with a ballpoint pen. The butternut is soft enough that the pen leaves impressions, which I penciled in to see better.
To begin carving I traced around the edges with a v-tool, staying outside the lines. This makes trenches for wasting away the background. The background is removed with gouges going across the grain, leaving ripples. This will later be cleaned up with cuts going along the grain.
Once the background is lowered, I cut on the pencil lines. These cuts are almost straight up and down. I try to use gouges with the same curve as the pencil line. This removes the last margins of wood that the v-tool did not.
Next is the shaping or modeling of the devices. In this project some of the leaves/stems go over and under each other. Also there are some convex and concave parts to the leaves and flower. I try to touch every part with a gouge so nothing you see is from the original flat board surface.
This carving was mildly frustrating. There were some tight spaces where my tools didn’t fit or I couldn’t make clean cuts.
It’s not easy to sand something like this. I used a skewer around the edges and tight spaces to remove fuzzies, and rubbed the whole thing with a brown paper bag.
For finishing I used garnet shellac on the butternut and blonde shellac on the sycamore. I usually use a t-shirt rag to apply shellac. That wasn’t working for the carving, so I used a cheap paintbrush. The outsides got four coats and the insides got two.
For the bottom of the box I cut thin paperboard (a frozen pizza box) a little undersized and some black felt a little oversized. The picture shows cardboard, which I swapped out for something thinner. I glued the felt to the paperboard with school glue and weighted it down. Later I trimmed the felt so about 1/8″ extended past the edges. Then I glued the paperboard to the bottom of the box with liquid hide glue.
So that’s my first sliding lid box.
Sliding Lid Box 1: Sycamore Box
I thought I would try a sliding lid box. I have made a couple small boxes before but would like to make nicer ones.
There is an old popular woodworking article “Drawer Primer: Sliding Lid Box” which I can’t find a free link to right now. The idea is when you learn to make drawers with a bottom fitted into a groove, you have everything you need to make a sliding lid box. Or maybe it’s the other way around?
I had some sycamore leftover from my small dresser project, about 16″ long and 1″ thick. Resawing it gave me twice the length and half the thickness. I jointed the edges to be straight and parallel, leaving the pieces about 6″ wide.
I should have smoothed the inner bandsawn surfaces before doing anything else, but caught up to that later. First I plowed grooves on both edges before crosscutting into smaller pieces. It’s easier to plow one long piece than two smaller ones. This material was not easy to plow, there was a lot of tear out. I sanded the grooves with sandpaper wrapped around a thin scrap.
After making the grooves I was ready to crosscut into pieces. I had the lid piece picked out, so set the short sides to the same width. By alternating long-short-long-short on the two bookmatched pieces, they will end up with a four corner grain match. After cutting, the ends of all pieces were squared with a shooting board.
For joinery I am going with rabbets and nails. It’s likely that glued rabbets alone would suffice, but nails give me peace of mind. Here is an older picture of the other small boxes I made, one for each child:
Both of these boxes have been dropped and broken into pieces. I was able to fix them. But that’s why I’m using nails for this one.
For the rabbets I traced the actual pieces. They are not perfectly rectangular, so the rabbets will be cut to match. I set a marking gauge to the depth of the plowed grooves, and mark around the edges.
I placed a batten across the pencil line and saw down to depth. I could pop off most of the waste with a chisel. The first time I did this the board kept moving backwards, so I put a peg in the workbench behind it to keep it from moving. Finally I used a shoulder plane to get up to the line. The shoulder plane is nice because I can flip it 90° to plane both edges of the cut.
Before glue-up I scraped and hand sanded the pieces to be presentable. I also had to pick which sides would be the top and front. One of these pieces had a defect on the edge. I decided to make that the bottom. I also filled it with superglue to hopefully keep it from breaking apart. To make room for the sliding lid I sawed the top off of one of the short sides, at the level of the groove.
These nails are diamond head 23mm nails from Lee Valley. They will have a 3/32″ pilot hole into the short side pieces, with a 1/8″ through hole in the long sides for the thicker base of the nail. For now I will drill 3/32″ holes in the long sides, and finish the pilot holes after gluing up.
This picture shows the pieces ready for glue-up. The side piece on the bottom needs to be spun around so the grain will match. Also note the short piece on the right has had the top sawn off at the groove. This will be the front of the box.
The bottom of the box is an offcut of yellow pine. I thinned the edges to fit in the groove and made the width a little narrower than necessary in case it expands. I could have left it loose, or only glued in select spots, but ended up gluing all four sides.
I used liquid hide glue, six clamps, and let it sit overnight. The next day I finished drilling 3/32″ pilot holes into the short sides, and enlarged the holes to 1/8″ on the outer pieces only. Then I hammered in the nails without incident.
So the box without the lid is mostly finished. I will clean up the glue with warm water, plane the edges flush with each other, and fit a felt bottom. I’m really not too happy with the dimensions—too tall and too narrow—but it serves the purpose of practice. Maybe I’ll find something that fits in there perfectly.
If the box itself is practice making small boxes, the lid is practice for carving a larger project. That’s why the top lid is butternut, a good carving wood. Note the lid is the same width as the short sides, and that the grooves in the long side pieces don’t show after the short pieces are in place.
I printed out an iris from Making Stuff with Chris Dehut which includes a series of videos. But I think my project is too small. It’s intended for a larger project and when shrunk down to 11″ the curves and details will be too difficult. So I will look for a simpler iris or flower picture.
Country Pine Crate Shelf 2: Center, Top, Finished
Up to this point I had used hand planes to refine the surfaces of the pieces. Looking at the job ahead I decided to use the thickness planer. I had numerous pieces of varying thickness that I wanted to use as shelf slats, and I did not want the shelf surface to be bumpy and uneven.
I also planned a rabbet on the front and back rails for the shelf to set into. Rather than plow a rabbet with a plane, I decided to make faux-rabbets by gluing two boards together. This turned out to be more hassle than it was worth. It would have been easier to plane the rabbets.
I made six rails going side-to-side. The widths from top to bottom are 1 1/2, 2 1/4, and 3 inches. The bottom ones have a curve. The bottom and middle ones have faux rabbets about 5/16 deep for the shelves.
I dry fit the assembly in order to mark the shelf supports which will go front-back between the rails.
All of these rails and supports were dominoed together. The whole thing was glued together with hide glue. I only had two clamps long enough (about 47″) so made do with rope windlasses and crosslinking clamps. I should get some couplers for iron pipe so I can join my pipe clamps into longer pieces.
During initial processing I tried to pick nice wide pieces for the top and side panels. I tried to pick straight grained pieces for the legs and rails. Everything else went into piles at least 33″ long for back slats or 48″ long for shelf slats.
After planing the shelf pieces to about 5/16″ thick I crosscut them to length and try to fit them in. The front and back pieces needed notches to fit around the legs. I put the cracked and ugly ones in the back. These were nailed with an air nailer and 18g brad nails. Not fine woodworking, but an easy way to fasten a lot of nails quickly.
I didn’t shiplap the pieces as I was running out of width and patience. They are butted together with some gaps.
The back pieces weren’t planed or flattened. Just cut to size and fastened the same way.
For the top I used two full width 11 1/4″ pieces and an extra 4-5″ piece. They ended up about 1″ thick. I jointed the edges with a #7 plane and glued them with tite-bond. I did get some tearout when “cleaning up” the surface.
I also noticed this strip of dark wood. I thought it was a low spot that didn’t get planed, but looking at the end grain it appears to go all the way through. I guess that’s just the center of the tree filled with resin?
Setting the top on the base there’s not much overhang at the front. Like zero. So there’s no room for big edge treatments like bevels or chamfers or round overs.
I cut the ends closer and straighter. The saw chewed up the edges a little, so I swiped the edges with a bench plane to erase the saw marks.
Before attaching the top I cut the horns off the tops of the legs. I set my saw on the two aprons and try to keep it level going across. Surprisingly this did not leave marks on the aprons.
I flipped the whole thing over and used a file to add a little chamfer to the bottom of the feet. This is mostly to keep them from splintering if when it is dragged around. A block plane works well but since the rails were already attached, a file allowed more maneuvering.
Before assembly I had to think about finishing. I didn’t plan to finish at all, but then worried about stains and marks on the top. But finishing the side panels should have done before assembly. So the solution was to wipe three coats of shellac only on the top and its overhanging edges. I’m not sure if it’s blonde shellac from flakes or zinnser seal coat.
I made table top buttons similar to my last table. They are screwed to the underside of the top and go into domino slots in the aprons. It was easier to take the base and top downstairs into the basement separately and fasten the top there. With the narrowest dimension about 25″ it was a little tight going around corners and down stairs. It was also relatively heavy.
Country Pine Crate Shelf
46″ wide , 26″ deep, 33″ high
All pieces from 2×12 construction lumber.
Shellac on top only, the rest unfinished.
I am happy with the project. It achieves the goals of storage for six of those crates. And it was helpful for practicing ripping and resawing with the bandsaw. As far as making furniture, I could practice with various thicknesses and techniques.
Country Pine Crate Shelf 1: Design & Sides
I have at least twelve of these black plastic crates. They’re pretty clever actually. They are stackable, the front opens in different ways, and they collapse flat. I think they are intended for produce. After moving them around for years I guess I’m going to keep them. So in the interest of playing with my new bandsaw and tidying up, I will make some storage for them.
In my mind I’ve been calling this a ‘crate cabinet’, but I guess if it doesn’t have doors, it’s not a cabinet? Maybe ‘shelf’ or ‘shelves’ is more accurate. I tried a few designs and settled on two shelves with three crates in each shelf. The inner dimensions will need to be about 41″ wide, 24″ deep, and 13″ high per shelf. So the outer dimensions will be a little more than that. The rails increase in width from top to bottom. The bottom rails will have a curve.
The ‘playing with the bandsaw’ includes making pieces of different widths and thicknesses – ripping and resawing. Using 2×12 material to start with, the legs will remain full thickness, while the rails and cross members will be 3/4-1″ thick. The side panels, back, and shelf boards will be 3/8″ or less.
The sides are frame and panel, with the middle rail lining up with the shelf. The rails and the legs all have 1/4″ grooves made with a plow plane. The grooves in the legs are set back further so the rails are set back from the legs.
I drew plans to have the grain in the panels going up-down. But I realized that a 20″ panel would be hard to keep flat and more complicated to glue up. Using an 11.25″ wide piece running side-side would only require gluing on an additional 2-3″. So I ran the grain side-side.
The edges of the panels were thinned down with a #5 plane to fit into their 1/4″ grooves. They aren’t flat, but flexible enough to fit into their grooves.
6mm dominos fit in the 1/4″ plowed grooves for joinery. I glue the dominos into one side ahead of time. Now that I have a bandsaw I can try making integral tenons or shop made dominos with larger dimensions. I’ll probably still use the machine to make mortises though.
So far I’ve used liquid hide glue for everything. I try not to get glue in the grooves where the panels need to be free to move.
The sides are big and bulky and took a lot of time. But what’s going to connect them is just six sticks running side-side.
Bandsaw
I moved about a year ago and have had my hands full with the house. One example is the electrical. I slowly replaced the old wiring with new. I got it inspected and everything. Prior to this the garage only had one duplex receptacle, with one of the plugs taken up by the overhead door. If I wanted to run the shopvac at the same time as something else, I had to run extension cords from inside the house.
Before we moved I politely asked my wife I could get a bandsaw, and she politely said yes. I’ve read lots of people talking about how valuable and useful a bandsaw was. Notable talk abouters include Chris Schwarz, Paul Sellers, and Michael Fortune. I do not have a table saw and have no desire to acquire one. But a bandsaw seems like a good addition for ripping, resawing, and cutting curves.
During my electrical project, I made sure to have 240v outlets available. Combining 240v with my budget left only a few choices. If you had talked to me a month or two ago I would have told you my plans to get a Laguna bandsaw. I looked into a used one locally, but the frustration of the deal not working out led me to look at other options. I started reading about the Harvey Ambassador C14 and hastily changed my mind.
I ordered the saw and it arrived in a few days. One component was damaged in shipping, but it was resolved with an email and no hassle. The manual implies that I would have to put most of the saw together, but it came mostly assembled. It even had a blade installed. I ordered the Woodslicer and Woodturner’s blades from Highland Woodworking, not knowing the saw came with a blade. They will stay in the box for now.
So it came with a blade, a fence, and also a compass-2 contraption. I initially thought the compass-2 was a gimmick but it seems to work well. I guess it’s like a featherboard.
I spent too long looking at the saw and futzing with it before cutting anything. For my first practice cuts I used an old 2×4 from the house. I waved a metal detector over it first.
If I had to sand or plane or scrape all of that old paint off, I would just dispose of it. But I thought I would slice off the end and practice resawing.
I previously checked this book out from the library and saved some pictures for ideas. I like how there are different thicknesses used, not just 3/4″ for everything. I have some projects planned not necessarily from the book, but “inspired by” or “in the style of”.
I have been collecting these 2x12s and setting them aside to acclimate. I’ve read more than one source say that the best lumber comes from 2×12 x 16 foot boards, but that’s more than I want to handle. These are 8 feet long and almost too much for me.
Satisfied with cutting the grungy 2×4 I moved on to these 2x12s. I crosscut with a handsaw and ripped and resawed on the bandsaw. I resawed wider and wider boards until eventually trying to resaw the full 2×12 width (11.25″). They say the bandsaw is one of the safest power saws, but it doesn’t feel that way when there’s that much blade exposed.
I was worried the saw would stall or veer out of the cut or something catastrophic and loud would happen, but it went smoothly. I was happy with how the cut came out, considering it was day 1 with the saw and I didn’t joint the edge or face or use a tall fence.
I cut up three and a half of those 2x12x8 foot boards. It took a few sessions over a few days. Some of them cupped more than others. Some of them had streaks of pitch or resin. I ended up with three stacks of varying widths and thicknesses.
Cutting all of the southern yellow pine did leave sticky sawdust everywhere. I had to spend a while cleaning it. I guess I will have to get better at selecting boards, or resign myself to cleaning up after them. That’s a shame because I like yellow pine more than white pine. Not having many power tools I’ve never worried about dust collection. Now I will have to look into it.
Speaking of libary books, I just got this book from the libary:
Dog Bone Picture Frame
Or memorial plaque, I could say.
I made this a few months ago after our dog died. I just wanted a picture frame with her name on it. A dog paw may have worked also, but the bone shape lends itself to pictures on the ends.
The project has a few steps. It starts with roughing out the shape, and then carving the middle. Then there is inserting the glass and hardware on the backside.
I used 1″ thick walnut. I searched for dog bone shapes online and adjusted one of the images to the dimensions I wanted. I printed it out, taped it down, and knifed through the paper. I went over the knife line with a sharpie.
The curved parts were done with a coping saw. I tried to leave a stub on one end of the blank and finish as much as possible before cutting the shape free.
For the 4″ diameter circles, I bored holes and slipped a coping saw blade through, and then connected the dots.
I marked a 1/4″ line around all the edges and chamfered them. I thought this might help it appear less thick, and to not have the pictures set so deep in a hole. To smooth the edges I used rasps and files, which took a long time.
For the carving I searched “clip-art heart” and found one I liked. Then I printed the letters at an agreeable size. I tried to space them so the heart and letters would not clash with each other or leave fragile ends.
I made one practice carving. I only knifed the center lines of the heart and letters, referencing a printout for the details. It would have been better to draw them out more fully on the wood before carving.
In the final product you can see the letters and heart are not centered the same. I think I adjusted the spacing between the letters but forgot to center the entire word. Oh well. I guess that just gives it some made-by-hand authenticity.
For the picture frames I did not want plastic. I looked for 4″ circular or square glass picture frames at Michaels or Walmart or similar online stores and didn’t find any. I thought I might have to get a larger frame and cut the glass to size. But when I went to walmart for other reasons they had some 4″ square glass picture frames on the shelf. I guess at $0.87 each they don’t bother listing them on the website. So I kept the glass and the cardboard backing and discarded the plastic frame.
I needed the glass in hand to mark out recesses on the back side. I made them deep enough for the glass and a thin plywood backing. I set a router plane to the final depth and swirled it around the circle to mark the depth. Most of the waste was removed with chisels and then the router plane was used up to the line.
The hanger is from a grab bag of picture hanging hardware. It also required a little mortise. The twisty things are ‘turn buttons’ from hobby lobby.
I hand sanded and applied 4-5 coats of garnet shellac.
I searched our pictures and printed out ones that would fit when cut to a 4″ square size. I printed more than two and keep the extras in the frame so they can be rotated if I ever think about it. It is mounted where her crate and things used to be.
Ula was only four years old. When we got her we hoped she would live to be 10+ years old, long enough for the kids to remember her as their childhood dog. It didn’t work out that way.