(Another great project from Steve Promo. - ajp2)

HWC Members, 

A friend recently commissioned me to make a mirror for behind his bar.   The walls are all rough sawed vertical cedar Tung & Grove narrows so I felt the mirror frame would need to be of a blonde, dark wood, or have color added to make it unique, and a focal point…..hopefully one with obvious value and appeal. The mirror is located just above the bottle caps of the liquor bottles on the top shelf so none of the mirror would hidden behind bottles..  

I thought a leaf shape might be interesting and unique so I looked around nature.  I first tried a broad leaf maple but it was about the same length as it was wide and I need to fill a space of 3 by 5 feet, more of a rectangular space.  Beech and birch and apple leaves were too elongated (more like 2 x 5 ratio), so I looked at other leaves.  I found an oak leaf to be closer to the desired 3 x 5 ratio and I liked the reddish veins in the green summer leaves. I thought of connected short cedar blocks and red cedar boards that I had on hand, all of which was very well dried.    

It began as a sketch of an imaginary oak leaf on white paper about 3” by 5”.  I used the grid method to enlarge it to a 3 foot by 5 foot (full sized) cardboard pattern.  This allowed us to position the cardboard mock-up mirror on the actual wall to see how well it would fit the space and then decide whether to proceed or not .  The cardboard became a pattern for 1/4” plywood to which all the cedar was glued and screwed from the backside.  The veins of the leaf are 1/4” thick by 2.5” tall strips of Eastern Red Cedar (aromatic) placed on edge.  The rest is local Michigan Yellow cedar, about 2.5” thick, spliced as needed with dowels or biscuits to reinforce the glue joints.    

This the frame after the initial glue up.

After the glue cured I jigsawed out the 1/4” plywood in the mirror area.  After moving outdoors on sawhorses, I sculpted the leaf with a Lancelot disc…basically a circular 4” chainsaw blade on a mini grinder. 

Wood is removed very quickly with this tool.  Next came  24, 40 and 80 grit abrasive flap wheel refinement, then 120 grit foam backed sanding discs of various diameters powered by a slow speed close quarter angle drill.  After all this there still remained considerable hand sanding and rasp work in the corners.  After it was fully sanded, I placed it face down and routed a 1/2” wide by 3/16” deep rabbit in the backside to hold 1/8” thick mirrored glass.

 

 

 This is the frame after it has been carved and sanded using the flap wheel sander.  Note the flat areas left after sanding with the flap wheel.   Now the fun part - hand sanding.

The entire project was then airbrush sprayed with 4 coats of highly diluted green aniline dye.  This is alcohol based and dries very quickly.  I wanted the grain, sapwood, and heartwood to show through the dye, hence the airbrush for good control over how much stain was applied.   It was then sealed with 6 coats of satin water based varnish applied with a brush with 220 and 320 grit sanding between coats 2 and 3 and coats 5 and 6 respectively.  

The local glass company enjoyed the challenge of fitting the glass to the rabbeted glass ledge and billed me accordingly. OUCH$$$.  Last step was applying a second layer of 1/4” plywood over the entire backside with screws to hold the glass in place, further stiffen the piece, and to attach hangers onto

While this project did not involve any woodturning, I though it might inspire a fellow club member to do some sculpting or use dyes on their turning projects.  If you do make a bar mirror be sure to invite me for the christening as well!  Cheers. : ) : ) 

Steve Promo

Finished product.  (Another great project by Steve Promo.  Thanks for sharing Steve. - ajp2)

(Received this from Steve Promo on 3 July while I was traveling to a wedding.  Another great project made to look easy. - ajp2)

I was recently asked to turn four legs for a large, thick,  antique maple butcher block.  The client wanted to repurpose it as an island in her kitchen and desired it to match her countertop height of 36.”  This required adding 4” to the height of the old legs which were ash painted black.  I drew two options to scale,  labeled A and B,  with the old leg in the middle.  

 

The client chose leg design “'A" and provided me with S2S hard maple boards from Bell Forest Products in Ishpeming (UP).  I joined, surfaced and stack laminated them.  After the glue dried, I re-joined two adjacent surfaces, and thickness planed them into very straight and very square 4 x 4 x 25” blanks.  

 

Customer supplied hard maple boards.

 

 

Glued up Boards

After center punching ends, I started the lathe and ran it up to about 1200 rpm as seemed about right given their 30 pound weight and length.  

 

First leg mounted with markings.

 

After turning the first one, I placed it into a holder a few inches behind the lathe spindle.  This really helped with visual checks comparing the curves, beads, tapers, etc of the leg being turned to the finished leg behind it.

  

 

first leg mounted on back of lathe.

 

View from long tool rest of first leg behind the one on the lathe.

Another great help was making a 36” toolrest with dual bases.  The rest was made from a salvaged wear plate from the leading edge of a highway snowplow.  The bases were metal tubing salvaged from a treadmill frame and some 1” rod and set screw collars made on my metal lathe.  The wear plate steel is very stiff, hard, and wear resistant, plus it is thick, and fairly wide.  Super nice to run your fingers along and it yielded a great place to indicate the location of spindle features  IE/beads, etc with a SHARPIE.   

 

One of two toolrest mounts

 (Steve does not say how long it took him to make the toolrest and mounts. - ajp2)

Each one took me about an hour to turn and was sanded once with 120 grit.  I worked slowly and carefully as I only had four blanks, no extras!  ;) : )   A large roughing gouge and 3 skews of various sizes were very helpful on this project.  I also used a parting tool and five different calipers to establish diameters at various places.  A piece of baling wire was used to burn lines above and below each bead. They weigh about 20 pounds each after turning.

 

Finished legs for Butcher Block.

 

I will suggest a Danish Oil finish as (I feel) it would be a real shame to paint such beautiful clear hard maple.  

Steve Promo