Mirror Frame for Pete & Erin

So I will preface this post by apologizing for the low quality documentation. Mainly I'm apologizing to myself because I was in too big a hurry to get good shots of what I feel is the first really good piece I've designed and built. Especially the absence of a picture with the mirror in place (it reflects back the hidden edges of the slab and is just so nice...). BUT I told Pete that I expect some pictures when they hang it and he knows about documenting design work, so I'm hoping he'll send along some really good ones.

I wanted to build Pete & Erin a wedding present. I got a late start but worked hard and got it together fairly quickly. I had what I thought were Walnut slabs (but later found, to my embarrassment, that they were Cherry)

First, I needed to strip off the bark around the edges with a drawknife. Action Shot!

Then I cut the pieces in half and jointed the edges and planed them to thickness. Then they looked like this:

I spent some time arranging them in different ways and eventually came up with the setup that looked best to me. I cut out mortises where they were to be joined and glued them up with a couple Walnut tenons.
Then I stole a few strips of Walnut from Adam to make the framework on the back that would hold the mirror (I specially ordered) in place. I attached the framework with glue and screws but plugged the screw holes with Walnut and sanded them flush.

I brought the frame home and set it up on the fold-out futon in my room (with canvas, foam-core, and plastic sheeting underneath) so that I could do the finish work on my own time in the evenings (instead of staying after work). After three coats of a mixture of one part Teak Oil, one part Satin Poly-urethane, one part Mineral Spirits (sanding with 320 between each) it looked like this:

Sorry for the glare.... Like I said, bad documentation. Here's a close-up of my favorite part:

 

And, what makes it truly valuable:

Oak Panels

It's been awhile since I've had time to post and, in fact, the work in this post happened more than a month ago, but I'm still gonna tell you about it.

Since the coffee table I am building is frame and panel, I needed to work on the panel part. Adam generously donated about 15 Oak kneelers which needed to have all their nails, screws, and staples removed. Then I spent several hours with some Mineral spirits scraping off most of the remaining adhesive and foam padding which had made them so comfortable to kneel upon. Only then could I send them through the drum sander to (finally) expose the wood I'd be working with. Below you can see before and after sanding.

The wavy line across the lower boards is from gaps in the sanding belt (I used a worn belt so that if the adhesive and foam gunked it up, a fresh belt wouldn't get ruined) but the strange figuring in the wood is because all of the boards are quartersawn (picture a cyclindrical tree-trunk with boards cut out along radii). Here are all the boards after they've been sanded, cut to size, and cleaned up a bit. You can see how many nails and staples I had to remove...

Next, I glued the edges of some of these boards together to make flat panels. Here is two of the large panels in clamps:

There are four boards at top glued and then three boards below glued. Between them is a strip of scrap wood so that I can clamp them all at once without accidentally gluing both panels together. The next step is to sand all the glue off the faces of these and cut them to the sizes they'll need to be to fit in the frames (of the frame and panel construction).

I also took the time to finally cut down the Cherry slab into the approximate sizes they'll need to be so I could start to get a better idea of how everything will go together. I spent a long time with the board (and a tracing of it) trying to find the best sections for my purpose. Here is what they look like now:

  

That's more or less what the tabletop will look like.

Still much work to do....