done!

i'm finally finished. and i'm sick of finish. in my opinion i ruined a perfectly good project with the finish build. since its a reproduction arts and crafts piece i opted to use a traditional arts and crafts finish... layer 1: "special walnut" stain, layer 2: medium walnut danish oil- should have stopped at this point. but no, layer 3: amber shellac. layer 4: paste wax. result: the natural beauty of this exceptionally figured wood was suffocated in too many layers of finish. it still looks very nice and the grain still has pop but not as much as i know it could. all in all i'm pleased with the way this turned out. after cutting into the plank and seeing how warped the wood was i didn't think it would be useable at all. this will always be a special project to me because its really my first piece of "furniture."

first look...

i know this is a horrible picture but here is the mirror frame. its still going to get a few coats of finish so the color will change, hopefully for the better.

round hole square peg

yes, its possible to fit a square peg into a round hole.


see! the mirror has pegged mortise and tenon joints, drawbored of course. don't worry truhe, i'll explain: a mortise and tenon joint is a classical rail/stile joint. ok, this is harder than i thought. a rail is the horizontal member of the frame in a frame and panel construction... blast. a frame and panel is... listen. from now on if you don't understand what i'm talking about just look at the picture and say, "oh, thats nice" and fake it. basically, what i'm trying to say is this thing is bombproof.

mirror mirror on the wall

i'm making a mirror for whitney. she has to stand on the toilet just to be able to see all of herself at once. i guess thats kind of important to girls... a full length body mirror i mean, not standing on the toilet. i'm excited because i'm using the first piece of wood i ever bought to make it. i found it in a stack of quite ordinary red oak but this plank was something special. i often would take it off the shelf and look at it wondering what it might be someday. i've imagined it as a cabinet door, a drawer front and just about everything else. i was nervous to start cutting into it but finally i gave in. i'm not going to be afraid anymore to ruin a perfectly good piece of wood. maybe now i'll actually get some work done.



here are the parts for the mirror cut out roughly and ready to begin work. the board had quite a bit of twist in it so i had to spend a couple days bending the stiles into a useable condition.

mortise and tenon joint to old fashioned way

sawing the tenon

chopping the mortise

trimming the tenon to fit the mortise