| Project by SawdustMill | posted 261 days ago | 320 views | 0 times favorited | 9 comments |  |
 |
This is a very belated Christmas present for my dad.
It’s made with some fantastic wood. My dad’s dad was a woodworker. He passed away before I was born, but left a HUGE shed packed full of wood cut-offs (small pieces). When I went out there for my grandmother’s funeral late last year I snagged several very beautifully figured pieces.
So it’s a clock made by his son from his late father’s wood supply. Hopefully he’ll like it :)
The design is something I made up based on how much (or little in this case) wood I had. I think the top and bottom should have been a little less long (wide?), but it felt like a tragedy to waste any of this wood, so I left it long. The cool thing is that the sides were one board cut in half, so the figuring is mirrored on both sides. Neat! I think it looks like flames :) I ran out of wood for the back so I had to splice two pieces together, but like the sides, it was cut from a single board, so the two halves of the back mirror each other.
So, it’s technically a box, but I don’t really know what you’d put in it since the size is so odd. But, whatever, form over feature in this case :)
The dark wood is heavily figured walnut, the light wood is figured maple. The picture just doesn’t do justice to how awesome this wood looks.
the finish process was:
Dark Cherry stain mixed with shellac, then sanded off (on the maple only, to make the figuring stand out)
3 coats of wipe on poly
final coat of shellac
I’m still figuring out finishing, so it wasn’t very scientific, but I think it turned out nice. Actually speaking of, if anyone gets this far and has some pointers, I’m all ears. I put on several layers of wipe on poly, but it always dried to a dull color, and never looked as awesome as it did when it was wet. So that’s why I put the shellac on last, and it shined it right up.
9 comments so far
Tom Goodman
home | projects | blog
127 posts in 1025 days
posted 261 days ago
You made this for your dad from his dad’s wood supply !….. Absolutely beautiful ! and so is the box clock. You did a fantastic job with this wood.
-- - " If you want square work, You don't cut corners. " - -- Tom Goodman, Santa Maria, CA. woodworkertom@gmail.com
Icemizer
home | projects | blog
68 posts in 433 days
posted 261 days ago
Nice job on this clock. As far as finishing goes there was really no reason to put on the poly. The clock will not be banged around or anything so a durable but hard to fix finish like poly wasnt needed. You could have just put on the shellac and you were good to go. Any damage that occurs in shellac is easy to fix with just another application. if the poly gets damaged it is nearly impossible to fix without stripping. Great wood choices.
-- Say what you mean and mean what you say.
SawdustMill
home | projects | blog
65 posts in 625 days
posted 261 days ago
@Tom thanks !
@Icemizer The reason I chose the poly was because I’d seen a lot of really fantastic projects that said they used wipe on poly, that it was their standby standard finish. So this was really my first experiment with it, and was kinda bummed that it didn’t look as good as I thought it would. It didn’t seem to bring out the figuring, and looked kinda dull. So it sounds like it’s a good final finish to protect the piece, but not really to bring out the wood ?
pinkfish
home | projects | blog
129 posts in 564 days
posted 261 days ago
Tung oil (which is a mix of poly + other things) is David Mark’s favourite. I find it really brings out the character of the wood myself too. Although it does need to be sanded/planed really work to make it shine and it takes more than one coat.
SawdustMill
home | projects | blog
65 posts in 625 days
posted 261 days ago
@pinkfish Cool, I’ll pick some up and give it a try!
GaryK
home | projects | blog
9521 posts in 881 days
posted 261 days ago
Very nice looking!
I’m looking to make something like that one day.
-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.
firecaster
home | projects | blog
482 posts in 311 days
posted 261 days ago
I think you should snag a truckload of those cut offs. Wood that looks like that would be a shame to waste. I’ll give you my address if you can’t use them all. I’m sure others will also.
-- Father of two sons. Both Eagle Scouts.
SawdustMill
home | projects | blog
65 posts in 625 days
posted 261 days ago
Yeah no kidding. 30+ years air dried, near LA, Ca.
Most of it is a wood that I don’t recognize, but is very plain, usually 1’ x 2” x 1” or so (boxes upon boxes upon boxes … upon boxes), but dig a little and you find a couple boxes of cut offs like the above.
Loucarb
home | projects | blog
944 posts in 338 days
posted 261 days ago
Beautiful wood and the proportions look fine to me and I am sure your dad will love it.