Triple Threat

Since I don’t have a digital camera or a life, I stuffed three projects into one photo: 1) a morris chair and ottoman (and I’ll bet you can’t tell I did the sewing for the cushion covers), 2) the bookcase, and 3) the clock on the bookcase.

The chair and ottoman were made from dimensional lumber, eastern white pine, and finished with Minwax’s “Polycrylic,” the water-based finish. I used it because I had some on hand from the smaller version of the morris chair I built as a test and prototype for my business associate’s grandson, Joseph. Joseph’s father had specified the finish, which I decided I don’t care for, much preferring the polyurethane, but fortunately I used up the can on this chair and ottoman (which I’ll strip and refinish when I get the chance, stop laughing). I did everything by hand on these two chairs, down to the cutting of the mortise and tenon joints … my chief incentive for purchasing a router, by the way.

The bookcase is 3/4” plywood, BC fir, and some cheap fake wood trim along the top, which I decided I didn’t like, but I’m too lazy to take out all the books again and replace it. I “fixed” the plywood by painting it with a thinned solution of wood filler several times, sanding between coats, then staining it with Minwax’s dark walnut, finishing with three coats of polyurethane. My personal jury is still out on complete satisfaction, but people who have seen it somehow (despite the style and lack of a back) have unanimously believed it to be antique. (I told them they must be as blind as I am.) The edges I covered with that iron-on birch edge trimming.

I made the clock out of scraps of 3/4” and 1/4” plywood and some beading, staining it (obviously) with dark walnut and hiding the plywood edges with the birch trimming. I bought the wood round for the face and the clock mechanism from a local craft store for (I think) $9 or so, total, and used my old woodburning pen to add the numbers. It actually keeps pretty good time, gaining maybe four or five minutes every six months (what do you want for a $5 clock mechanism?). At least it gave me another timepiece besides my VCR (I don’t have a working watch, just a drawer full of ones that need cleaning). For some reason, before I had this clock, I was always running late for everything. It always seemed to be noon or midnight ….

-- Hibernicvs