Project Information
Another project, another failure. Like the coffee table I made, I had high hopes and they were crushed. I wanted to make my mom something for her birthday. She is really into photography and her grandkids, so I wanted to make something appropriate. Instead of a frame, I had an idea to encorporate a frame into a box. The box is made from hard maple. The frame and bottom molding are poplar. Why? because I cannot route maple with my tools.
Things I like:
the design of the frame. The outside is routed with a roman ogee profile. The inside has a 1/4" wide by 3/16" deep grove. bottom and sides are attached to the box. The top is not. I attached a piece of glass from a 4×6 picture frame to the top. It can slide off to allow changing of pictures (last pic) I wanted to make this out of maple, but all my router does to hard maple is burn it or tear it out.
The finish. These pictures don't do it justice. The finish is actually really nice. I made some "Danish oil" from a recipe I found in the forums. I applied it first with 600 grit wet/dry sand paper, then with a rag after buffing with some 0000 steel wool once dried. After that I rubbed in 2 coats of renaissance wax. This is my first time working with either of those products and this is by far the best finish I have ever produced. It's smoother than glass, although as the days go by I am still seeing some residual wax I need to buff out in the corners and on the frame. It's a long process though waiting for the oil to weep out between coats and finally dry. It took about 8 days before I was done waxing.
Things I hate - the rest of it.
This was dovetailed, but every single one tore out. I wasted so much wood trying to dovetail this. Final construction is T&G. As such, I put the small maple strips over the joints to hide the lines. I hate them and they ruin the look I was going for.
It looks like a house with a door. The molding was designed to go under, but because I messed it up so many times dovetailing it, I didn't have enough wood to make it any taller.
The lid sucks. I couldn't get a good 45 degree bevel on the pieces with my TS.
Poplar. It looks like crap
I thought my mitre saw was decent, it's not. 45 degree cuts are not even close. The top of the frame fits like crap, ever after a lot of filing/sanding.
Thanks for looking at yet another huge disappointment and a lesson of how not to build a box. As always, harsh criticism welcome.
Things I like:
the design of the frame. The outside is routed with a roman ogee profile. The inside has a 1/4" wide by 3/16" deep grove. bottom and sides are attached to the box. The top is not. I attached a piece of glass from a 4×6 picture frame to the top. It can slide off to allow changing of pictures (last pic) I wanted to make this out of maple, but all my router does to hard maple is burn it or tear it out.
The finish. These pictures don't do it justice. The finish is actually really nice. I made some "Danish oil" from a recipe I found in the forums. I applied it first with 600 grit wet/dry sand paper, then with a rag after buffing with some 0000 steel wool once dried. After that I rubbed in 2 coats of renaissance wax. This is my first time working with either of those products and this is by far the best finish I have ever produced. It's smoother than glass, although as the days go by I am still seeing some residual wax I need to buff out in the corners and on the frame. It's a long process though waiting for the oil to weep out between coats and finally dry. It took about 8 days before I was done waxing.
Things I hate - the rest of it.
This was dovetailed, but every single one tore out. I wasted so much wood trying to dovetail this. Final construction is T&G. As such, I put the small maple strips over the joints to hide the lines. I hate them and they ruin the look I was going for.
It looks like a house with a door. The molding was designed to go under, but because I messed it up so many times dovetailing it, I didn't have enough wood to make it any taller.
The lid sucks. I couldn't get a good 45 degree bevel on the pieces with my TS.
Poplar. It looks like crap
I thought my mitre saw was decent, it's not. 45 degree cuts are not even close. The top of the frame fits like crap, ever after a lot of filing/sanding.
Thanks for looking at yet another huge disappointment and a lesson of how not to build a box. As always, harsh criticism welcome.