| Project by gildedrain | posted 221 days ago | 1059 views | 12 times favorited | 8 comments |  |
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My 6th furniture project since I started woodworking.
My best friend was getting married and I told her I wanted to make her something out of wood. She asked for a dressing mirror and we looked through different styles. She ended up preferring this one, which suited me just fine as I’m a fan of the Arts & Crafts style.
This time I did drive the 20 minutes to the Stickley showroom, but they didn’t have one of these in stock. I passed one partially assembled on the factory tour but was only able to grab a few quick photos with my camera. So I measured from photographs and tried to estimate the part dimensions and joinery.
The dovetail spline was my idea and not a very good one. I wasn’t convinced that just gluing the two halves together would be strong enough. As this was my first attempt at a sliding dovetail joint, it didn’t go very well. But in the end this turned out to be my favorite project so far. I really love how this mirror turned out and my friend is really happy with it.
Also, this is the beginning of my aversion to routers. Between the noise, the dust, the tear-out, the bit slipping out of the chuck, the depth stop vibrating loose… It’s completely nerve-racking to get to such a late stage in a project and then to have to turn on a router where one slip could ruin all of your work. Thus began my investigations into hand tool woodworking.
-- I've been creating problems to solve since I was born.
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8 comments so far
a1Jim
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87178 posts in 1746 days
#1 posted 221 days ago
This is a fantastic especially for you 6th project great job .
-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/
sras
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#2 posted 221 days ago
Beautiful design! A very nice wedding gift. Thanks for sharing and welcome to LJs!
-- Steve - Impatience is Expensive
oldnovice
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1757 posts in 1537 days
#3 posted 220 days ago
Clean lines, good execution … reflects workmanship!
Thanks for showing your efforts and awaiting #7!
-- "I never met a board I didn't like!"
Woodbridge
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1542 posts in 587 days
#4 posted 220 days ago
great looking mirror.
-- Peter, Woodbridge, Ontario
joebazooka
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#5 posted 220 days ago
great mirror what wood did you use?
-- Robert-maine
gildedrain
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66 posts in 221 days
#6 posted 220 days ago
@Joebazooka: I did it right this time and went with Quartersawn White Oak for this project, as that’s the standard for Arts & Crafts / Stickley furniture. Finished it with several coats of Bush Oil. I really liked working with QSWO compared to red oak. It feels and smells completely different. Though, admittedly, my wood species experience is pretty minimal:
- red oak
- pine
- poplar
- quartersawn white oak
- cedar
- hem-fir :P
- And I have 1 tiny board of black walnut in my scrap pile.
-- I've been creating problems to solve since I was born.
Fine
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11 posts in 1103 days
#7 posted 219 days ago
Very nice work. The girlfriend is wanting one of these and have some time this winter to get it done. Do you have plans on sketch-up or did you buy hard copy? Thanks!
gildedrain
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66 posts in 221 days
#8 posted 219 days ago
@Fine: I didn’t have any plans. I did my best to figure out the dimensions from the photo in the Stickley catalog and built the SketchUp model from that. I’ve uploaded this model to the 3D Warehouse for whoever wants it.
-- I've been creating problems to solve since I was born.
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