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Project Information

Or it could be titled, "One Thing Leads to Another"

I have a cousin getting married soon, and wanted to build a gift. So I did a LJ search on "wedding gift" and found THIS project from Todd2010. Thanks Todd for the inspiration.

I really like the clean lines of the cutting board and tea light holders that Todd made, and I proceeded to build a pair of boards, and the square tea light holder (pics 3-6).

During this time, I was also playing around on the lathe and was thinking about segmented bowls and things and the turned candle holder idea bubbled up. The picture in my mind was "scallops" like the paint job on this '49 Merc:



Well, as they say, things don't always go to plan. But it was a fun experiment. After turning the first holder, I wasn't really satisfied with the outcome, so the decision was made to make them all unique.

Material for all projects is Hard maple and Walnut, plus the cutting boards have Wenge boarders (all end grain).

Some quick details:

Cutting Boards:

Two long grain blanks were made where both elements of the pattern were in each blank. This is easier to handle in the planer:



Mineral oil finish.

Square Tea Lights:

Simply 3/4" boards glued together leaving the hollow center:



Turned Tea Lights:

These are basically "reversible" as they are counter-bored the same on each end and connect to the base using a loose tenon (turned dowel):



Started with 2 blanks (2-1/2" square):



Not shown, but ripped the 4 corners off each blank of the table saw to form octagons.

Used a bull nose bit in the router table:



EDIT Adding a few more photos by request:

Keep in mind that the blank in the photo above was an octagon (I just didn't take photos before cutting the grooves).

First - to conserve the number of dowels required, route the bull nose grooves (in the step above) less than 1/2 the thickness of the dowel plus leave enough material for your band saw kerf. It's hard to tell, but these blanks used a combination of 3/4" and 1" dowels, and the grooves were routed ~1/4" deep. So I initially added the contrasting dowels to 4 sides of each blank.

To keep things accurate, you can only glue one dowel to each opposing side at a time, because I run the blanks through the planer after each glue up and you always need a reference face.

This next photo is confusing, because you first glue a full dowel into the groove (just don't have the right picture of that) but imagine these are fully round dowels!:



Then I set the band saw fence and rip the other half of each dowel off:



If you do everything right, you just leave your planer at the same setting to clean up each glue up:



Use the half dowels you cut off earlier and glue them to the opposite sides (similar to the glue up photo above). And run them through the planer, etc….

You now have this:



Then I used the bull nose bit at the router table again and you have this:



Repeat all the gluing, bandsaw, planing steps:



And you should have this:



Then I turned each full blank round:



And you should have this:



Blanks are cut to length and I counter-bored them (both ends) before turning the final shapes:



In process:



The loose tenons were turned 0.015" oversize and sanded to the final 1.5" diameter. They have a slight press fit.



The bases were made similar with half dowels in the top face and then sanded to shape to get the scallop effect:



All the tea light stuff was finished with the Beall wood buff (wax). This really preserves the natural look of the Maple, but I am interested to here from you if you think this is a bad idea…...

Anyways, I don't plan on giving my cousin ALL this contrasting stuff, but will narrow it down soon….

Thanks for looking…...

Gallery

Comments

· Registered
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bongo lights

'cest boards et cool !
 

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They are really amazing - I was wondering how you did it. I like the look that the Beall system produces and agree that it preserves the look of the maple. I'm only starting adventures in finishes so I can't give you a more educated opinion.

Yours are much better than Todd's.
 

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Amazing, Jeff. That's some real talent. Thanks for sharing it with us.
 

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A great little collection!

Impressive, as always.
Thank you, for taking the time to document and explain the process.

Bravo!!!
Is there a way to "post" a standing ovation and request an encore!!!
 

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WOW! Very creative you are. Nice work, Sir.
 

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Those are all super-sonic! I'm into the 2-toned stuff like this. Way cool.
 

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very cool, Love the contrasting colors, great work
 

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Wow! While I like the two toned tea light holders, the boards struck me as very classy looking. I'll be copying those forthwith.
 

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I was following along until you skipped a few steps. what happens in those steps? Also, I have been looking for information on how to laminate blanks like these. Would you be willing to provide me more information. Thanks.

I love these by the wy.
 

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Hey folks…..thanks for all the nice comments!

Jean - I have a few more photo's I can add….hang on….
 

· In Loving Memory
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Jeff, These are all just beautiful! Both the boards and the candle holders. I really envy your ability to visualize this stuff in 3D. My brain just doesn't work that way!
The finish looks great from here!
 

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Jeff, That was nice of you to give your cousin a '49 Merc as a wedding gift…..
 

· Premium Member
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What a fun bunch of tea light holders Jeff! Thanks for sharing the project and the process.
 

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Jeff, you did it again.
That's a lot of tea lights. Good job sir.

Steve
 

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You never cease to amaze me Jeff.

Very clever how you produce such accurate and symmetric geometries.
 

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fantastic looking…i love the contrast of the wood…thx for taking time to take pics along the way…
 

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That's a lot of contrast for sure.

That's a very cool process you used. Love all this pics.

Well done.
 

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They are great gift ideas, so many different designs from the same stock. Thanks for sharing how they are done I have some birthdays coming up, guess what they are going to get…:)
 

· In Loving Memory (Eddie)
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AWESOME ,Jeff those are beautiful ,you really have a gift for designing ,shes going to love it ,
 
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