Cari’s Picture frame
Well I’ve taken my sweet time with this project. About 2 years ago we got a print from the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission and shortly thereafter I was commissioned to build a frame for it. I was told that she wanted the wood to be dark. So happily I went out and bought some Wenge for the frame. I got it home and put a swipe of varnish on it to really show it off to Cari. Her response … “Can you stain it to make it darker?” naturally I was taken surprise. Stain Wenge??? Are you out of your mind woman??? So I did what any reasonable woodworker would do. I went back to Woodcraft, I bought a board of poplar at 1/4 the price of the Wenge and some ebony dye stain. Not all is lost I still have the Wenge tucked in my shop awaiting the perfect project.
The construction was pretty straight forward. I used my miter sled on the tablesaw to cut the 45 deg angles and my router table to make the rabbet the glass/picture will sit in. I then made 2 mortises with my Festool domino in each 45 to reinforce the joint. It’s a fairly large frame 20″ by 36″ so with the back and the glass I figured that 2 dominos are better than one. Here are some pictures of my progress so far.
Low Entertainment Console
Well the long wait is over … almost.
I’m not really sure when I started working on the entertainment console (I think that it was late fall). At any rate I picked up a head of steam the past month or so here and I got the majority of it done. The plans that I based it off of are from Fine Woodworking #200.
The construction is basically a cherry plywood carcass. I used simple pocket hole joinery and a bit of glue to join the carcass together. I then added the solid cherry side panels and trimmed the exposed plywood with solid cherry. The top is solid 1″ cherry. The author used cherry ply trimmed with a solid cherry border but with kids I didn’t wanna risk an undetected spill and veneer peeling away so I chose a solid top. The console sits on 6 2″ casters and can be rolled back and forth to get access to all the cords. I finished it 2 coats of General Finished Seal-A-Cell and 4-5 coats of General Finished Arm-R-Seal Semi-Gloss.
The drawers are hard maple and are joined with a thru dovetail. I finished them with a single coat of blond shellac. They finish here wont see too much abuse. I make the bottom left hand drawer about 4 inches shorter than the other 3. I did this so I can mount my power strip/surge protector back there. That way I can basically push it right back up against the wall. All in all I think that it looks pretty schweet.
I think that the major blockage for me on the project was hemming and hawing about how I wanted to do the side panels. In the end I went with a simple 1/4″ panel. I figured that since they are covered by the speakers most of the time they don’t need to be fancy. I also played around with a locking bit for the for the side panel because they are actually L shaped. Part of the panel wraps around the front of the case. In the end I decided that I didn’t need all that extra strength and a simple 45 deg cut on the table saw would just fine. Of course that meant spending a few hours fine tuning on the saw to get it to adjust to 45 deg. Note to self it helps if you adjust the correct stop. I find it funny when watching Norm, David Marks, Marc Spagnuolo etc… they never really show the fine tuning that you have to do before you can make your final cuts.
Family Pics
Here are some random family pictures that we took over the past few months.
Mr. Smiley Pants
Cari got some great shots of Logan the other day. He looks super happy 
Spagetti Face
I made some homemade pasta sauce the other night and Sara got very messy eating it. Here are the results.
