Large Wall Mirror

[glenn bradley]

This mirror is from one of my dad's early offices. It ended up in our dining room back when I was in high school. the 1970 earthquake split our ceiling and knocked this bad boy off the wall. It weighs 50+ pounds and got a surface scratch as it headed past something looking for the floor. The rest of the mirror survived and I have been hauling it from one home to the next for 50-odd years. Finally I will get to make it a new frame. The design will hide the scar. Simply maneuvering the beast at this point in my 70-year-old, 165-pound life is a challenge BUT, I will endeavor to persevere.

I am shooting for a G&G influenced look something like this:

The vertical strips (one of which will hide the scar) are purely decorative as are the leather straps that will make the frame appear to be suspended from the hanging rail. At LOML's request it will echo this frame that I made for a picture my dad took of my mom in 1957.

Back to your regular programming . . . I set the mirror on some rag rugs on top of an MFT-like table that I have on a rolling stand. I place the ever-valuable adjustable height Husky tables under the frame and position them to support the fram without interfering with the mirror.

I pull the frame's retention pins and lower the outer tables.

This worked even better than it did in my head .

The old "turn a clamp into a spreader" trick.

I put the miters at one end under tension.

I give the joint a love tap with a dead blow mallet. and it separates.

I realize I am trying to pull the joint apart perpendicular to the nails so I stop.

I extend my spreader rech with a scrap of ply and push the joint gently apart.

Ta-Da!

I will scrap the old frame. It is not historically or sentimentally significant, is made of soft wood and is painted flat green. This was a Spanish influenced style that my parents favored back in the 70s. Not so much for me.

 

[glenn bradley]

The original frame is 1-3/8" thick but is heavily molded.

I get to one of my favorite parts of any project; material selection. I try to use up any shorts or off cuts I can.

Then while crawling through the racks I found this nice sized piece of lumber. Score!!!

I should be able to get the whole frame out of this board. While it doesn't help me use up leftovers it does solve any color matching issues I might have had.

It's a fair trade.

 

[Rennie Heuer]

Love the design. I've not tried the leather straps yet.

 

[glenn bradley]

I probably should have mentioned that the top of the frame and the hang rail are made to match the back rail of the sideboard that the mirror will hang over.

I am concerned about the weight and am re-thinking my design. I want it to be visually the same but probably have a sub-frame that connects to the mirror and a thinner visible frame that attaches to that. The mirror is already attached to a backer which is what is actually hung on the wall. The original frame was just attached to the mirror/backer assembly and was made from a light weight soft wood.

I'll detail this out later once I figure out how I'm going to do it. There will be an unavoidable gap between the mirror and the wall but I would like to minimize it. I may epoxy a french cleat to the backer board. I see a few cups of coffee and a lot of staring into space in my future shop time today

 

[glenn bradley]

OK, I think I have it figured out (in record time for me).

The mirror/backer assembly and hardware require about 11/16" of depth to clear the wall. I scaled the visible frame material back from about 1-1/8" to 5/8" so there is a substantial reduction in weight there. I am still leaning towards a French cleat versus the "picture framing wire" hanging method. I used a large multi-stud spanning cleat for the master bedroom headboard and it has proven rock solid.

I think there is a possibility of using a similar mounting method for this beast.

 

[Toni Ciuraneta]

Well... if the mirror alone is already heavy, when mounted on the frame it will be even heavier, so better get someone's help whe hanging it up, but you have that figured out as well or you wouldn't be Glenn Bradley...

 

[glenn bradley]

I finally decided on attaching a french cleat via epoxy.

since this will essentially laminate the two materials together I want to be sure the mirror is flat. Otherwise you will pick up distortion as the mirror is somewhat flexible despite being 1/4" thick.

The nearly 60 year old tempered hardboard gets the surface resin abraded as per the epoxy manufacturer's recommendation.

The longer piece is the mirror part of the cleat. The little rectangles are just resting blocks to make everything come into plane. The shorter piece of the cleat will be attached with washer-head screws to three studs. The shorter wall portion of the cleat will allow for some side-to-side positioning once hung.

While selecting material I came across this bit of figure. I couldn't resist placing it at the center of the top rail of the mirror frame.





Ever onward

 

[glenn bradley]

Milling is milling . . . when you know the "about" dimensions of the blank you require it can speed things along if you get your blank to that approximate dimension before milling. If there is an extra 6" of crooked stock I will have to deal with that only to cut it off anyway; if ya git mah drift.



I am not one to mill a 2" blank down to a 1-1/4" blank in the form of saw dust. This stuff costs money, right? If I am going to remove more than about 1/8" I resaw first and save the stock for box parts or veneers.

I have spouted off about this before. I noticed that I did not even bother to adjust the height of my guides. If your saw is well aligned you rarely even need the guides. Certainly if you are forcing your blade to stay on track you may want to take a Saturday morning and tune things up .

At any rate I end up with some good box or box insert stock.

And here are my sub-frame milled blanks ready to move forward.

I'm gonna grab a cup of coffee.

 

[allen levine]

Simply maneuvering the beast at this point in my 70-year-old, 165-pound life is a challenge BUT, I will endeavor to persevere.

hey,youre a lucky man, i havent weighed 165 lbs since 10th grade.

 

[glenn bradley]

So the sub-frame parts are mostly done. Final length will be determined by the mirror.

I rip my selected top-of-frame and hanger-bar parts at the bandsaw.

The adjustable tables come into play again. My jointer tables are long for a little 8" but, not long enough to keep these 65" blanks in plane.

The bow in these blank is obvious. Fortunately I have plenty of thickness to get what I am after.

Once a face and an edge are milled true I can rip to width.

A couple of runs through the planer and we're all happy.

Time for some coffee.

 

[glenn bradley]

I use a 1/4" blade to cut close to the line for these parts.

The frame and hanger rail will echo the sideboard top so I use the same template from that project in a slightly different position.

Always route downhill when you can.

The hour I spent making this template routing jig/sled (???) has paid dividends for years. The auto-adjust clamps make swapping parts and template a breeze.

I sometimes forget to carry my layout lines across faces. A saddle square takes care of this with ease. You don't need a formal one. A piece of angle aluminum or even a well made barrel hinge will do.

It allows me to carry over the forgotten line to the opposite face.

At any rate I end up with a couple of template routed parts that match up pretty well.

 

[glenn bradley]

I sometimes tend to go overboard on the layout work. A set of French Curves are cheap online and come in handy often.

I play around a bit and get something I am happy with. I figured there were only two ends so I would just band saw them and spoke shave them to final.

My OCD kicked in and I decided to template them. Who knows I may use the template on something else later . . . it's happened before. I have mentioned before how I keep an old "face cream" jar of shellac around with a rag in it. It is marked as "dirty" and gets used for jigs, templates, and so forth.

I will template route the end profiles and shave the long arc that connects them.



Ever onward . . .

 

[glenn bradley]

Sorry for the large posting gap. We had out of state visitors over the weekend and I was playing host. At any rate this post will diverge a little bit. Just wanted to mention that if you rub a little baby powder on your spindle drums when you change paper the sleeves come off a lot easier later on.

I use a shave to fair the curve on the lower rail of the mirror frame.



I will be using some ebony inserts as decorative elements to echo the sideboard backsplash. I've got a reasonable amount of ebony but hate to waste it with a wide saw blade kerf. I will mount a Woodslicer on one of the bandsaws.

When I designed the shop I put in easy to reach disconnects for the machines.

Please always disconnect your machines when your hands will be near the meat-eaters.

I pull the under table shroud which is held in place by magnets.

I have used the flutter method to setup bandsaw blades for so long I don't remember ever doing it any other way. I do this for the Woodslicer.

I was curious so I timed myself. Without hurrying I was back in operation in about 20 minutes. This did include lubing the bearings and cleaning the table.

I have a small set of tools for this task. Unforeseen benefit . . . The ball-end hex driver also fits my 10" Rikon. The wrench is for pulling the table pin as it is a hex head instead of a lever type like many use.

End result.

I love the narrow kerf the Woodslicer provides. It is the main reason I have a couple on hand. Exotics are expensive and there is no need to use them up with wide kerf blades.

 

[glenn bradley]

Surface prep some ebony blanks.

Play with the spacing . . . they are not to length yet.

Setup blocks help with visualizing things.

I will need to route recesses so the ebony is inlaid about 1/16". It will be proud about 1/8". The shop made depth gauge helps me quickly set height and position.

When the depth exceeds the gauge I just add known sized offsets.

I go ahead and setup the long fence rails even though this is just a test in a piece of poplar. That way when I do the real deal I won't have to reset everything.

After the first cut I use setup blocks (again) to reposition things quickly and repeatedly.

I am happy with this I will cut this same pattern into the hanger rail for the frame.

 

[glenn bradley]

Sorry for the spoon-feeding. Getting ready for a birthday bash tomorrow. I do my usual rig for stopped grooves on long parts.

First groove done. I use a 3/4" setup block to move the fence back and the stops in.

Rinse and repeat and you end up here.

I will cut the inserts to length and shape to fit.

 

[glenn bradley]

Still spoon feeding on this but as I have said in the past, reporting here helps keep me moving forward. This inexpensive little drafting template is very handy if you do any kind of Greene and Greene stuff.

I draw the radius I am after.

I love a vertical sander for this sort of work. It really gives you a feel of control while you are tuning the delicate blank.

There's one end and the blank gets cut to length.

And there's the other end.

Two more to go and I haven't even had breakfast yet

 

[Rennie Heuer]

This inexpensive little drafting template is very handy if you do any kind of Greene and Greene stuff.
View attachment 137916

Having trouble finding that radius guide on Amazon

 

[glenn bradley]

Having trouble finding that radius guide on Amazon

Wow, I see what you mean. I bought mine long ago at the recommendation of Darrell Peart. It may be a dead product although I can't imagine why. I'll keep my eyes peeled and send up a flare if I find a source. The world just gets "curiouser and curiouser". I will treat it with a lot more respect now that I know it is on the endangered species list.

 

[Robert Horky]

Look here for the radius guide:
https://www.amazon.in/Rapidesign-Radius-Guide-Template-R75/dp/B000KNJ7VK

Sorry .... I did not view close enough as it is UNAVAILABLE. My bad.

BUT ... does look available here
https://www.duall.com/store/product...1x6M1E5j7szpQzzA5qZ79jUpXOlizSADL60k8o66rB9lS

 

[glenn bradley]

Way to go Robert!