Christmas in January (just barely)

Tom Muellner

Member
Messages
37
Location
Orange Park Florida
This was supposed to be a Christmas present for my son & daughter-in-law & was delivered on Jan. 31st. Things always seem to take longer to complete than you figure.

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It started with gifting the old wine case (in the middle)

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to them & saying something like "you really need something to show off the old wine case". It evolved into this.

The design is my own & I did the open sides to show off the winery emblem on the case.

The reason it took so long is that I found that there's a big difference in know how to do a procedure (like hand cutting a blind dovetail) and getting it done.
The project uses dovetails, dados, mortise & tenon, cope & stick, and doweled rabbet joinery. (Good practice for whatever I build next). I don't like to paint stuff, but I needed to match this in with some of their other furniture, so I had to bite the bullet on that issue.

The oak is finished with boiled linseed oil rubbed in first to give it the nice gold tone, and then polyurethane varnish. The painted panels are a semi gloss off white latex semi gloss enamel with a gel stain rubbed on & then rubbed off. After dry it gets a clear coat to protect.
I wanted the top of the base to be like glass, so I filled the grain by shaking Durham's water putty powder on & then rubbing it in with the linseed oil. The oil turns the powder translucent & fills nicely. After that I wipe off the excess & let dry. After a finish sanding, it gets several coats of Zinsser's sanding sealer, then several coats of poly with the last coat lightly sanded with 320 grit on a orbital electric hand sander, and then I made a cotton cloth wad & rubbed on several final coats of poly. The result was like glass without the need to rub out.

I wanted a little different look for the drawer, so I did rabbet joints pinned with a contrasting dowel, and I also pinned the cope & stick joints on the doors for strength.
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I've only posted one other project, & haven't had much time to get into posting, so maybe I'll have a bit more time before I start something else.
 
I'm sure the recipients will figure it was well worth the wait. :thumb: That's great-looking work, Tom. The Durham's trick sounds like a good one, too. I'll have to remember that one and give it a try.
 
That is sweet Tom, well done. The old wine case looks at home in its new setting. Good design, color and I like the pins in the drawers!!!
 
As to the question of mineral spirits doing the same thing...If you mean rubbing on the water putty powder with it, I don't think so. The reason it works is that the blo carries the powder particles into the pores & since blo ultimately cures, it holds the filler in place. You can do the same thing with 4f pumice, but I couldn't find any around here so I tried what I thought was a logical substitute & it worked. Mineral spirits would carry the powder, but I think after it evaporated, you'd have a powder/particle issue when you vanished. I didn't get that problem after the blo cured.
 
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