Building the cross - Completed

Rennie Heuer

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This is actually a continuation of the four way Mitre thread. Just thought I would start a new thread on the actual building of the cross to differentiate it.

The cross is made with three-quarter inch Sapele plywood. As you can see it is essentially a box beam. Very light very strong for its size. Which is a big plus when you have to mount it 15 feet above the floor.

The ends are mitered and there is some trim to be attached. The face will receive some half inch square ebony plugs and the perimeter will be trimmed with 1" x 0.5" quartersawn Mahogany.
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Looking good Rennie. I don't know if you noticed but . . . a washer and dryer snuck into your shop. There's one of each in my shop too!?! I thought they were just native to the area but, apparently the problem is more widespread than first believed ;-)
 
Looks good Rennie, I'f I may offer one small comment. I would have mitered the top and side to make it easier to hide the plys. I did that on the top for the altar I built and it worked out very well.
The edge of the ply will be covered by the 1/2" thick mahogany trim. It will stand 1/8" proud of the face of the cross to both outline it and give me a nice shadow line around the entire perimeter. At least, that's the plan. :D There will be a second matching band of trim at the back of the sides that will help conceal an LED strip light.

Looking good Rennie. I don't know if you noticed but . . . a washer and dryer snuck into your shop. There's one of each in my shop too!?! I thought they were just native to the area but, apparently the problem is more widespread than first believed ;-)
The trick, and this is not easy at times, is to always think of it as "there is a laundry in my shop", rather than "there is a shop in your laundry". :rofl:
 
I thought they were just native to the area but, apparently the problem is more widespread than first believed ;-)

What, No freezer or 2nd fridge?

I fooled them by putting my shop in the basement.

Oh yeah, nice job Rennie. I'm curious to see how the LEDs will make it look. Going for the floating backlit affect?
 
Building the cross

What, No freezer or 2nd fridge?

I fooled them by putting my shop in the basement.

Oh yeah, nice job Rennie. I'm curious to see how the LEDs will make it look. Going for the floating backlit affect?

The second refrigerator is outside the view of the camera but it is there!

Yes, with the backlighting I hope to have a floating effect. Time will tell.

With the holidays upon us there's not much time for the shop however, I was able to get A coat of danish oil on this morning. I marked out the spots for the square plugs first and will put those in later.
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Your intersection turned out great, what method did you go with?
Looking forward to the light show pix :thumb:

Used a stop on the miter gauge - cut once, flip over, cut again. Made sure to keep the piece over length till I was satisfied with the fit then cut the 90 to final length.
 
Building the cross

Finally had some time after the excitement of the holidays subsided. So, I was able to get out into the shop and put some of the finishing touches on the cross.

The mahogany trim and ebony plugs are in and I have applied the sealer coat of shellac. Next decision, whether I want to fill the garage with lacquer fumes or take a few extra days and use a wipe on polyurethane.
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Looks great Rennie. Shellac has been an adequate topcoat on pieces a hundred years old. Is this a piece that will receive a lot of handling? If not I would just stop at shellac.
 
Looks great Rennie. Shellac has been an adequate topcoat on pieces a hundred years old. Is this a piece that will receive a lot of handling? If not I would just stop at shellac.

Handling? No. In fact I'm hiding a plate inside with my name and build date so when it is taken down for some reason decades from now someone can ask, "who the heck was that guy?".:rofl:

I decided to go with the wipe on poly in satin. Just a personal preference.
 
All done! Installed! But, still a little work to do.

A group of members got together this morning and installed the cross. First we had to take down the old one, move some brackets around and install the new low voltage wiring. That all got done a couple of days ago. This morning it was all about the install. All went pretty close to plan. We had to shim a bracket that was not welded properly (we reused the old brackets) and the DMX controller that I purchased seems to be defective. I can turn all the lights on but I cannot control brightness or color. They're shipping out a new one next week and I'll make the swap then.

First, here we are taking down the old cross. The picture on the ground gives you an idea of its size. It was solid white oak and weighed a lot! You cannot see them in this photo but there are halogen puck lamps on the back. When we installed this we were pinching pennies and this was the most economical option, but it gave us 'hot spots' of lighting on the wall and was quite unattractive.
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Here's the new cross. Notice it is a bit larger and the LED lighting has taken the place of the old halogens. It is also many pounds lighter! There are over 550 LED's on the cross!

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The money shot.
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