Willow Creek Picture Frame
Part I of my mom's Christmas gift, a 20"x24" curly maple, wenge and mahogany picture frame. While I think the frame came out nicely, the real star of the show is Alexa's painting. Alexa had been inspired by old National Park posters that make use of a pastel/ water color aesthetic and was trying to create some posters in that style. I was thinking about gifts for my parent's and decided that I wanted to do something that incorporated Willow Creek, a fictional prairie town that my grandfather used to tell stories about to his kids and eventually, us, grandkids. Alexa's poster takes in elements from conversations I had with my Uncle about the Willow Creek Stories, including the horses that starred in most of the stories, Paint and Star. I did my best to make a frame to complement Alexa's work, but at Christmas it was her thoughtful piece that stole the spotlight.
Required Resources: 3 hours, $40
Size: 24" x 28" x 3/4"
Materials: Curly Maple, Wenge, Mahogany, 20"x24" Glass Plate, Matting, Finishing Nails,
Finish: Natural Colored Stain, 3 coats Semi-Gloss Polyurethane Aerosol.
Tools: Miter Saw, Table saw, Planer, Jointer, Router with Rabbeting bit
New Techniques:
Splines: This was not the first project I had done that incorporated mitered corners, so I had developed a process to make nearly perfect corner interfaces. A problem I did have in previous mitered projects was weak bond strength at the glue joints, due to the end grain-end grain interface. In fact, one of the glued corners popped apart on this project while I was sanding it. To bolster the corners, I incorporated a spline; a thin shim that is glued in to a slot cut across the miter joint. This joint created a large area of face-face glue up surface and gives the miter joint strength nearly equal to the bulk material strength of the wood. In addition to the practical need for the the splines, I also think they are quite attractive. I would consider adding splines to my next project for purely aesthetic purposes.
Lessons Learned:
Jigs, Jigs, Jigs: I decided to hand cut my splines for two reasons: 1) It was the day before my flight home and I didn't have time to make a proper spline cutting jig. 2) I was working late at night and didn't want to disturb my neighbors with power tools. While I ultimately got the project finished in time to get it on a plane, I'm convinced that if I just spent an hour the day before putting together a spline cutting jig for the table saw, I would have saved time and thus a boat load of anxiety. A spline cutting jig, is rather simple; a bookend shaped wood assembly with a v-shaped cradle tacked to the vertical face. The piece to be "splined" sits in the v-cradle and is then passed over the top of the table saw blade. This might not paint the perfect picture, but I can assure you, this jig is super simple and it makes the act of cutting a spline pocket extremely easy. The method I employed, hand cutting the spline pockets with a pull saw, took me nearly 1 hour per spline and left me with pockets that were far from ideal. Next time, I'll invest the time upfront to make the right jig instead of suffering through the more convenient yet less efficient manual method.
