John Hall Mirror Frames

When I look for ideas for common wood projects, I often scan through images to find elements I like.

For frames, I've always paused on images of the "famous" John Hall frame from the Gamble House. Typical Greene & Greene styling.

Mirrors a fun to make since you make the frame the way you want, then cut a piece of "art" (i.e. mirror glass) to fit.

The plans I used were directly from the Wood Whisperer's website
Here is the construction article (thanks Mark!).

The Wood Whisper templates take out all of the guess work and I decided it was time to just do it and git 'r done!

I made two frames, the first frame (prototype) is cherry with ebony plugs.

The second frame is walnut with jatoba "pyramid" plugs. These plugs are much easier to make and install 8^)

I made a few changes to the Wood Whisperer's procedure to speed things up.

To eliminate a lot of the hand work, I used a 1/4" flush trim and 1/8" radius round over (with 1/4" pilot bearings). these bits allowed me to get into the tight corners and recesses.

The frame was scaled to 70% while printing so I could use a standard 12" mirror tile and cut it to fit. The mirrors are under $2 each. Getting a mirror cut locally to fit the full scale version would have cost over $50.

These patterns were spray-glued to hard board and shaped, then working templates were cut from this master set.

I went ahead and made additional templates for the puzzle piece shape and upper mortices to eliminate 99% of the hand fitting required for these connections.

The mirror and back panel rabbets were cut after the frame was assembled. The corners for the mirror rabbet were squared up so I could cut a simple rectangular mirror from the 12" mirrored tile. A wider rabbet was cut for a hardboard back.

Once these template were made, the entire mirror can be knocked out and assembled in hours.

The finish is danish oil with spray can polyurethane.

Thanks for looking!