Made this whiskey cabinet for a wedding gift for a good friend. He got her a celtic-style ring so I took the theme and incorporated it into the design. Tops and sides are doweled, shelf is a stopped dado/tenon. Door is frame and panel.
The curves were the worst. They band-sawed beautifully, but I screwed them up by trying to smooth them out with the toe of the belt sander. So my punishment was about 4-5 hours of back-and-forth with a flexible sanding strip I made. I tried to electrify the process with my 1/3 sheet sander but it was just a waste of time - the jig was too heavy so it just vibrated the life out of my hands instead of doing anything meaningful to the workpiece. Here are my failed attempts at avoiding suffering:
The box is QSWO and Wenge, finished with General Finishes High Performance Dead Flat in my HVLP sprayer. I kept getting orange peel so I put one too many coats on and it started filling the grain in the wenge. Oh well, last coat finish was good, and you can only tell when the light hits it just right. There's basically no sheen on this finish. The sapwood in the wenge darkened up really nicely with this finish.
nice work. what seems like a simple box is far from it. that was a lot of work but it sure was worth the effort. i know they loved that. how was the celtic knot done ?
working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.
Nice job on that gift, it looks fantastic and I'm sure they will be thrilled. I got a kick out of how you tried to make a sanding jig, I thought it was pretty clever even if it didn't work the way you hoped.
you can do a laser fairly cheap if you just wanna burn logos and stuff like you did. that 5k one im sure has enough power to do some pretty heavy cutting also. the small one i have is just for logos and brands, cost was about 350.
working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.
Yeah I want to cut stuff out too. I see myself mostly cutting with it, actually. The glowforge does up to 1/4" or so without flipping the piece. I made friends with the engineering teacher at my wife's school, so I can use this one when I need it - usually. It's holding me over ok. Still got the itch though, haha.
Thanks for the sander comment, John. I was pretty excited about that too until it didn't work, hah!
