Mirrors; trial balloon and the real deal

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Our daughter moved from home to go to university last fall. I was gagging for making her some furniture, such as the dining table or sofa table, but she beat me to it by buying them  second hand from online forums. She said she wanted a mirror and I was more than happy to make it. Problem was I couldn’t get more specific wishes about the style and size out of her, as she was very busy on other things.

I solved this with the iterative method, i.e. first made a ”speculative piece” to get her feedback on it. It worked. ”This is really really nice, as every fine piece of furniture you make, dad. But [and then got the specs for the right one, which she really likes].

I let you guess which one is which!

Both have mitered corners strenghtened with splines. One has decorative fluting which I made on a router table and a round bit. One has decorative plugs in the corner joints, covering the empty holes for said decorative plugs.




11 Comments

Nicely done x 2. I'm betting she has 2 mirrors now. 
Nice clean designs! The corner "pegs" are really great.
I tend to get carried away, but mirrors are really just like any other frame except that the frame becomes the attraction.


I've stuck to the 12"x12" mirror tiles, cheap and easy. I'd waste too much wood for anything bigger as getting frame parts that are dead-straight (a must!) just doesn't happen with my wood collection
Both look great!  Nice details in each one.  
They look nice! I like the texture on sides. 

No name noobie here

Beautiful mirror frame. It is a very attractive piece. Your daughter will love it!!

Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day

Really good looking and well made.  Great work.

Ron

yeah both are beautiful. love the joinery.

working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.

Very nice. Love the varied joinery. 

Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".

Forgot to ask, your fluting looks so evenly spaced, did you use some form of indexing jig?
I didn’t use an indexing jig: what i did was to a) draw a line in the router table b) put a long piece of painter’s tape on the ”board” (the piece that was already mitered but not yet glued together). On the tape i had drawn lines with the desired spacing.  Then i just routed with a sled & after each groove moved the next line to match the marking on the router table. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Eye-balling the line alignment was accurate enough, as  you want *some* variation. If you make it too perfect, it will no longer look hand made!

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