Door Substrates

Well, here is the laminated 1/8" ply-wood for a door substrate. Turned out pretty well I'd say. The arc is slightly stronger towards the outsides.


Poplar bake-ins were glued and cleaned, then Pear bake-ins for the top and bottom of the doors. Some people use their block planes or other hand planes for the flushing of convex bake-ins, but the spoke shave works better for me.
After that the substrates went into the clamps again for the actual veneering!


While the doors were once again in the clamps I turned my attention to the carcass parts. Although re-sawing lumber from larger timbers allows one more flexibility and control there are a couple things to keep in mind.
One of which is showed above, a bit of cupping. Large pieces of lumber almost never have the same moisture content inside and out. Also there is often stress in the timber which may hold it in a certain shape at first but as soon as you cut off a piece, the equalizing stress is no longer there.
Lucky for me this Pear seemed pretty stable but not perfect. I don't have a wide enough jointer for this and I don't think I would have used one anyway... being so close to final dimension I wouldn't want to risk more harm than good. Besides the machine will probably give some irregularity anyway. This is yet another time that hand skills come in! The procedure to adress the cupping is pretty simple. Use a hand plane to shave the highs and avoid the lows. Getting the desired result is more difficult than it may sound. It takes a sensitive touch, a trained eye, and patients!

Drawer sides and backs rough milled and resting. I'm using Hard Maple. This may look like a lot of material for just two drawers and a tray but the grain is a little wavy and as I've mentioned before I'm tired of calling it so close!

I FINALLY got my glass for the Oak Coffee Table today... surprise surprise SOMETHING had to not go my way. I asked for flat sides/edges which I was meaning just 90 degree edges. They gave me 45 degree bevels on all the edges >:( I'm SOOO sick of working/dealing with this ridiculously simple piece of glass that I just took it. My whole operation in terms of getting products in the open has been waiting for weeks on this damn glass.
I need the glass to put the paper on for the Oak table... so I can schedule a time to rent some studio lighting from the MN Guild so I can FINALLY do the photography of these tables. I need the photography to build the website/online portfolio I'm also working on and the pics of the tables will help the graphic designer do a little branding for me so that I can build THAT into the website and make business cards and incorporate it into the physical portfolios that I can't make until the photography is done to take to the galleries around town to set up any meetings or judgment that needs to happen to enter pieces into said gallery alnog with making some advertisements for the table series to help show that I really mean business and I DO.
So. I may or may not be trying to get another piece of glass... this one will have to work for photography... not to mention that it cost $200. At this point I don't really care if they will make me another one. I just never want to work with them again.