Dylans Clock Stand

Last Saturday my son displayed his art in a show with his art class at the Central Park Zoo. It was a well received show and outside of heat, it was a wonderful day. My frame was actually well received, sloppy corners an all. Luckily though, I was able to make a second piece to help display his art and this one came out much nicer.

Dylans art show display

One of his three (3) dimensional projects was a clock. It’s a collage of clocks glued onto a box, with a round porthole cut out to reveal a clock face inside also.

Since the clock just sits on whatever you put it, I was asked to make a clock stand.

Initially I was going to make a low stand with ornate feet. As the deadline approached I was looking through The Complete Illustrated Guide to Furniture & Cabinet Construction. After thumbing through the section on feet and basically deciding on making a rounded base with mitered legs, I then flipped through the cabinet on stand section. I occurred to me that I could make a tall stand for the clock rather than a stubby one.

With that idea in my head, I went out to the shop and started milling legs and aprons. I was making a tiny shaker table to hold the clock.

Should I clean my table saw blade.

I won’t go into too much detail on the table, as there are many resources online for making a shaker end table (I’d personally recommend the Shaker End Table Woodwhisperer Guild Project).

The one thing that I was rather pleased about regarding the table construction was the mitered frame is used as a top to hold the Clock. After having issues cutting miters on my table saw with my Incra jig, I chose to make these on my miter saw. When I cut a test piece and held it against a japanese miter square I have, I was pleasantly surprised to find the miter saw was perfect. I cut all eight miter cuts on the miter saw and the frame came together 100% gap free.

The finished clock stand with the clock atop.

Perfect miters right off the miter saw.

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Google Comments

As the Penultimate Woodshop is a Blogger blog, its easy for me to integrate with Google+ using Google+ comments. Google+ comments mean that comments to a blog post or to the corresponding Google+ post will show at both locations.

Should I use Standard Blogger Comments, Google+
Integrated Comments or would you rather mail in
a comments form?

When Google+ comments first came out, I tried them out. I found that they allowed for much more interaction around posts and more conversation.
As much as I liked this, I turned them off when I found that they required a Google account in order to comment (no more anonymous).
Since then Ive watched, and almost all of the comments I receive are from people with Google accounts. So, Im turning Google+ comments back on. I really enjoyed the increased comments.
While doing this, Im not looking to exclude anyone. So, if you find that youre not able to comment because you dont have a Google account, please email me. If I find that Google+ comments is causing problems, or disenfranchising my audience, I will turn them off again. As far as Im concerned the increased conversation is nice, but not at the expense of others ability to comment.
So please, if you find the Google+ comments a problem, let me know. Otherwise, please join in the conversation.

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This week Steve makes a hat stand

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The final coat of poly

The fourth and final coat of poly is done!  I am going to let it cure out in the garage for a couple of days and then rub out the finish and install it on Sunday.  I smoothed out one of my tester boards with steel wool last night and then applied some paste wax and it turned out great.  My original plan was to screw the hall tree to the wall next to the front door but my wife wants to be able to move it for cleaning so I am going to do some testing with cleats.  I dont want to actually hang the thing from the wall, just secure it enough to make sure its not going to fall on the 2 year old.  I am going to try making a french cleat and also make some rabbits in a couple of boards and see if I can get them to interlock the choice I want to.

I only applied the 4th coat to the outside parts.  I left the insides of the bottom shelves with just the 3 coats.

I just remembered that I havent bought the hooks yet.  I may have to stop by Home Depot on the choice home from work tonight.  My plan is to have 3 hooks under the top shelf, one on each side near the top and then one on each side near the bottom at backpack height.

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