>Oak Fire Surround II
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Made a start on gluing some of the component part’s for this fire surround yesterday, the first of which is the 65mm thick Mantle. I am using the domino for this, as I don’t think biscuit’s penetrate deep enough for such a thick piece of timber. I’m using 8×50 dom’s for this, with a row at the top and bottom for strength and good alignment.
This joint is then glued using polyurethane, and my biggest and strongest T-bar cramp’s.
These two always keep a close eye on me when I’m gluing up.
I’m Making the Mantle over size because the ends are being moulded on the spindle, and the breakout can be cut away if the backing board fails. This is just a precaution and will not happen, hopefully.
The next components that needed gluing were the fire surround uprights, I’m using rift sawn for this cut at 80mm in width, for stability, I have book-matched them for appearance and this has an added bonus of stability to. These are going right next to a wood-burner so I’m trying to minimise timber movement as much as I can.
Another component glued up, I use alternative cramps for an even pressure, and I have also dominoed these joints also.
Came out nice and flat, with no light showing through. I hope it stays like this in situ.
Next I made a mdf pattern for the curved bottom rail, and routed this to shape. If you look on the ends of this rail, you can see the small nib I have left for a cramping block, this end is very fragile, and the nib also prevents this from breaking(hopefully).
Here is an over view of how it will look when put together, this also helps me work out the size of the top rail. I have left the uprights over width at the moment, these will be tapered tomorrow on a jig I haven’t as yet made.
Ordered the veneer at 12 o’clock on Friday, and it was delivered sometime on Saturday morning. I bought this from Nantwich Veneers, a very quick service I must say, and very well packaged.
First thing I do when I get a pack of veneer, is to mark the the sides so they are in sequence, I use a triangle for this to minimise mistakes.
As you can see the veneer is lovely(well in my eyes), and should blend with the oak well without a complete contrast between the two timbers(something I wanted two avoid).
I selected the first two leaves of veneer for flattening, for this I just wipe a fairly wet rag with clean water over both sides of veneer, lay on a plastic bag, then place a plastic bag between these two also, then use my state of the art platen press.
I should be able to press and glue these panels up tomorrow, ready for assembly. Thanks for looking.
>Love your work Mark. The Blog is great too!
>Thanks Stu,
I'm really glad you like the Blog, hopefully it will get better too, as I have some nice work coming up soonish. I'm thinking about making an exhibition piece too.