Woodworking Project(s): My second commission

So my first commission was pretty much a smash hit. My neighbour liked the doors so much that she wound up putting them in the hallway at the top of her stairs (where guests could properly appreciate them) rather than hide them in her ensuite bathroom as originally intended.

She liked them so much, in fact, that she asked me to make her another set for the closet in her front hall. Same materials, same finish, slightly bigger doors. Of course, I jumped at the chance to actually repeat a project and see if I had learned anything from the first attempt. As it turns out... well, kind of.

I had a feeling this project would turn out pretty good when the guy who sold me the rough-cut cedar turned out to be as bad at math as I am: I got 32 boardfeet of western red cedar for the price of 24. (Cause he had a brain fart and thought 4x8 is 24, not 32. And I didn't realize until I got home because I always make the same msitake. Shut up.)

Anyway, the doors were pretty straightforward (the most exciting part was the new raised panel jig I made and detailed in my last post), and aside from SLIGHTLY miscalculating the amount of lumber I needed (stupid 8-times table), I successfully built two slightly-larger-than-last-time doors:

So one of the things I learned last time is that spar varnish (my chosen finish) is a little thick, and tends to pool in the corners of the raised panels, and along the edges if you're not careful (or just rushing a little, because how many goddamn coats is this going to take, anyway?). I did a little bit of research, and found a couple of solutions that I decided I would try.

First, I finished the raised panels BEFORE assembling the doors in the hope that it would be easier to finish them completely without quite so many corners and whatnot in the way. While the idea was solid, in practice it suffered from a couple of shortcomings: one, the panels were really, really soft, and trying to support them on my little plastic painting risers left dimples in the backs. The only way around this was to finish one side at a time, which prolonged the entire experiment and made me question its value. And two, once the panels were done and fitted into the doors, there was really no way to avoid refinishing them anyway, given all the tight corners and other parts that also needed to be finished.

Second, I found quite a few sources that recommended thinning the varnish with mineral spirits, up to a 50-50 mix, and then applying it like a polish (via a soft rag) as opposed to using a foam brush. You wind up having to put on more coats (like, 6, instead of 3), but you only have to wait about 3 hours between coats instead of 6 or more. I liked the idea of not having to use up a half-dozen foam brushes, and figured I would give it a shot.

Well, it was kind of a mixed bag - though some of that was my fault. I won't go into too much detail, but let's just say that a) you really don't want to mix up a big batch of this stuff ahead of time, and b) I wound up having to put one last finishing coat of pure varnish on at the end to get the depth and sheen I needed.

Anyway, the doors are done, and look fabulous (check out those raised panels - ooh la la!:

Once again, my neighbour is super happy, and that's the main thing.

Bonus project!

I was determined to get these doors all done and installed before the end of September, and finished with more than a week to spare. So I got to spend a very pleasant Sunday afternoon in the garage making a project just for fun.

Some friends of ours had come over for dinner and, like any GOOD friends, had brought along a couple growlers of the finest local craft beer in a handy little carrier. Well, sort of handy. I had a few minor issues with aspects of the design, but really liked the overall idea, and decided to try to build my own - with a couple of enhancements of my own devising.

So I scrabbled about in my pile of plywood scraps and scrounged a length of old rope from a buddy to produce these:

My design improvements included a handle that lets me carry the whole thing in one hand, and a partition to keep the growlers from knocking into each other during transport.  I'm pretty pleased with the outcome, and didn't have to spend any money whatsoever on materials. Well, actually, I did buy a can of spray varnish to finish them off. But even on that I saved money by not using anything GOOD...