Small projects

What I have found is that small projects can bring a lot of satisfaction, provide further learning experiences and. use a whole lot less material. Take this project, a framed tile and stand.

Stephanie gave me this Frank Lloyd Wright tile for Christmas and I decided it needed a frame that would show the boarder (actually, Stephanie suggested that). I am going to go backward on the process to show how I made it.

I had to create a recess so that the tile would sit proud in the frame and allow space for metal strap springs to fit on the sides of the recess to hold the tile in place. Since the metal springs are black, I blackened the recess.

I first milled a rabbit (an edge groove) on 3/4" quarter sawn oak stock and then cut 45º angles at the corners. I was making several similar frames at the time so these pieces were for a smaller tile.

Joining 45º angles has never been easy so I decided to modify one of my jigs to precisely position the pieces for domino mortises. The mortises have to line up exactly to create square corners and flat faces. The modifications worked great. I can now make any angled joints with the jig stops I created. I originally made the stops out of wood and then had a friend print them on a 3D printer.

I determined where to place the mortise by laying a domino on the joint and then marking the center line on the joint.

I then approximately lined up the mark on the piece with the middle line of the Domino joiner and noted the index measure on the opposite side of the joiner. That way I can use the same measurement on the opposite side of the jig when cutting the other side of the joint.

This process creates matching mortises that perfectly align the pieces.

The result is a perfect frame for a beautiful tile

But what about the stand? I copied the general design from a stand we had purchased and came up with my own version.

The main change I made from the original design was that I made the dado (groove in the middle of a board) deeper and the post taller so the tile would be more upright in the stand. This time I will take you through the process from the beginning.

I started by cutting a piece of stock to the over all dimensions of 5" x 7" and marked out the guidelines for putting in a domino mortise to hold the post in place. When I made the first stand, I waited to put on the layout lines until I had cut off the back corners. It made it much harder to put on the lines and cut the mortise.

I aligned the base of my Domino joiner with the layout lined and cut the post mortise in the base.

Can you see what is wrong with this picture? I accidentally cut off corners on the front, instead of the back. Not wanting to waste a blank, I cut a new mortise on what would become the back and glued a domino in what is now the front of the stand and cut it flush with the surface. Fortunate for me, the errant mortise would fall into the dado and not be seen. Whew!

The ability to fix mistakes is an advantage of using the Domino joiner. Now on to the post.

I milled some stock down to 1" x 3/4" and cut 45º on all 4 sides to create a point. I then cut the post to the final length of 9" for this tall tile and frame.

I used the Domino joiner and positioning jig to put the mortise in the base of the post. The next step was finish sanding, staining and final finish. For the first time in a long time, I used a lacquer stain and spray on satin lacquer which really brought quarter sawn figure and left a very nice finish. Lacquer dries very rapidly which makes it easier to complete a small project in a day.

What did I learn from this project? On the frame, I learned how to use an existing jig to make more accurate 45º mortises and on the post, I learned (again I might add) to carefully mark the front and back of a project so you don't cut off the wrong corner?