Mirror, Mirror on the wall...................

This time I want to make something quick and easy to make that could still be profitable. After going around a few furniture stores I saw that they absolutely ROB people when they are buying mirrors, I mean $350 for a mirror! So I thought I would have a piece of that action...........

I thought I would stay with the same wood that I used for my table as I knew how it worked and what it would and wouldn't do. I decided to make two mirrors of differing sizes. This is what I came up with;

The one on top is called "El Flaco" (The Skinny) and the other one is called "Limpio" (Clean).

El Flaco is 150cm x 35cm and is intended to be a lean to mirror for someone to use to get dressed with or to put in their hall. It has a nice mahogany grain and is finished with a Linseed oil. This finish helps the frame stand up to knock and pumps much better than it would cope with nothing on it at all. It has a low gloss to it so it doesn't detract to much from the actual mirror. Here's a couple more pics;

As for "Limpio" I just wanted to make a plain no fuss mirror that would appeal to everyone so again using mahogany I selected a piece with a cross cut grain and made a much smaller mirror. This one is about 120x 40 and the frame has no routed edges or anything fancy about it. Again, it is finished with Linseed oil and this time I gave it a coat on Antique wax first, this helped make the finish much darker while increasing the frames durability. (I like this one alot)

The grain really gives this piece a great look, kind of anitiquey but very strong looking. And now time for what is clearly going to be a regular feature...............

Mistakes/Lessons

1) Routing is hard! When I was routing out the back of the mirror to lay the glass in I found that its really difficult to control the router. It has I mind of its own and could actually be the devil in a mechanical disguise.

2) Doing 90 degree joins instead of 45 degree joins saves a lot of time and alot of braincells.

3) You have to rub down any wood finished with Linseed oil regularly for the first week as it seeps out and leaves a sticky texture if you don't.

4) I need a staple gun to put nails in to hold the glass in place

5) Glass for a mirror is super expensive!

The very first project

The first thing I made was simply a coffee table for my house, it was good fun to make and a great learning process. Unfortunately it wasn't very good! No matter, I don't mind making mistakes at all, after all, that's the best way to learn. What I don't like is repeating mistakes so I'll try and explain all the mistakes I made and you can see if I repeat them or not!

The table is 135cm x 70cm and stands at 45cm high. The idea behind it was to create something that could be used as both a coffee table and a dinner table as we have no room for both in the house! The wood is called Sapelli in Spanish which astonishingly doesn't seem to have a direct translation into English (very, very bizarre) but its basically mahogany.

It is an extremely hard wood which makes it a good choice for a table which is going to get alot of wear and tear. The down side is that it is a little hard to work with and very heavy. As you can see from the pictures it does have fantastic grain which adds a great visual effect to any furniture piece. Unfortunately that is where my mistakes began!

Mistakes/Lessons

1) Choose wood with the same grain! I may have managed to use all the same wood, but the grains were different and it makes the table look odd.

2) Buy wood that's straight! Yes, I managed to buy a piece of wood that was bowed which means that the table top is not smooth

3)Don't get the supplier to cut the wood exactly the right size, because they never do it right and then you get gaps in the finished piece! (Just get them to make it about the right size but slightly on the large size so I can change it later)

4) Drill loads of holes for wood plug and....................

5) Use clamps! I didn't have any so amazingly thought that by just pushing the pieces together I would get a good fit. (Funny now, but very very stupid) This prevents the piece ending up looking like a child put it together out of Lego (which is still a great toy by the way)

6) Don't sand by hand, takes faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar to long and you don't even get that good a finish.

7) Don't leave varnish to dry out it the open air, you get loads of dust in it (especially in a city like Madrid) which means you have to constantly sand it down and repeat it, which is time consuming and very very boring.

So, in summary............the coffee table is a expensive piece of crap. I look forward to the day when I will smash it into pieces and make something good out of the incredibly expensive timber. More to follow.............

A day in the life of an Ebanista (cabinet maker)

On this site you will be able to view pictures and information about my designs and projects. Hopefully you will get a better idea about what I am doing and get a feel for the direction I am heading in.

I intend to post information about designs and projects including the design names, wood description, details of the finish and features of each piece. I'll also add comments on my success's and alarmingly regular failures so you can all laugh at me too!

If you have any comments, feel free to add them!