Summer Night Light - The Final (Pt. 6)

It's done!

After some disappointing experiences The Garden Lantern is ready now.

See the latest activities in this post.

I guess it is time to come back to the table build.

Furthermore new projects are in my mind.

Final Sprint

I had some topics left to do

• Beveling the top and bottom panel
• Filling the door
• Mounting the door swiveling
• Glue up
• Finishing
• Final assembly

Top + Bottom Panel

The top and bottom panel should receive a bevel around the perimeter of the board.

Therefore I shortened the board to the final length at the shooting board. Because my shooting board has got an adjustable fence I first checked the fence for square. You can see in the picture there was a hair of adjustment necessary.

Adjusting the fence of the shooting board

Shooting to final length

After I had shot the edges square I made a scribe line around the board. This line is 8 mm from the top and 8 mm from the edge.

Scribing a line for the bevel

Now I clamped the board into my vice at an angle of 45° so I just had to hold the plane horizontally.

Establishing a bevel

With the board clamped that way I just planed down to the scribe lines. Oh, I started with the end grain sides of course.

Finally it came out like this....

Bevel established at bottom panel

Door Filling

I've shown it already. I have found some mesh wire from aluminum. That's pretty lightweight and easy to work with. The pattern I've found is exactly what I had in my mind. 

My first idea was to mount the mesh on the back of the door but I decided to cut a recess and insert the fill into it.

As I've build the door frame with bridle joints I couldn't cut the recess with any plane. That said I've cut it with a marking gauge and a chisel.

Rabbet done with a chisel

 

After the door frame was complete, glued and finished I've fixed the inset with some small nails.

Mounting The Door

The door is mounted with a headless nail in the bottom and a nail with head in the top. So it is possible to dismount the door if needed in the future.

Nail as pivot

After I've mounted the door I recognized that it isn't swivelable.The solution was to round over one of the stiles.

Door profile

Mounted door

Glue Up

The glue up was pretty straight forward.

• Gluing the stiles into the bottom panel.
• Then gluing the rails between the stiles and onto the bottom.
• Clamp it and let it dry.
• After the glue was set the top rails were inserted and only glued to the top panel.

Done!

Gluing stiles to the bottom

Gluing the rails to the top

Top assembly

Maybe the picture above makes it more clear to you. The top panel will be dismountable. So I've glue the rails to the panel. If the top panel is mounted to the lantern it will be fixed with some wedges as you can see below.

Wedges to fix the top panel

Finishing

I've thought a while about the finish I will use for this project.

As this will be a garden lantern which will be used outside my decision was to use some oil.

Fortunately Meranti itself has got a good resistance against environmental influences. So nothing more than oil is necessary.

I wanted to try something traditional and my choice was to use linseed oil varnish. I've read that is easier to use and will dry faster as pure linseed oil.

Finishing preparation

All parts treated with a coat of oil

Final Assembly

After all parts have been dried over night I will start to assemble the lantern.

That means I have to weave the parts for the side fillings once again.

Starting with the vertical pieces and then inserting the horizontal pieces from above.

The fun begins at this point

First level

Second one.....and so forth

It is easy going, just taking care about equally spacing the single pieces. I've made some spacer blocks for this task.

Somehow tricky is to mount the top and inserting the vertical piece at all three side at the same time.

Mounting the top

The very last task was that I've mounted a door handle.

Door handle

And finally here is the finished Summer Night Garden Lantern!

Garden Lantern in its final destination

From the side with open door

 

From the back

Conclusion

All in all it was a nice project.

It gave me the possibility to try some seldom used techniques and a (for me) new finish.

Furthermore I have used a new wood species. And it was nice to work with (although it is a bit dusty).

The overall design is what I had in my mind at the beginning. At least I had to change some ideas because it was not doable. For example: I would have liked to have some profiles at the outside of the stiles. But this won't work because they had to be inline with the through mortices in top and bottom.

I'm lucky how it came out and I hope the person who will receive will be lucky too.

What's Next?

A deep black hole? No, of course not.

Do you remember? I've started a side table in Oak, which I will continue now.

Another thing I have in my mind since my trip to England is to build a simple build sitting furniture.

I've seen so many benches and chairs that I've developed an idea about it. Additionally the actual Paul Sellers Masterclass videos are about building a simple stool and from what I've seen so far, some of the joinery and techniques he is showing were used in the furniture I've seen.

You see, it all fits together. Watch my upcoming posts.

Last bust not least I know since month that I have to remodel my workshop and a new workplace (bench) is in planning for a long time. I guess this autumn I will start with it.

Alright folks! That's it for this week.
Let me know what you think about the lantern.

Stay tuned!
Stefan


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