Installing the trim collar on the underside of the top section of the font

 

Well, I'm a little bewildered about the best term to describe the trim molding that covers the raw plywood bottom of the font's top section. I used plywood instead of a panel made of mahogony to minimize the bottom's seasonal expansion, in order to keep the bottom from breaking the glue joints of the font. This solved one problem, wood stability, but added a second issue, appearance. I needed to come up with a collar of trim which tied everything together visually.

 

Today, Friday, I milled out the triangular beveled segments that make up the prymidal top. Very nerve-wracking and finicky work at the table saw. By the end of the day, I had the top clamped together with out glue to check the fit of all the pieces. Even though I have done this before when gluing up a top for the font mock-up, and I had worked out a step by step cutting schedule, you can still end up with joints that don't come together properly. Of all the steps involved in the construction of the font, cutting out the pieces of the top were the most challenging, and I knew this before starting. When building the mock-up I cut up a rather pricey piece of pine and ended up throwing most of it on the firewood pile before I figured out the correct angles and bevels required. Working with the mahogony  I couldn't afford too many re-dos. I cut the top pieces out of a six foot length of 10 inch wide mahogony ripped out of a 22 inch wide board. This board was part of a packing crate. Beautiful color, wonderful grain, but filled with random nail holes. With luck I was able to layout the cuts so that I avoided the nail holes.

 

One final thought. The astragal molding on the column and the collar molding on the under side of the top seem much lighter in this picture than they are in reality. I am not sure why, but it may be caused by the way a camera's flash reflects off these surfaces.

 

Thanks for stopping by.