Ninety-Ninth Passage

A long time ago, back in January, I made a post about some of the sentimental items that we have from our dating/engagement days. I mentioned in it that I wanted to frame them all in a special frame/shelf thing. Guess what? David made the frame! Or shadow box. We gathered the items we wanted, David figured out the size each compartment would need to be, then cut out papers in that size, then we both decided how to fit them together. Then David worked his magic.

In his words:

I've cut all the pieces out of 1/2 inch thick maple. It goes together much like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. The reason for having all the funny shapes is so the unit will be strong without having any fasteners like screws, brads, or nails.

I will have to glue it in stages from the center to the outside so that I can keep the many pieces of the shadow box square. Here is the first stage of gluing. You never can have too many clamps.

Bam! Here it is. All glued together. Now that stupid part begins. Sanding....... All the little nooks and crannies are going to make sanding very difficult. It will be challenging to keep the the corners all nice and square with so much hand sanding.

It's all sanded. Next, to put the backing on.

The back of the piece was supposed to be Black Walnut. It would cost me $60 to get enough 1/4" sawn walnut because it runs about $13.50 a board foot. So, even though I am against using stain I decided to go the cheap route this time. I feel a little less guilty because I didn't go completely cheapo and use 1/4" birch ply. I'm using poplar with a black walnut stain so the whole piece will still be made of real wood.

I've cut out all the pieces of poplar and applied a pre-stain wood conditioner. You have to use wood conditioner when you're staining poplar or else it will end up all blotchy. It's a good idea to use conditioner all the time but it's not necessary with all woods.

I have applied the stain!

15 minutes passed. I wipe the stain off.

Here is the piece fully assembled. I will give the stain a full day to dry and tomorrow I will put on the finish.

Here's the finished product. The photo doesn't do it justice. There's no lighting at night where I hung it so even after so serious photoshopping to bring out the light it's still grainy. Oh well.

I made little wooden stands to hold some mementos of Melanie and my history together. Kind of a fun thing to have on the wall.

I love it! David did such a great job. The photos are from when we got sealed in the temple and from our second date when we went skiing.