Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Cowboy Sideboard is finally finished

The copy of a Molesworth cowboy sideboard I have been building for the last couple of months is finally finished.

The construction took a couple of weekends and the image routing/carving took another couple.

But it was the finishing that consumed the time. I finished this four times before it came out the acceptable.

It would have been easier to finish if I had done a better job of selecting lumber in that I got a mix of sap and heart poplar which is different in tone and accepts stain at different rates. Also Poplar is problematic to stain to begin with and I ended up belt and suspendering the staining by using a pre-stain conditioner and a gel stain.

The tops is covered in red leather which is a whole other story as to how to get enough without buying a whole hide.

All-in-all for the first substantial piece of furniture I have made I am pretty happy with it. But if I built another one I would ......

Next furniture project is a Molesworth inspired bedroom set, but first I have a deck to build on the rear of the house.