Howdy everyone,
These are the first projects the hubby and I have built outside of the few woodworking classes we've been taking since last November . We had to figure out something to make for his parents 30th anniversary (this weekend):
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=32638
And with so many ideas from everyone, we decided to make a pivoting frame with a picture of them around when they were married and a picture of them more recently. Ugh, no grandkids from us for the parents yet, but I'm sure they'd thank you guys for it .
Before making the frame, we had to make something that resembled a router table to do some of the routingso we decided to make the one from the shopnotes no 85 since it'd get us started and we can upgrade it later when we have time.
Cutting the plywood was initially hard since we only had a circular saw but once we got the hang of it (squaring the guide rail before cuts), the whole project moved fairly quickly.
Err, most of the parts fit in relatively square, but cutting the dados was another story. We should have used the router but instead used the circular saw.
We got to a point where we could use the router table and stopped to work on the pivoting frame.
The pivoting frame's from Wood Magazine, April 2001 issue. The instructions were somewhat hard for us to understand and we had to keep re-reading the plan over and over again. Some things did not make sense, like it said to rip a 1" 4 foot long strip. But the total dimensions of the frames added up to 5 feet. Also, they said to use some #6 screws for the pivoting part, but the screw head was too large to sit in the 1/4" rabbeted edge of the inner frame
Also, we only had roughly 1 week before leaving for Las Vegas to see the family. We pretty much worked till 1 am every night sawing and cutting and routing and sanding.
The project was constructed with the maple we got few weeks back. The frame was finished with 2 coats of velvit oil, wetsanded to 330 grit. Then just one coat of wipe on poly the morning of our trip. This was really our first project without any supervision, but we did get some sanding help from our woodworking neighbor across the street. Could't believe we were able to finish this project, the parents absolutely loved the frame (and also slipped in some not so subtle questions about grandkids).
As an added bonus, I got a major skin rash (mostly on the left forearm, but a noticeable spray pattern of ichy red bumps from wherever the sawdust touched) from what I believe to be spalted maple from some of the boards. George was fine though. It'll be some time before I will play with the maple again.
Turned this on the drill press with a dowel stuck to some laminated pieces of maple. Ugh, it helped that we paid attention to the rasp's filing direction, once we did that, the filing went a lot faster.
I had wanted to scroll saw out the anniversary date on the bottom of the frame, but we just did not have time. Went and got an engraved plate that we mounted onto the frame.
Thanks for looking
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, so maybe we'll try to get that done for xmas. For now, we'll have to start making some goodies for ourselves 
