Bamboo Frames Finally done!

[Helen Gee]

Hi guys,

We are finally done with the frames. This has got to be the biggest project we've tackled since we got started with woodworking late last year from design to finish. This is for hubby's cousin's wedding tomorrow and they wanted us to make an Asian inspired frame to hang their banquet menu. The only problem for us was the fact that they will have 21 tables .

I handcut all the bamboo with a Japanese pull saw since we still don't have a miter saw. The bases are made out of ash and routed with a roman ogee. Epoxy was our friend (thanks for all your suggestions from my last post) and we used it to glue the bamboo to the base.

Base was finished with one coat of velvit oil and 5 coats of poly (I was paranoid since cousin wanted to leave it on the tables for the guests to see and I didnt' want sauce/water to get to the base). Also added some little felt feet to elevate it a little bit.

The cross bars were nailed in with panel nails (heads were clipped off). I also epoxied the cross bars since they kept popping off.

Cousin tied the beautiful ribbons...he is pretty crafty we came to discover .

For those of you interested, it looks like tomorrow's meal will be 10 courses .

It was definitely a lot of work since we only had about 3 weekends so we pulled a lot of late nighters but I also had a lot of fun.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Looks very nice. Helen. You did a great job, and it looks like you had no time to spare.

I went to an Asian wedding once and it included a great meal. Looks like you're in for some of the same.

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Looks great, you did a good job!

You do realize that you have made the entrance archways for a Shinto Shrine?

These are called "Torii" and they mark the entrance to the shrine, and signify the separation between normal space and sacred space.


Sometimes it is one large one.....


Sometimes it is a bunch of smaller ones.


Sometimes it is both!

Kind of cool is you line them up on the tables, like the entrance to the sacred, the marriage of course!

Just thought you might want to know that, if you do not already know that.

Cheers!

[Jay Knoll]

Helen

Great job! I had a thought, after the wedding, recycle the frames as picture frames with shots of the wedding and send them out to the members of the bridal party.

Jay

[Russ Massery]

Helen, They look great. What do you use to hold it together while the epoxy set?

[john whittaker]

Helen...what a nice personal gift...I'm sure your cousin-in-law will appreciate them.

This is a timely post...I have been trying, cajoling, coaxing my wife to become interested in woodworking so we could enjoy the hobby together...but no luck. Now our daughter has announced her upcoming wedding and you are giving me ideas

Great job.

[Frank Chaffee]

Helen!
Those frames turned out wonderfully!!!

I think you were very courageous to undertake a series of frames with non-square joining at their bases to begin with, and add to that the challenges of both cutting and attaching bamboo members to one another so cleanly…

Well done, and should you find time to provide us with detail shots of the joinery (after the ten courses have been digested, of course), many of us will benefit.

Frank

[Helen Gee]

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for all your kind words . We certainly finished at the very last minute, I still epoxied some of the tops since they were a little loose. We finished sometime around 10 pm last night, I got up sometime 6:30 am (both George and I were in the wedding party) and we've been on the go until now, 1 am

Stu, yup, we were kinda inspired looking at some of the structural elements around California during one road trip to LA. I will definitely let the bride/groom know about the metaphor regarding entrance to sacred marriage They will definitely love that!!!

Jay, yup, the intent was to give them out as party favors and have the folks replace the menu with photos or whatever else they like. Turns out the frames were a hit and George and I saw people grabbing like 5+ . We had to tell relatives to go hoarde some for themselves hehe.

Russ, for the base, we drilled holes (3/4" deep) with forstner bits that came close to matching the diameter of the bamboo, but it was a challenge because the bamboo pieces were all different diameters and not necessarily 100% circular . Then we took the bamboo to the little belt sander and continuously rotated the bamboo while sanding until the bamboo fit into the holes. The bottoms were expoxied together, the top bar was added in but we relied on the top bar to act as clamps since the holes were drilled at 90 degrees and not at an angle. The angle kinda forced the 2 sides to fit tightly.

The tops had holes drilled partially so the sides can fit right up into them. We ended up just predrilling holes, precutting panel nails (took the heads off so they wouldn't be so big) the length of the three walls (Thanks to Frank Chaffee for the help) and then hammering them in. I found that some of the tops were still a little loose, so we just epoxied them around the edges.

The 2nd bar was attached first by predrilling holes also through 3 walls (side bar to the first wall of the cross bar) then hammering in the precut panel nails. This held the bars in place but they kept popping out. I placed a dab of epoxy on both sides where the bars intersected and that held up pretty well after I pressed the cross bar back down. I found that was enough pressure for the epoxy to set.

There were some bamboo pieces that split open even with predrilling and using masking tape around the areas.


We kinda consumed the 10 courses, but dessert was really what we were after and we even had to barter with some neighboring peeps to get the other cake flavor . The wedding was a blast and people seemed to rave about the frames. Good thing we kept 2 for ourselves .