Mirror Shelf – Build 2

On to the last bit of work for the mirror shelf build. Again my apologies that the photos in this build are somewhat lacking. Lately I’ve been balancing a few different projects at the same time, and it’s been easy to forget to document things along the way. I repeatedly caught myself forgetting to take photos until I had already completed various jobs. So I’ll do my best to describe the process, and maybe there will be a revision to this series in the future when I build another.

The last bit of work for the frame involved routing a half round profile on the front edge, and cutting the joinery for attaching the shelf. I cut the joinery first, which was relatively simple and is essentially very similar to a bridle joint. I cut a notched recess on the front and both sides of the frame. The distance between the shoulders matches the thickness of the shelf.

This type of joint gives the shelf a shoulder, both top and bottom, to butt into. Not that this shelf is designed for heavy duty use, but this kind of joint with shoulders, is really strong, and also creates a really clean look.

After cutting the joinery I routed the front edge of the frame using a round-over bit in a router table. Overall that was a pretty straightforward task, I just had to be careful when I reached the recessed notches, so as not to allow the bit to roll over the edge of the shoulder.

Below you can see the shelf itself with a couple of notches cut out to mate with the joinery on the frame. The extra two cuts you can see are cuts for roughing out the carved portion of the frame. I started that process and then realized I should take a picture of the shelf before roughing things out.

Here is the continuation of that process. Using a circular saw I made a repeated series of cuts, and then knocked out the waste using a hammer.

From there I worked with gouges to refine the surface. It’s amazing how much variation there can be in wood of the same species. The last time I made this mirror and carved the shelf, the wood was incredibly fine grained and easy to carve. This time around the piece of ash I selected had wider growth rings and much wider areas of dense grain. It was like carving a rock in comparison.

Once the carving was finished I cut the curvature along the front edge of the shelf on the bandsaw and with a few planes smoothed out the surface. Then I setup a quick chamfer bit on the router to remove some material for shaping the bottom edge of the shelf.

I used a nankin-ganna (Japanese spokeshave) for shaping the chamfered edge into a smooth rounded profile. I really like shaping profiles by hand. If you rough-out the shape like I did here with the chamfer bit, then finishing the shape with planes really doesn’t take that much more time than using machines alone. And it gives you the freedom to form subtle curvatures that you can’t achieve with any off the shelf router bit. I should mention that I did the same thing for the profile on the front edge of the frame itself as well.

So jumping ahead to the conclusion, here is a detail of the shelf; shaped, planed, and attached to the frame. You can see a subtle recessed line towards the top side of the edge profile. I felt like the profile needed something else to break up it a bit. So I used a gouge to hand carve a very lightly recessed line. Carving that line by hand creates a slightly scalloped texture, and slight unevenness. The overall effect, in nice natural light, creates a subtle shadow line. In general the hand carving that I’m applying to the shelf is my attempt to explore a design that balances with the bent laminated frame which to my eye has a manufactured cleanliness to it. The carved shelf is a counterpoint to that.

Here you can see the joinery from the backside. When I cut the notches in the frame, I cut the width between the shoulders on the tight side (around 0.5mm tight) to allow room for hand planing the shelf. Hand planing then requires care to not remove too much material. You can’t get carried away. That said 0.5 mm is pretty generous, so once the shelf was planed the fit was still too tight to fit between the shoulders. With a light bit of ki-goroshi (tapping with a hammer to compress the wood), I compressed the wood on the shelf in the location of the joinery, and I was able to slide the shelf and frame together for a nice tight fit with no gaps.

Ki-goroshi is really a great trick especially when a joint nearly fits but is just a hair on the tight side. Just a few light taps with the hammer and you can usually compress the wood enough for a joint to slide together. Just don’t forget to use the round side of your hammer!

Rather than gluing the joint, I locked each side in place with a single screw, allowing the shelf to be removeable in the future in the case that the mirror needs to be replaced.

To remove/install the glass, the frame itself has to be flexed open just slightly in order to fit the glass in the mirror. So the shelf acts to effectively lock the frame, preventing the glass from falling out. The mdf backer board is also secured to the frame with screws, and there are a couple pieces of double stick tape holding the mdf to the glass as well, for added insurance.

And here’s the completed mirror, coated with a few coats of soap finish, and ready to be packed up for shipping.

One additional detail I neglected to photograph was carving the notch in the front lip of the shelf. Carving it out is a pretty simple process. I laid out the shape on the front edge, and knocked it out with a couple of gouges. I like the effect the notch gives to the whole design. It breaks ups the regularity of the form, which without it would be symmetrical and more static I think.

Soap finish really takes a nice sheen after a few coats and some light buffing.

One more note on hanging the shelf. The mdf backer has a 45 degree cut along the bottom edge. Not pictured is a small strip of mdf with a mating 45 degree cut for hanging the mirror on the wall French-cleat style. I contemplated different hanging methods, but French cleats are hard to beat. They are easy to install, and rock solid when it comes to strength and stability.

Well that completes the mirror project. Overall a pretty simple project with just a few parts, but some challenging work was still involved to shape and join it all together.

This post is going out a bit early, since this weekend my wife an I will be busy at a craft fair in Chiba, Japan. Right now I’m crossing my fingers that the weather will hold out, since it’s an outdoor event, and currently it’s pretty cold and rainy here . In any case it will be a good opportunity to get out of the shop a bit and share the work I’ve been doing lately.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Thanks for reading.

-Jon