Project by splintergroup | posted 04-28-2017 04:14 PM | 2673 views | 16 times favorited | 14 comments | ![]() |
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When trying to think of a project to make, I usually have in mind what I want to make, just not exactly a good idea of the style I’m after. It is at this point I usually Google “bud vase images” for ideas.
Case in point are these bud vases. I looked at a lot of pictures and this basic design caught my eye. The “split” can be anything, I decided on a symmetric split, but many of the pictures had asymmetric cuts.
The lowdown:
These are about 8” high, 2-5/8” square. The base is walnut and the primary wood is from my stash of jatoba flooring. Finish is natural colored Danish oil, satin spray poly topcoat.
The wood:
Wood doesn’t exactly grow on trees around here and with the prices of plain white oak passing the $5/bf. mark, jatoba flooring at around $4/bf. seems like a bargain. I bought a 25 sq. ft.”bundle” of unfinished “Brazilian Cherry”(a.k.a. jatoba). This flooring was excellent! The ordered width was 3” and a mix of lengths from 16” to 6’. Probably evenly split from flat sawn grain to rift/quarter sawn (these vases were made form the rift sawn).
The flooring is 3/4” thick with the usual edge and bottom profiling. Resawing off the bottom profile and trimming the tongue/groove yields material 5/8” thick and 2-7/8” wide. Perfect for a lot of projects. I just ordered another 50 sq. ft. of 5” wide material.
I can’t leave “simple” alone 8^)
With many of my projects, I wanted to try a new technique. This time it was a mitered rabbet joint
I hate gluing up boxes with mitered corners. Things tend to slip/slide around. The mitered rabbet eliminates this problem.
These vases were made by creating a “tube” out of wood. Most of the vases others had made used a solid chunk of wood. I wanted to use the jatoba and liked the consistent grain on all sides. Just like making table legs with consistent properties, the same ideas were applied here.
The mitered rabbet was a bit tricky, requiring exact setup and measuring. My attempt was, lets say, a bit crude:
You can see the gap, about 0.012”. I did do some trial cuts on test pieces, but after completing the cuts on the project pieces, I noticed the error 8^)
Here are the sides after cutting:
I figured out a flaw in my technique that I will fix next time. I also never verified my 45 deg setting. This resulted in a gap on the miter.
Jerry added an inlay on one of his box tops to visually divide the point where two boards were joined. I figured I could try this on my corners (why not?). I used my 1/16” kerf blade and ripped a slot on all the miters (after glue up). I slipped in walnut splines and viola!
In the future I’ll use a contrasting wood.
The tubes were then sliced into corners on the bandsaw and the curves refined with a template on the router table.
Screws secure the corners to the base.
Next time if I biff the miters, I’ll use a contrasting material as fill (maple, copper?). I also am thinking about filling the split with some decorative material (glass, copper, ???)
Thanks for following along!
14 comments so far
ralbuck
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6684 posts in 3277 days
#1 posted 04-28-2017 04:42 PM
Very neat and attractive small project.
-- Wood rescue is good for the environment and me! just rjR
builtinbkyn
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#2 posted 04-28-2017 05:10 PM
Those are really elegant. Nice little project. Oh and only you would know the flaws :)
I know someone who would like them. I’m stealing your idea ;)
-- Bill, Yo!......in Brooklyn & Steel City :)
splintergroup
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#3 posted 04-28-2017 05:18 PM
Yep, warts and all 8^)
Steal away! The best thing is to see how others improve upon what has come before.
Thanks for the comments Bill and rjR!
Jerry
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#4 posted 04-28-2017 05:49 PM
Really beautiful and classy looking. I’ll bet it was hard to get that right!
-- There are good ships and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships and may they always be. http://www.geraldlhunsucker.com/
CampD
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#5 posted 04-28-2017 07:03 PM
I like the split idea, you could go a lot of different ways with that.
-- Doug...
michelletwo
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#6 posted 04-28-2017 07:35 PM
would look good in any home..nice project
Woodknack
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#7 posted 04-28-2017 08:36 PM
These are very handsome vases
-- Rick M, http://thewoodknack.blogspot.com/
AandCstyle
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#8 posted 04-28-2017 08:59 PM
Splint, the curves are very graceful. You have a good eye for design.
-- Art
woodify
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#9 posted 04-28-2017 11:51 PM
Beautiful vases. I love the design.
-- Woodify ~~ https://www.youtube.com/woodified?sub_confirmation=1
Andy Smith
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#10 posted 04-29-2017 12:25 AM
How cool! I love this design
oldnovice
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#11 posted 04-29-2017 01:32 AM
An elegant design indeed!
Really nice work.
-- "It's fine in practise but it will never work in theory"
BB1
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#12 posted 04-29-2017 02:42 AM
Wow. These are really beautiful. Thanks for sharing the background and your method to deal with the miters. Adding to my favorites!
Roger
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#13 posted 04-30-2017 07:36 PM
They look grrrr8! I bought the glass to build some of these a few years ago, and forgot I had them, until now… haha.. Guess I should get busy
-- Roger from KY. Work/Play/Travel Safe. Keep your dust collector fed. [email protected]
splintergroup
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#14 posted 04-30-2017 11:14 PM
Thanks for the kind words people!
Go for it Roger, I had my glass vases collecting dust for about 2 years 8^)
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