THE EPISTLE: February, 2025

February, 2025

Proof positive that my grandchildreen are

cuter than your grandchildren! :)

This month we have had the pleasure of having our daughter, husband and two boys come visit us from Germany for 3 weeks. Plenty of rides on the John Deere mower, stories read and carpet level play dates were the order of the day.

PROLOGUE

Back in the day when I was a tad bit younger, I loved building all our furniture. This was before I married Janice and she insisted that I became happy. I was particularly fond of exotic hardwoods as they might have been more expensive but were every bit as much work to build anything with. So, why not?

I built dining tables, dressers, butcher blocks, waterbed frames and all of my first borns furniture (basinet, highchair, crib with water bed mattress, dresser and rocking chair). Just beyond happy hippy days I made macrame plant hangers, candles and on and on.

When Janice and I got married, I had to put all that aside and built our house. I also built all of our cabinetry throughout the house including in our kitchen, bathrooms and circular staircase banister (Honduran Mahogany with Peruvian Walnut inlay). The furniture thing had to fall by the wayside because the house build was followed by the complete reno of the house on the island that we bought. This of course, was followed by our house I renovated in Brittany, France, followed by the complete reno of the villa on the Riviera. Do you see a pattern here?

The house reno's now under control, a few years ago Janice wanted me to build a 'river desk' here in California. To this day I am astounded at how well it looks. It was my first time and I knew how important precision was if it was to turn out. A river desk, table or door, if you are not familiar with it, are two pieces of live edge wood slabs joined together with glass or epoxy in a way that it gives the appearance of a river flowing in the middle between them. Is this really necessary? Of course not! It's an artsy fartsy thing.

The one I made had greenish glass for the river on Black Walnut wood. I made the pattern and had the glass cut with a hoity toity high pressure commercial water jet to get the fine detail of the flowing river that I wanted. It turned out fabulous. Not bad for a guy with a rusty hammer.

Then, when we arrived home in California this year, Janice wanted me to build a river dining table. "Out of the question", I said, as I love our table. "But we have had it for such a longggg time" was the argument. But just because we have had something for 30 years doesn't mean it's not really cool. I mean, look at me!

But just then, she got a great new idea that led to...

How to build a $2,000 office door

in 20 easy steps

1) Do a little research on the ‘how to’. As in 20 hours of it. Read, review others videos and research everything that could possibly go wrong some more.

2) Drive 3 hours to Los Angeles to shop possible suppliers. Pick the 2 winning rare Elm live edge burl slabs, check for the acceptable moisture content, deplete the bank account and take them home.

3) Let them acclimate for 2 weeks to their new environment so they do not warp.

4) Remove all bark and loose material.

5) Cut them to size

6) Seal the form and the slabs. Clamp them down so they don't 'float' when the epoxy is poured.

7) Mix and pour a thin layer of liquid glass (epoxy) with copper dye to prevent seeing right through the river, as it is the door to an office that can double as a bedroom. Then, pour a second layer of liquid glass clear epoxy (priced like gold) to see the 'banks' of the river running through the middle of the door on the front side. The white caulking is the prevent the epoxy from flowing over the front of the door. Remember the part about liquid glass being "priced like gold?"

8) Raise the frame to allow for cooling as hot epoxy cracks. Keep it all between 70-75 degrees (20-23 C) 24 hours a day for 72 hours to start the curing. This required getting up three times in the middle of each night to fire up my workshop heaters.

9) Use fans to cool the epoxy.

10) Let it all cure for 3 weeks.

11) Build a level base and a router sled to level the top and bottom. This will be the back of the door. (Office side)

12) Run the router on the router sled through the slab. This is to level and reduce the slab to the desired thickness. The router can shave off 2 inches wide (5cm) per pass, 1/16" deep (.16cm). The door is 7 feet tall (over 2 M), so this required hundreds of passes with the router over the slab. Then you flip the door over and do the back side. About 15 hours of work.

13) Power plane and belt sand to prepare it for finish sanding.

14) Sand to get it professionally smooth. Not only as smooth as a baby's butt smooth, but smooth as a professional piece of high end furniture smooth. When done, sand it again. Then again. And again and again in 16 progressively finer grits. When you are seriously sick and tired of sanding, do it one more time. (If you are a woodworker, 36 to 3000 grit). It is as interesting as watching paint dry, fishing, chasing a little white ball on the golf course or going to the dentist. Sanding requires serious hydrating to keep you numb and sane.

Since this is an office / bedroom door, both sides are seen, so the office side needs to be finished just like the front. Back to sanding, sanding and more sanding.

15) Check for the most minor imperfections and fill every microscopic knothole with black super glue.

16) Cut a curf on the bottom of the door to insert the floor guide

17) Cut a hole in the plaster wall to bolt the beam to support the weight of the 175 pound (79K) door, then hang the metal track. Patch the plaster and touch up the paint.