Altar Project: The Good Samaritan

 

After kicking around various ideas on how to entice people to lend me their backs, I came to an obvious solution. I would call up the parishioner who designed the altar and ask them to find some people to help lower it. He responded back saying that although he knows of one person who could possibly help, he thought that just the two of us would be able to do it. I was a bit skeptical but acquiesced. 

While waiting for him to arrive, I decided to up the odds a bit and built a sort of midway platform between the height of my workbench and floor level. I overturned four 5-gallon buckets and placed a short 2x4 piece of lumber between them. This would give us a place to set the altar on about 18 inches or so above floor level and prevent us from having to lower it all the way down in one go and possibly injure our backs. 

After checking things out, my good Samaritan and I just went for it and honestly, it wasn't bad at all. Both of us got it set down onto my makeshift platform and then from there, lowered one end at a time down onto the dollies that I bought specifically for this build. This will allow me to roll it around in my garage to get it out of the way so I can start on the altar top.

I cut the three remaining sheets of plywood that I bought way back when to rough size, leaving me some extra material on all sides so I can trim them smooth and square after I laminate everything. I sorted through the three possible pieces to select which one will be the top, which one will be the bottom and which one the middle. The best grain pattern with fewest defects will be the top and the worst will be in the middle. Below I mocked it up to give a sense of the completed project. I still will have to cut some solid oak trim that will go around the perimeter of the top and cover up the exposed plywood edges to make it more pleasing to the eye.