Altar Project: Looking for a Good Samaritan or Three!

 

I have reached what feels like a pretty significant milestone. I have the base of the altar completed for the most part. All the trim and bead work has been added and I spent an entire day of nothing but sanding it down through two different grit levels. I still have one more finer grit to go so another half day. It takes a lot of time to get into all the nooks and crannies and to do the sanding I have two different sanders plus a few wood blocks and good old fashioned elbow grease.

At points during the assembly process, I felt discouraged about a few defects but I was able to get them all repaired and they are no longer noticeable at all. In fact, as I was wrapping up my second grit of sandpaper, I was quite pleased with how everything had turned out. As I have told several people, building this thing was above my paygrade but somehow, I think I may be able to pull it off.

After taking these pictures, I put a padded blanket underneath it to protect all my sanding efforts and was just able to tip it over on it's back and get it centered on my workbench again. This allows me to do a little sanding on the top and bottom sides where glue and epoxy squeezed out and get those smooth and ready to accept the top and meet the floor. Next up, I will need to attach some brackets to later hold the top in place after I get that made. Unclear at this point is how I am going to get it down to the floor so I can have someplace to work on the top. I have sent out a "feeler" to the church community who will be receiving this altar to see if any strong backed people are up for volunteering. My guess is without the top, the base probably weights around 300 pounds! I wait to see if there are any suckers good Samaritans.