Altar Project: More Laminations

 

With the best piece of plywood turned with the good face pointing down onto a moving blanket to protect it from damage, I applied epoxy to the back side. Like the side panel assemblies, the size prevents me from clamping it adequately and in a short enough period of time before the adhesive starts setting up. Epoxy gives me enough time to use alternative clamping in the form of lots of screws placed every six inches or so. The epoxy comes in tubes that I squirt on and it thick enough it doesn't run which meant I needed to spread it out in an even layer. 

Previously I used small glue rollers but they cost around $10 and the epoxy pretty much renders them junk afterward. I had two old ones that I used and both had to be thrown away. This time, I wanted to try something different so bought some plastic putty knives for 99 cents each. They turned out to work quite well and I didn't feel bad about tossing them after I was done.

It is hard to see but above is what it looked like after I spread out the epoxy with my plastic disposable putty knife. It actually worked quite well and I wished I had used them from the start. With the epoxy spread, I just top it with the middle piece of plywood and apply a bunch of screws to act as a clamp. Once that was in place, I could repeat by applying more epoxy and the final, what will be the bottom of the top piece and apply more screws. However on the final layer, I did use clamps around the perimeter and kept all the screws toward the middle of the piece where once the top is installed, they will be invisible unless you somehow lifted up the heavy altar, crawled inside it and looked up.

Next, I will probably sand out my pencil markings on the bottom just because and add a small wood burned brand showing me as the maker of the altar that can only be seen by the same person who crawled inside the altar to look up at the screws. Then it will be cutting it to final size, adding the trim, cutting that flush to the surfaces and a lot of sanding. After that, I will need to work out how to attach it to the altar base, something still being mulled over, and then perhaps the most  terrifying part of this entire build, staining the entire thing to match the existing altar furniture. But that will be in the future so I'm not going to worry about that now.