A pair of George II Walnut Girandoles – Part Three

The stock for the frames is pine which is cross-veneered on the outsides with the same 5/64″ (2mm) thick walnut veneer as the frets and the top is faced with 1/4″  (6.4mm) thick cross-grained walnut blocks. I made the stock up in two lengths; one per frame which virtually guarantees a smooth transition across the mitres.

I glued the frames together and when dry, I sawed diagonally through the mitre sides until the saw barely appeared on the inside of the frames. Veneer splines were glued into these saw cuts to strengthen the butt-jointed mitres.

The surplus veneer was trimmed off. The remaining splines are subsequently hidden by the frets.

The frets were glued in place on the frames and supported from behind by small glue blocks. The mitred cross-grain blocks at the top corners of each frame were cut out and replaced by wedge-shaped blocks into which were carved the re-entrant, or ‘baby’s bum’ corners. They are peculiar little corners because conventionally, each set of arcs is not concentric as one would expect (re-entrant corners on table tops of the same period, for example, are concentric).

Re-entrant top corners.

Both frames were cleaned up in readiness for finishing.

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