In response to Hank's call for postings of recent projects, I present here a project completed last month. My daughter's outdoor wedding in September needed a cross, so I made a maple replica of our church's brass cross. I used quartersawn hard maple so that my design could have slim lines, yet be dimensionally as stable as possible. The cross itself features a simple precise half-lap joint. The back surface is beveled to allow an additional 1/8" of thickness while still keeping the displayed edge at 1/4". The Greek letters in the middle were chiseled by hand with a 2 mm chisel. I then filled the chiseled areas with tinted epoxy to make the letters easily seen and also to stabilize the short grain of the carved letters. The base involved three stacked rectangles, each made from a single long piece for an optimal sequential/wrapped grain match. It was the epitome of overkill, but I splined all 12 of the miters, each of which were refined using by new Lee Valley shooting board plane. I melted and casted lead to hide in the base to give the tabletop cross maximal stability. I screwed -- rather than glued -- the cross inside the base in order to allow any microadjustments. The sides of the base have an area for the fingertips for lifting. The corners of the bottom have small pieces of leather to make soft contact with the table.
