BOMBE VITRINE

Damn that's a wicked project. I think I'll stick to my simple "limited to the rectilinear requirements of standard woodworking tooling" knock 'em out and bang it up utilitarian fare. Bookshelf anyone?

Joe Barta

Curves _really_ aren't that hard. The trick is to keep the joinery square, make the rails thick, then apply the curved shaping to them as an afterthought.

I've been tempted by this project. What holds me back from really doing it is curving the glass.

Anyone here have experience with that? Is it as hard as it seems?

I'm sure wifey would love it if I built it.

Curved glass isn't too bad, although it can be hard to find someone interested in doing small batches. Many of the "craft scale" people with suitable kilns would also find it hard to slump bigger pieces. It also takes practice at it to get "display-case grade" clarity on the glass afterwards.

In general with glass, get your glass made up first and then cut the timber to fit it. Glassworkers have funny ideas about finished sizes!

I read the glass forming part of his instructions. According to that, he made a mold using a specific kind of refractory material and used a kiln to heat a particular kind of glass to the point it slumped into the mold.

The mold only arrived at the particular spherical shape, then he used some sort of saw to cut the now spherical glass into the shapes needed to fit into his spherical frame.

Quite a lot of work and expense to make one of these. Not that it's undoable, but just very uneconomical to do for just a single unit.

Better to have him make you one if that's what you want, if only because of the glass.