While being very satisfied with what I’ve built so far in my tiny workshop in the kitchen I’ve found that it has limitations. Working on pieces longer than 60-70 cm is a hazzle due to the limited space around me and the dimensions of my workbench!

On a happy night out I promised a friend that I would make him a picture frame for a poster – we’re talking 80×60 cm or bigger and I was confident that it wouldn’t be a problem! While talking to another friend he challenged me: “make it as thin as possible” – and that’s what I set out to do:

Create a picture frame 80×60 cm with a frame as thin as possible.

I took out my sketchbook and started drawing up lines for the joins – and I even did so in 1:1 as I knew the size limit would be 2 cm in width.

So with high spirits I started with the saw, the planes, the … and found that my workbench will only handle wood at lengths of 80 cm if I added another dog hole and had the vise turned out to its limit – and the edge of the workbench is so close to the fridge that planing the pieces was like “oops there is the wall” and then doing it again – but I got there…

At least until I started doing the joins.

The outer parts (the dovetail) is along the grain of the wood and was fairly strong, but the outside pin on the inside… So little wood and so much tension. Bottom line – after completing 1/2 of the joins they where all broken – and when I started doing an alternate version the wood itself cracked!

I think I was feeling a little bit hopeless but carried on…

I had the wood but as one of them was broken I cut the other piece in halves – and changed my strategy for the joins.

I was down to a frame size of 60×40 and it really made life easier on the workbench. I completed all the joins and the finishing work in a short evening – and it looks great and still has the finesse of the “Touch Me” series even if the joins are not dove / fish tails.

For the glass I wanted to use a piece that I picked up a couple of months ago on the street. It was enough for two frames that size – so I set out to cut the glass on my kitchen floor.

The first one cracked because I didn’t have a soft enough surface underneath – I fixed that!

The other one was perfectly cut… but was 2 mm too wide!

Guess what happens when an amateur glass cutter tries to cut off 2 mm excess glass on a kitchen floor?

If you didn’t guess he yells our “DAMMIT” at 11.47 P.M. in the night!

The aftermath is that I need to acknowledge the physical limitations of me and my workshop – or change them!

In a couple of days the people in the neighbourghood will leave stuff on the street as trash and maybe I’ll get lucky and find another piece of broken glass – and Kasper will get his (smaller) frame…

In action

“L” of the frame.

Planing the pieces succeeded and least it looks cozy in the workshop :-)

The ones on the right – thats the ones that broke!

The glass for the frame – before it cracked!