Backyard Birds – Part 20

As I started shaping the trompe-l'œil vase, which extends down below the rest of the door, and working on the marquetry for the trompe-l'œil windowsill around the door, I realized that I had a problem: the vase would look like it was floating on the windowsill.

In my original drawing, the vase was a different shape, but when I was doing the marquetry I had decided to change it. In the process, however, I hadn’t given enough thought to how the vase would look on the windowsill.

In order to fix it, I cut the vase along a transition between the veneers using a band saw, and then sanded the surface so that it was smooth.

I found a scrap of padauk wood to add to the bottom of the vase. I cut and sanded it so that it would fit snugly against rest of the vase.

I glued the new piece of padauk onto the vase. Then I added a new piece of dark veneer on top of it, and a piece of cherry veneer on the other side to match the veneer that I had chosen for the inside of the door.

The whole process was a pain, but it was a good reminder that problems can be fixed even when the project is far along.

[Edit: See this post for how the vase ultimately fit into the doorframe.]