We are doing a kitchen remodel and I was tasked with building a hood for our new range. I picked some poplar out of the stack that I cut from a tree that blew down at my granddad's house. The wood has some beautiful color and spalting. Lets begin!
Sawing the logs back in January.
Digging to the bottom of the stack to pick out the boards I want.
Measuring boards to see how much I needed.
Breaking down the stock and laying out the panels.
Using the thickness planer and a shelving board to flatten the boards. This was my first time doing this, it worked well (not perfect) and was pretty fast once I got the technique down.
I used hot glued on these pine blocks for clamping. I did this because I did not want to trim the ends of the boards before gluing them so that I could layout the panel to get the most color in it. One thing that I learned quickly was to NOT glue the blocks on parallel to the grain because it tore parts of the panel when I took them off. When I glued them perpendicular to the grain I did not have this issue. The hot glue held very well and made clamping a breeze.
I dont have many power tools at my house and did not want to make the trip to my granddads shop to work on it so I used mostly hand tools to cut and plane everything to size.
I also used my Stanley #45 to route out a groove that holds the plywood where the actual vent will mount in.
The compound angles were the most difficult part but having a sharp plane made it easier.
Here you can see the plywood inserted into the grooves and my makeshift bracing. I could not let my bracing interfere in the area where the vent will be.
Here is the hood after assembly and sanding.
And after the poly finish.
I still have to make the "chimney" portion to hide the duct that will go through the ceiling.