St. Kilian chapel – Baptismal Font – part 5

The glue is dry on the mobile base so I pulled the clamps and took it over to my router table to cut a chamfer along the top edge.

Then I got out my orbital sander to do a final sanding.

I couldn’t easily sand away the numbers I wrote on the boards to match the end. So, I used some denatured alcohol to clean away the pencil marks instead.

Next, I cut a spacer to hold all of the casters the same distance from the corners. I got the casters as close to the corner as I could, making sure they could still spin freely.

I used an awl to center mark each of the mounting slots.

Then I attached a piece of tape to my pilot drill bit to act as a depth stop, as I pre-drilled all of the mounting holes.

I used a 1/2″ long #12 pan head screw with a washer to attach the casters, making sure to gently hand-tighten all of the screws to prevent them from stripping out.

The casters are installed. Now it is time to assemble the mobile base to the column.

I centered and aligned the base to the bottom of the column, then pre-drilled some holes.

I used a counter-sink bit to make a taper at the top to receive the bugle head of the screws.

Once the bottom was mounted, I flipped it over and attached the top in a similar fashion.

And here it is fully assembled. The casters move really well, and with most of the weight centered near the bottom of the column, the font is very stable and does not want to tip over. The final weight is 93 pounds. Only 25 pounds of that is the top section.

As I disassembled the top and bottom, to begin the finishing process, I placed a small “X” near one of the holes so that I will be able to reassemble in the same location later.

Then it was time to start applying stain. I started at the bottom, carefully applying stain to all of the joints first, then spreading out to easier areas.