Quatrefoil for St. Joseph’s chapel

I have been working with a local Catholic church Saint Joseph’s. They are completely updating their chapel and they have asked me to help make a few pieces. This is the baptismal font that they acquired for the chapel. They want the Quatrefoil to be central to some of the furniture pieces so that it all ties together.

The first piece they asked me to do is the center piece for the dome of the chapel. This was the physical design we came up with. I got started while they were still working out where the gold highlighting would go so the final version will differ slightly.

This piece is fairly large because the ceiling is about 24′ high. Anything smaller than 3′ wide would be too small.

My base is going to be a piece of 3/4″ thick plywood. The rest will be solid poplar to lighten it a bit but the base needs to be strong so it can be screwed to the ceiling.

A 45° chamfer was added to the edge all the way around using a chamfer bit on my router table.

This wal sanded and any voids filled with wood filler.

The base will be painted so I just need a completely smooth surface.

Now for the poplar boards. These are 1-1/2″ thick boards and I need to cut enough to make the next two layers.

I planed the individual boards to the final thickness, then laid them out to make sure I could join two pieces large enough to make the big circles.

I have to plane them before joining them because they are too wide for my planer after they are joined. That means I have to be very precise with the glue-up.

While those were drying, I started prepping stock for the Marian symbol and any other additional trim.

To do this, I had to re-saw stock because I needed a final thickness of 1/4″. I started the resawing on the table saw.

Then finished it on the bandsaw.

I can then plane the sections down to their final thickness on my planer.

I spent a while figuring out the best way to layout my required pieces to be lasered out efficiently.

After the main symbol was successfully cut out, I did the remaining curves and stars.

My large poplar boards were dry so I unclamped them and cut the circles out on the bandsaw.

These were then sanded down to my pencil marks, achieving some very large circles.

This was done while the laser kept cutting away. Here is the final layout. While the trim pieces were being dry-fit, I traced the location of each.

I found large sheets of blue tape (for 3d printing) online and ordered some for masking the locations of the trim pieces.

I ran the same patterns on the laser but at a much lower power and higher speed.

This created perfectly sized masking material.

It was not easy to peel and stick such large items but I took my time and carefully followed my pencil marks to mask off everything.

An hour or two later…

The circles were attached to each other with glue and screws.

Then the plywood back piece was attached in the same fashion.

They decided that they wanted the larger circle to be gold so I painted this first.

After two coats, I masked it as well.

I also applied two coats of gold to all the trim pieces.

Then it was time to paint the main body.

We are using a flat navy blue that should really make the gold pop.

After three coats it was time to remove all of the masking take.

I used a razor to slice the paint along the edge of the tape so no blue paint would pull away.

The masking worked great. You almost don’t need the gold trim pieces…

I applied wood glue to the back of all of the trim pieces and held them in place with 23 gauge pin nails until they dried. From 20′ up in the air, nobody will be able to see the pin nails. But I touched them up with more gold paint anyway.

And with that, I am done my part.

I handed it over to St. Joseph’s and they mounted this 44 pound centerpiece to the center of the octagonal dome of the chapel.

The rest of the ceiling was painted by professionals, I only had to do the tiny piece in the center.