St. Peter’s Back Altar – part 7

The dome is done so I can move that out of my spray area and rearrange the tables to start working on spraying the cabinets.

I am using the same oil-based polyurethane that I used on the dome to hopefully get a close match to the existing back altar.

While the cabinets and tabernacle base are drying, I can make up a couple more pieces of trim.

It’s a fuzzy picture but I planed down another oak board to create the long piece of trim that will go below the cabinets.

Since it is too long to run through my jointer, I used my track saw to get one perfectly straight edge, then I can cut the other side parallel on the table saw.

The front piece is about 9′ long but the sides are only about 20″ deep. They are however going to be much thicker. The existing altar has two raised sections that this trim will surround. The thicker sides increase the width of those sections for my cabinets to sit on.

To get the thickness I need, I glued up three boards, then planed them down to the exact size I wanted.

After they were jointed to the correct size, I can add a stepped down piece that will sit below an overhang on the existing risers. This will give me something to attach to by shooting a few brad nails down through the overhang above.

When all of that was done, I added a 3/8″ round-over to all of the exterior edges so nobody will bump into a sharp edge.

Several hours later, the urethane has dried so I can sand down any raised grain with 400 grit paper and prep the surfaces for a second coat.

Then I get to apply another coat.

The next day, I moved the cabinets out of the spray area and brought in the trim and the raised panel doors.

They all got a coat of polyurethane as well.

Then, the following day, they got their final coat too.

After everything was dry, I gave all of the surfaces a good rub down with crumpled brown paper. This gently knocks off any dust nibs and buffs the surface just a bit.

Now, I can reassemble the door hardware. You can see in the picture below that I did add an additional piece of wood behind the hinge to stiffen things up. It really cuts down of the door flexing the back panel if someone is not too gentle with the doors.

Even though the doors are soft close, I still add silicone bumpers to the corners of the doors as well.

The back altar upper cabinet section is complete. I should be able to deliver next week and get it fully installed.