This week I finished assembling my frame after letting the final piece dry over the weekend. I nailed everything together and sanded what I had to. There were a couple cracks, so I mixed some wood glue and wood shavings as suggested by Mr. L. The next day I sanded down any excess glue, and it looked like I was ready to paint. After consulting with Milo, I learned the best technique to paint and followed his lead. I started off with the back of the whole frame as a test since it would be covered anyways, and after drying overnight I was satisfied. I thought since I used paint instead of stain you wouldn't be able to see the wood, but I still could and since I got high gloss. The next day I painted the other side of the frame as well as the front side of the cover.
While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I got a big piece of thin plywood from Home Depot for the back of the frame. After Cormac helped me to safely bring it into the shop and draw an outline of the frame on the wood, I took it to carpentry for them to cut. At first it was a little too big, so I went back and they fixed it up. I'm not sure if I want to paint the back black after Cormac suggested it looked nice the way it was, so I didn't paint it yet but I'll decide in the coming days. the last big thing I had to figure out was the plexiglass that will go in the front. There are some scrap pieces in the shop that I still have to look at more closely before I make a decision, but if that doesn't work I can always go buy some. If I figure out all that, I could finish this project by next week.
