Rustic mirror frame made from Hazel

My daughter has a rectangular mirror (60 cm x 45 cm) that she wants to mount on a wall. We have two pieces of felled hazel about 8 cm in diameter that looked suitable for the task. Bex in in charge of the design and I'm helping  on the construction.
Our first job was to split the wood down the middle, but because of knots and the grain I decided it was best sawn with a rip saw. So we chose the best alignment to show of the features of the wood and did a straight rip down the centre line of each piece.

Starting point after ripping the Hazel logs.

After this the wood was left for over a year, mostly because Covid-19 made it difficult to work with Bex and also I was abroad for 5 months. Anyway, coming into Autumn 2022 and a few rainy days, we've decided to continue with the project. As expected the wood is now pretty dry having been left in the workshop in dry storage and also the half-cuts (shown above) have warped through drying, some of them more than others. This is probably made worse because of the inherent twisting in the original trunk of the tree. 

We started by looking at the two sides that we originally selected and decided that they were too bulky as they stand and also that we needed a straight edge on the inside to make a rebate to house the mirror. So work was started on preparing these two sides. The first job was to prepare a flat face on the original saw cut. For this I used a Veritas Scrub plane cutting across the grain and checking levels using a 1 m steel rule and  winding sticks for twist. Once this was done the face was smoothed with a smoothing plane and block plane. The intended inside edge was marked straight and planed to size making it square to the already prepared face. The next step was to reduce the thickness of the sides to about 2.5 cm. I did this using a home made kerfing saw (already discussed on this BLOG) to mark as best I could around the side as an aid to rip sawing the sides to size. This was impossible in some places where the curvature of the face was too steep but generally it was possible at the extreme ends of the sides and elsewhere did make a mark on the wood for guidance. I used the Roubo frame saw (details on this BLOG) to rip the sides to produce a planks with one planed face, a sawn face with one straight edge and a natural wavy edge (which will form the outside edge of the mirror).

This shows one of the sides below the saw already sawn to size and the other side being sawn with the Roubo type frame saw. The thickness of both pieces was 2.5 cm.

The sawn face was then planed to remove the saw marks and finally a No 80 cabinet scraper was used to smooth some tear-out which was difficult to remove with a well sharpened plane!

This shows two of the sides sawn and planed. These are 72 cm in length and may become the two rails. The shapes on these mirror each other as they were sawn from the same branch. The bark on the edges will not be removed for the moment.

Originally I was thinking of joining the frame with mortice and tenons joints but have decided to use lap joints that allow both rails and sides to overlap to give a more rustic look.  Because the bark is left on the outside of the sides, the overlap had to be carefully marked on the "bark side" and meant that a full overlap joint was difficult because of the oval shape of the bark. As a compromise, the joint was made to half of the depth of the side thickness to enable a close fit joint but keep the bark intact. In addition the joint will be strengthened using oak dowels through each of the lap-joints. 

Cutting the lap joins using a chisel and finishing with a Stanley no 71 router.

After the lap joints had been cut and adjusted to good fits using a fine wood file and carving knife, the rebates for the mirror housing were cut on the bottom and top rails. These were marked 1 cm longer than the rails on each side and 2 cm wide. The kerfing plane was used to saw and mark the width of the rebate. The rebate plane was tried but it was found to be difficult because of the end stops on the rebate, Instead a plough plane was used and the ends chiselled as needed,

The frame was then glued using G-clamps on each of the joints and kept flat using the wooden clamps as shown:

The frame glued before dowelling the joints.

The next step was to make rails to hold the mirror into the rebates along the top and bottom ends. I used some left over pieces of ash for this to fit across the rebates and also into them to make a snug fit, This proved quite difficult because the ash was very hard and difficult to rebate. I also made some rails to fit on the rear and glued on each side of the mirror. The final stage was to make a hanger that will be screwed to the rear of the mirror frame to aid fitting it to a wall. This was made from some of the left-over pieces of hazel.

The frame after a final sanding to remove pencil marks and after the first coat of Danish oil. The Danish oil darkens the wood considerable and shows the oak dowels to good effect. The two slats in the centre are to hold the mirror in the rebate at the rear.

The frame was then treated with Danish oil on both sides and also on the bark. Checking experiences on the internet with treating bark, Danish oil seems to be a popular method. Also the bark may last longer on the wood because it was felled in the winter when the sap wasn't rising. Also I have the feeling (based on no evidence apart from it's use in fencing etc!!) that hazel keeps it's bark intact better than many woods, but we'll see about that. So far with the varies planing and sawing, it has remained firmly attached to the wood. Hazel has quite a thick cambian layer under the bark which might help ? I will give the frame three coats of Danish oil over several days leaving at least 24 hours between coats.

Finished mirror after three treatments with Danish oil.

Rear view of the mirror with the rebate rails installed and the hanging mounts at the top. Couldn't resist writing the year and wood (hazel) on the mount!!