First step was one boatload of ebony plugs. A few pics of the first corner, which is where the plugs are most dense.
Sanding the splines took forever. You can see in the picture that the splines are gently rounded over. It makes them pleasant to touch. But it took a looonnnng time to sand and polish.
Once the plugs were done, there was a lot of little things to clean up. There were a couple minor gaps that I filled with a sawdust/glue mixture, and a few dents and dings to sand out. I'll skip over that stuff because it was boring (although it was about two days of boring).
Today, though we applied the finish. I'm using a hand-rubbed oil finish with a mixture that I make myself. I mix equal parts tung oil, mineral spirits, and varnish. We slather it on, sand it in with fine-grit sandpaper, and then rub it with paper towels until we remove all of the oil except the part that has soaked into the surface. Applying the finish took the whole family about an hour. We have to repeat the process six times, waiting a day for it to dry each time.
After only one coat, the finish is still very flat. And it brought out some imperfections that I'll have to go back and correct. But even one coat brings out the wonderful color of the mahogany and shows how the whole piece has come together.
At this point, it looks like a completed headboard. But we've got six more coats to apply. And each coat takes five of us working for an hour. That's as lot of labor! And at the end of the process, the photos will look very similar to what you see above, although there will be slightly more sheen (kind of a glow). But in person, those extra coats make a huge different to the richness and depth of the color, and to how it feels.
So, six more coats of finish and on to the footboard!
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