My wife wanted to make a large sign to replace an existing project on the wall.  We have a few cedar things in our house and like the way it turns out.

I started with three 1×6 cedar boards 8′ long from HD.  Planed them down to remove the rough side and then flipped for parallel.  I wasn’t too worried about “flat” at this point.  I chalked out the best parts and rough cut the lengths with a jig saw.

After that, I was did some edge jointing.  Don’t laugh at my twig arms and cutoff sleeves.  It was 90 and humid the other day.

After some jointing I ripped them to width.

I love this  push stick/handle.  Its awesome.  I use it more than my Grippr.

• Amazon (of course) Tool Designs 10230 Power Hands Push Stick

Layout Before Glue Up

Once I ripped the boards down, I started laying them out and tweaking and gaps with my hand plane.  I had to re-rip some of them until I had nice tight joints.

Now onto gluing and clamping, which I didn’t take any pictures of unfortunately.  I used a couple of cauls and mostly parallel clamps.  I let the sign sit overnight in the clamps.

Planing

The following morning I scraped the glue and began the long journey of hand planing.

I started going across the grain, then 45 across and finally with the grain.  Doing the back and front was about an hour of time.  Great workout!  I think I sweat out all the beer I had the night before.

Quick video of my Jack plane in action

Once all that fun was done, it was time to sand.

I sanded up to 150 grit and then wanted to bevel the edge before I went further

Chamfering Edges

Here I have a large chamfer bit in my router table.  I use my table because the dust collection is so much better than using it hand held.

I finishsed it up with 220 grit and hand sanded the chamfer a little bit.

Stained it with Kona color

It was a fun little project and now my wife is painting a design on it.  The finished size is 24″ tall by 34″ wide.