Mirror handle problems and solutions
john Lucas
I probably should do this differently but here goes. When I do demos I usually use inexpensive wood and will often purposely turn it so there is a problem with drilling the handle. This gives me an opportunity to talk about how to handle this. In the top mirror I made the design too thin on the outer rim. I drilled down the center so part of the tenon is on both sides. If this happens to you the tenon will show so turn it smooth and sand it. In the next one down the body itself is a little too thin so I drilled more toward the mirror side.
This often make it look like you did a sort of dovetail joint and looks pretty good. However you need a really good glue joint on the bottom. If you look at the segmented mirror on the bottom you can see the result. The handle split the glue joint. In this situation what I've learned to do is to make the tenon longer than normal so you have a fair amount of wood glued to the hollow portion of the mirror. When you carve it flush so the glass will fit you still have at least some wood glued to keep it from splitting out the thin area of the mirror frame.
The third one down shows another option if the mirror body is too narrow. Just drill through the side. You will have to be very careful when carving away the excess going down into the mirror opening but it looks fairly good this way when finished.
If your turning mirrors and run into a problem with the mirror handle attachment give me a shout. Myself and my students have messed up a lot and had to figure out what to do to salvage it.
