My next crazy-awesome project...

Do you have any idea how lucky I feel to work on cool projects? I'm not religious, but if I was - I would say I'm blessed.

Seriously, I get to build the most interesting stuff in town!

You know what makes it even more exciting? When someone includes you into their passion about something - in this case, a client wandered into my shop with an Olympic torch. A real one.

AWESOME!!

After some discussion and sketching, I came up with this rendering. Way cool.

I measured the torch, but didn't want her to leave it in my shop. Everything gets so dirty in there! Building a actual sized model of it seemed to be the best idea, so I cut some cardboard to size

and "built" a torch.

Did you know the top of the torch measures around 5 inches?

This is pretty close to the actual dimensions - but to make it thoroughly authentic,

I had to add one more thing.

Full sized mock-ups always help me. Once I had the proper diameter, I cut a few small blocks of wood to simulate the four corners of the case. My biggest concern was crowding the torch inside the case.

With a few dimensions jotted down, I started building the back of the case,

using some bookmatched walnut for main panel.

Of course the corner posts had to be chosen carefully, you don't want some wild figure in the grain taking away from the overall effect.

Here's the torch in the case, just to check the fit. This cabinet will eventually hang on a wall, so it won't be sitting in this orientation.

Here's a better idea of what it will look like - but I still need to make the bottom and the top lid.

Classes start back up tomorrow and I'm going to be muy ocupado, so I'll have to put this aside for a couple of days. That's fine with me - I need work out a couple of details about this cabinet in my head - such as how the lid will be attached, and how the cabinet will hang from the wall.

Meanwhile - this song keeps running through my head...