St. John's Pulpit

My good friend, Father Glenn Miller, is currently serving at St. John's Episcopal Church in Lancaster. He came to me recently with an interesting problem concerning the church's historic pulpit:

While a stunning example of the woodworker's art, the desk of the pulpit was stuck in a previous century - it was too small to hold an 8-1/2 x 11" sheet of paper:

The sheet in the photo has been cut to fit. Father Glenn asked me if I would make a larger desk, and I agreed. A few days later, Troy Nace and I sorted through my pile of quartersawn oak, looking for just the right piece.

Quartersawing is a technique used at the lumber mill to make a board with very straight grain on the face, and in oak it has the happy side effect of creating "rays" that sweep diagonally across the grain, often creating a beautiful pattern. As you can see, the boards from the mill are thick, long and heavy. Troy and I spent a couple of hours with the jointer, planer, and various saws, until we had the two perfect pieces to glue up into the desk platform:

Once the glue was dry, I could level the board, cut it to exact size, and then use a router table to put an edge on it that was very similar to the original desk. Next came stain and varnish, but before doing that, I made a pair of "painter's point" stands, so I could finish one side, and then flip it onto the points to finish the other:

Finishing isn't all that hard, but it take days because of drying times and the necessity to avoid rainy weather, which we have had plenty of lately. But finally it was done, and today I took the desk to St. John's. Father Glenn and I removed the old desk, and laid them out for comparison. You can see the beautiful ray figure sweeping across the larger desk.

Father Glenn wanted this picture to prove he did more than watch! He was actually very involved in the process, and did some other repairs on the pulpit while I was installing the desk on its support. Here, he's reinforcing the base that holds the desk.

Finally we were done, and it looks like it belongs!

I took a staged photo - Father Glenn would normally be wearing a robe in the pulpit. As he said, "Finally, a pulpit I can pound on!"

I kind of like the idea that this little anonymous bit of work (well, you know about it) will probably be in use long after I'm dead and gone. Soli Deo Gloria!