The Big Reveal

You’ve watched me write about the Top Secret Project for a while now, and today is finally the day of the big reveal! A bit of background first:

My wife’s grandfather’s 80th birthday is coming up, and we wanted to get something special for him. Having spent his life working for the phone company in one capacity or another, it seemed a Bell Telephone type of item would be good. After a lot of searching and some help from my father in law, I found an old picture online of a 1950’s “LIU” Bell-Tel truck- just like the kind he used to drive for a number of years. Here is that picture, along with pictures of the truck I made.

1950

The truck was made with Walnut and Birch. The inlays of the Bell-Tell emblems on the doors are made from Birch and Mahogany. It was finished with 6 coats of hand rubbed Tung Oil, which really made the burl on the back left side and the knot on the back right side stand out, adding a lot of depth. Unfortunately the pictures didn’t convey that very well.

With this done, I’ve gone ahead and moved some stuff around in the workshop and am already 75% finished with my next project Stay tuned for that next week! And don’t forget, Bump Day edition #3 is only 2 days away….