Mother's Bell Jar
Protect your handicrafts with this encasement, including the template, the glass, the base, diagram and directions.
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Staff Photo
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Protect your handicrafts, with...
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All too often, family heirlooms—those priceless remembrances passed on by loved ones—must be tucked away out of sight to insure their safety. The curious hands of children, and even the danger of a slight slip while dusting such ornate objects, frequently make their prominent display seem risky. Well, the glass and walnut case you see in the accompanying photo is an answer —to just such a problem—that one of MOTHER's researchers worked up. It allows him to display and protect the immaculately detailed and exceedingly fragile wood carvings done by his father.
Emerson Smyers's "bell jar" (as he calls it) lets him secure his treasures beneath a protective covering of glass, and is, itself, an attractive room appointment. Few materials are required to build it, and—once you get the hang of the easy assembly shortcuts our craftsman used—you'll find that the display case will take very little time to construct.
THE TEMPLATE
The secret to successful preparation of the hexagonal components of the bell jar is making a very accurate template. Use a section of thin scrap lumber (1/2" plywood is excellent), and draw a 3-1/2"-radius circle, using a compass, on the face of the wood. Next, set the pin of the tool at any point on the circle, and mark the place where an arc of the same 3-1/2" radius cuts the previously drawn "hoop" (remember, hexagons are composed of six equilateral triangles). Then move the compass's pin to the penciled intersection and repeat the procedure. By continuing on around the circle in this fashion, you'll scribe the six points of a hexagon. And, when you connect the dots, you'll have a pencil outline to help you cut out the sixsided template.
THE GLASS
To produce accurately sized glass segments to form the sides of the hexagonal tower, lay a 12" X 24" sheet of single-strength glass on your worktable, and mark off a 3-1/2" section (parallel with the 12" dimension), using a marking gauge. Then, with a glass cutter, trim off the 3-1/2" X 12" piece. Mark the next 3-1/2 "wide glass plate by aligning the marking gauge with the new edge. If you observe this procedure while producing all six sides, you'll be sure to get equal pieces.
The hexagonal top plate is slightly more difficult to prepare than are the other components, but the scrap wood template will come in handy for etching the shape onto the glass sheet. Since the transparent hex must rest atop the six sides of the jar, It needs to be the thickness of a sheet of single-pane glass larger (1/8"), all around, than is the template. You can be sure of producing a piece with correct dimensions by making your cuts on lines 1/8 inch beyond the borders of the template.
